Last week I forked out for the (2022) 4-LP Blondie box set of demos and rarities called Against the Odds. It's actually pretty freakin' excellent. I have no actual Blondie albums (I wonder if I ever did? I think so. I think I had Plastic Letters and Autoamerican, though Autoamerican I always thought was too self-indulgent to be really enjoyed - I may have a different opinion today). There were two versions of this box and the bigger version would have solved my problem of having no actual Blondie albums because it included them all. But I don't actually care much.
This purchase went hand-in-hand with finally finishing the Chris Stein memoir, Under a Rock. I really enjoyed that book, too. It is really engaging in many ways, not exactly naive, not exactly wry, not exactly wise, not exactly a passive recording of events, but all of those. I am not going to forget it in a hurry.
Some Blondie tracks get up my nose. I never liked 'The Tide is High' much (though I will say the demo version on this collection is pleasantly clunky). I always loved 'Atomic', like, to the max and 'Heart of Glass' and 'Rapture'. They basically just, in case you hadn't noticed, had some really incredible songs and while they also of course honed those in part via some really incredible producers there's still no doubt that somehow the group was a hive.
Nothing more to say at the moment but if I do have more to say I guarantee you'll hear it here.
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