release date: Sep. 1978
format: cd (2001 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]
producer: Mike Chapman
label: Chrysalis records - nationality: USA
Tracklist: 1. "Hanging on the Telephone" 4,5 / 5) - 2. "One Way or Another" (4 / 5) - 3. "Picture This" (4 / 5) - 4. "Fade Away and Radiate" (4 / 5) - 5. "Pretty Baby" (3,5 / 5) - 6. "I Know But I Don't Know" (3,5 / 5) - 7. "11:59" (3,5 / 5) - 8. "Will Anything Happen?" (3,5 / 5) - 9. "Sunday Girl" (3,5 / 5) - 10. "Heart of Glass" (5 / 5) - 11. "I'm Gonna Love You Too" (4 / 5) - 12. "Just Go Away" (3,5 / 5)
3rd studio album by Blondie and the first to be produced by Mike Chapman. The album has been reissued a number of times with various bonus tracks. My copy is a 2001 remaster with 4 bonus tracks. I think, the album was the second that I ever heard with the band, but it's undoubtedly the band's best ever. It's also the album that put Blondie on a primarily pop / rock shelf and not entirely in the new wave category. Although, the tracks have various writers and composers, this also remains the band's most uniform release, perhaps thanks to Mike Chapman who saw the band's potential in one genre or more precisely: helped finding and holding on to the style of Blondie and sending a clear message that the band is not dirty garage rock energetic 'up yours' attitudes of new wave but sophisticated and classy pop / rock. Not only does the album have several great tracks, it also has one mission instead of pointing in various directions. The album is the only by Blondie to be enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", and it was the band's first album to make it all the way to number #1 in the UK.
[ allmusic.com 5 / 5 stars, Rolling Stone, Blender, Slant Magazine 4,5 / 5 ]
