My Amazon Reviews: Blondie "AutoAmerican"

And it's finger popping.
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Coming off the rocking success of "Eat To The Beat," Blondie hit 1980 ready to do whatever struck their fancy. The result, "AutoAmerican,' was a hodgepodge of styles, everything from disco, rap, rock, cabaret, a surprisingly well done showtune from "Camelot," even reggae. The album starts of eclectically enough, with the mostly instrumental drone of "Europa," which ends with Debbie Harry robotically speaking about phase gridlock and being left on your rims. Getting that out of their systems quickly enough, "AutoAmerican" breaks into a disco groove with "Live It Up," which seemed, in comparison the such monsters as "Heart Of Glass" and "Call Me," a bit tepid.

Which sets the tone for much of "AutoAmerican." Blondie was so all over the map that many of the songs kind of pale in comparison to other songs from earlier albums. The hits off the album itself show those flaws in sharp relief. The number one "The Tide Is High" (a cover of a Jamaican band called The Paragons) took reggae and used Harry's breathless vocal to make a striking pop song that stuck to the roof of your brain like the best of their singles. Then there was the truly unique "Rapture," in which a mostly underground and novelty form of music suddenly found itself at number one. It could easily be the first rap/rock crossover single. and still holds up remarkably well after over three decades.

One of the things missing from "AutoAmerican" was the rock. There's nothing here to compare to the explosive "Dreaming" or the muscle of "The Hardest Part" from just one album back. There are a couple tries, like the wild abandon in "Walk Like Me" and the horn driven "Go Through It." It also shows up on the bonus tracks, where the extended version of the number one "Call Me" blows away many of "AutoAmerican's" weaker moments. Harry was at Force 10 against Giorgio Morodor's Eurodisco pumping pulse. Which means that the best of the album are the singles, one of which is a bonus track. It didn't much matter at this point as the band was beginning to splinter (Frank Infante had to sue to be on the album) and the limp "The Hunter" would quietly close this chapter on Blondie. (They've made a couple of very strong reunion albums, including "No Exit" and "Panic Of Girls" in the new century, however.)

     

My Amazon Reviews: The Empty Hearts "The Empty Hearts"

A Power Pop Supergroup
4 Out Of 5 Stars

First off, there's the pedigree. Wally Palmar of the Romantics on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and harmonica; Elliot Easton of the Cars on lead guitar and vocals; Andy Babiuk of the Chesterfield Kings on bass and vocals; and Clem Burke of Blondie on drums and vocals. Then for bonus cool points, they were given their name by Steven Van Zandt. The freshly minted The Empty Hearts were birthed by the 60's British Invasion and filtered through 80's power pop cool and then fed through a garage band. The band themselves are wearing their influences on their sleeve, or at least their t-shirt...dig The Who shirt on the CD cover. Make no mistake, this is the real deal.

"The Empty Hearts" is a first rate power popper's dream. The garagey "90 Miles An Hour Down a Dead End Street" careens into a ripping harmonica solo courtesy of Palmar and the band chiming in on chipper 'dit dit dit' background vocals for an ace hook. "No Way Out" cops from The Kinks and The Who. Dig the fuzzed out guitar in "Perfect World." Elements of The Beatles, maybe a touch of The Stones, and certainly a tiny touch of the elements of everyone's band kick in here and there through The Empty Hearts, and it feels completely natural. That could come from the album's immediacy, the whole thing was hammered out in five days, frequently the whole band playing live and catching the first take. Credit producer Ed Stasium for helping capture lightning in a bottle, he used to do the same for the Ramones.

One other thing; no-one here is trying to re-invent the wheel. The band has already stated in interviews that they just wanted to bring back the fun of listening to classic songs and being in a band that enjoyed doing what they do best. When the final "Uh Huh!" brings "Meet Me Around The Corner" to a close (just after a gnarly solo from Easton, I should add), I just want to start the whole thing over from the beginning. "The Empty Hearts" plows through its twelve songs and you wish there were more. I can't think of any better way to describe this little chunk of garage-pop nirvana. I just wanna hear it again. Power Pop lives.

     

My Amazon Reviews: No Doubt "Icon; Greatest Hits"

A great collection of 90's singles!
4 Out Of 5 Stars

This entry into the budget priced "Icon" series features the same track listing as No Doubt's "Singles Collection - 1992 - 2003." So if you already have that set, you can pass on buying this CD and from reading the accompanying review. Otherwise, read on, gentle rocker.

Remember around 1996 and 1997, the period of the great third wave ska revival? All these southern California bands that were aping two-tone bands from the eighties - like Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris? Like most trends, it was over pretty fast. But it was also the breakthrough of "Tragic Kingdom" by No Doubt. And while the ska influenced pop of "Spiderwebs" and "Just A Girl" may have been the initial attention getters, it was the ballad that took them to the top of the charts. "Don't Speak" was a perfect slice of teenage heartbreak and sounded sweet on the radio. Quite frankly, I wasn't expecting them to go much farther after that.

Was I wrong there! While I have yet to really enjoy any of No Doubt's full length albums, their singles were guilty pleasures on the radio. So while the other one hit wonders from the same period faded away, it was No Doubt that continued to grow and create. In many ways, Gwen Stefani reminds me a lot of that other great girl rock band icon, Debbie Harry. Where No Doubt is undoubtedly a band (like Blondie), it is their front person on whom the attention is primarily focused. And like Blondie, No Doubt kept their punky ethos intact while exploring other sounds (dancehall, new wave, etc.). It made for such sublime singles like "Hella Good" and the inescapable "Hey Baby."

The inclusion of the newly recorded version of Talk Talk's "It's My Life" is a perfect match for No Doubt. It utilizes the band's melding of sounds to a pouty song that's tailor made for Gwen's voice. It puts a strong crown on No Doubt's first decade, and with the Grammy for "Underneath It All," and the successful comeback of "Push and Shove," my guess is there will be plenty of material for the inevitable second Icon of hits.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Various Artists "CBGB Original Soundtrack"

The Spirits of the '70's
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Offering conclusive proof that the 70's were more than disco balls and The Captain & Tenille, this punky soundtrack to the movie "CBGB" mixes in classic New York punk and new wave, along with some classic proto-punk and the late owner of the club, Hilly Kristal, singing a country inflected ditty called "Birds and The Bees." It's enough to make you sappy for the old, ugly pre-Disneyfied Times Square.

The mix is pretty cool, as well. While you get some of the more obvious (IE famous) bands to break out from the CBGB stage (Blondie, Talking Heads), you also are offered some of the better bands that got brought into the big label league, only to fall victim to an audience (and more often than not, record labels) that just didn't get it. Those bands include delights from The Dictators, Laughing Dogs, Tuff Darts and others. Then there's the notorious of the bunch, like Wayne (eventually Jayne) County and Johnny Thunders. There's also quite a few others that fell somewhere in the middle, building a well known reputation but never equaling the talk with the sales (New York Dolls, Television, Dead Boys).

If it seems to you that the bands I'm pointing out are all pretty darn different from each other (Dead Boys' nihilistic punk is not the same as Blondie's power pop is not the same as Television's arty guitar compositions), then you're right. The tiny stage of CBGB's was a place that hatched all sorts of Bowery Bands, and while the DIY ethic was often the same, the bands could often be miles apart. So having the likes of the MC5 ("Kick Out The Jams"), Iggy and The Stooges ("I Wanna Be Your Dog") and The Velvet Underground ("I Can't Stand It") along for the ride shows that the roots of the NYC Scene came from just as many sources as the sounds the new bands were making on their own.

There are a few nods to the aftermath of the time, including Joey Ramone's posthumous "I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up)" from 2002 as something of a footnote to the period. The neighborhood that fostered musicians and junkies is now gentrified and the original club closed. Kristal died in 2007, a year after the bar closed over a rent dispute. At one point, some jokers in Las Vegas wanted to open a club that carried the namesake amid all the rest of the phony glitter. There's real gentrification for you. But as Richard Hell sings, "I was saying let me outta here before I was even born!" which about sums up the heart of this whole soundtrack. While the trendier of the 70's NYC luminaries were headed for Studio 54, a whole batch of young ne'er-do-wells were smashing their way out in the opposite direction, preserved here on the "CBGB" Soundtrack.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Blondie "The Panic Of Girls"

Calmness of Panic 
3 Out of 5 Stars

Never a stranger to genre jumping, Blondie's third album since refiguring themselves ("No Exit," "The Curse of Blondie"), and "The Panic of Girls" goes for the hopscotch with gusto. Debbie Harry makes you start salivating when the electric pulse and Bo-Diddly drums kick off "D-Day" is classic Blondie style. She teases you by singing 'Debbie, Devil, don't you dare, day of the Deb..." or at least that's what it sounds like. There's all the wonderful traits of the great Blondie singles: self depreciating, a wink and a smirk, Debbie's pure and unique voice and a kicking hook.

"What I Heard" continues with same force, then "Mother" (about an old fave nightclub from the band's Lower Manhattan formative years) makes it to third base. But then "Panic of Girls" starts to scatter. "The End The End" and "Sunday Smile" are the required "Tide is High" retreads, "Le Blue" is four and a half minutes of pseudo French cabaret kitsch, and "China Shoes" closes the album with a yawn. The only surprise is that they didn't attempt to clone a "Heart of Glass" single. Still, then band plays with the groove of a unit that's been working together long enough to sound casually perfect, and that makes the halfway songs like "Words In My Mouth" or the remix ready "Wipe of My Sweat" enjoyable.

"Panic of Girls" is about as good as "The Curse" and doesn't pander the way "No Exit" did (no trendy cameos here). It's also a better album than Harry's "Necessary Evil." Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke still make quite a racket for old fans, just remember that these are old pros making sturdy if unremarkable music for us oldsters.