The Curse of Blondie

Release type:What's this?
studio album
First released:
Oct 2003

Overview Edit

The Curse of Blondie is the eighth and most recently released studio album from the US rock band Blondie. It was released in October 2003, and peaked at no.36 in the U.K..

The band departed from bankrupt Beyond Records and signed with Sony Music. The Curse of Blondie had the working title Phasm 8, which was also the name of the tour they were doing before the release, and was again produced by Craig Leon, who had also produced their previous hit album No Exit. It was 4 years in the making as the only demo tapes of the album had disappeared from luggage at a UK airport, and so had to be re-recorded.

The album incorporates a rock-inspired arrangement style more reminiscent of Blondie's earliest recordings. Rhythms played include mostly rock ("Golden Rod," "Last One In The World," "End To End" and others) and then dance pop ("Good Boys," "Undone"). Other incursions are Japanese traditional music ("Magic (Asadoya Yunta)"), reggae ("Background Melody (The Only One)"), jazz ("Desire Brings Me Back," "Songs Of Love (For Richard)") and rap ("Shakedown"). The track "Hello Joe" is an homage to Joey Ramone, and includes a reference to "Blitzkrieg Bop" ("hey ho, hola Joe instead of hey ho, let's go). It gained mixed reviews, some called it a good or very good album, and others said it was a downfall for the band. It performed poor in sales, with 40.000 copies shipped in the USA.

It was the last album with new material until Panic Of Girls, set to be released sometime in 2010.

The only hit single from the album was "Good Boys", which peaked at no.12 in the UK and was a dance hit in the USA. Promo singles of "Undone" were sent to radio, but no official release was made.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Blondie. Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

This particular version Edit

Record label:
Catalog number:
511921 9
Release dates:
  • Apr 6 2004 in United States

Genres

Classic Rock, Disco, New Wave, Punk. Vote on Genres

What do Amazon.com customers think?

4 stars "Curse" strikes hard
If there's a curse on reformed punk band Blondie, then their second reunion album sure doesn't suffer from it. "Curse of Blondie" manages the unique quality that most reunion albums lack: It makes us think of their older stuff, while still having fresh, new material.

"Curse" opens on a shaky note, with Harry attempting again to rap in the vaguely sexy "Shakedown." It's not bad, merely silly. Then Blondie gets its footing again with irresistable new wave dance rock (the cool, smooth "Good Boys," …
Written by E. A Solinas "ea_solinas"
3 stars Stylistically Divergent
The Curse of Blondie is the damnedest record. The material is solid (especially compared to pre-comeback Blondie bummers like The Hunter). "Shakedown", a nasty Jersey rap, sets the tone. The first single, "Good Boys", is a light piece of Eurofluff. There are a few effective rockers, "Undone", "Golden Rod", "End to End". The most exotic track (and my favorite) is the Japanese-flavored "Magic (Asadoya Yunta)". There are good bits throughout. Yet The Curse of Blondie suffers from the Autoamerican-s…
Written by WrtnWrd "Hankman"

Track listing Edit

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Other versions Edit

The Curse of Blondie 14 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Sanctuary Records
catalog number: 511921 9
release dates: Apr 6 2004
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The Curse of Blondie 14 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Silverline
release dates: Nov 2 2004
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