If you can make it past the cliched dialogue ("You're punks; Anything bad, anything wrong, you wanna do it"), the official trailer for CBGB isn't that bad, is it? Depends on whether you want to view it as a biopic, comedy, drama or a guffaw-worthy combination of all three... more »
You read that headline right: Tom Tom Club recently released their first EP of new material in more than a decade. While the title track is a light-hearted, named-dropping tribute to such Lower East Side legends as Suicide, Blondie and Richard Hell — complete with cameos from some of the above — "Kissin' Antonio" is a fitting Monday morning selection, a pillowy synth-pop groove driven by creeping keys, zigzagging sax blasts, and lots of lightweight harmonies. Download it here, and check out the video for "Downtown Rockers" below... more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorWhile setting out to repeat their collaborative approach on Parallel Lines, Blondie and producer Mike Chapman misplaced the band's whimsy and failed to match that album's consistent delights. Gone are the smiling young jokers in… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorEmboldened by mounting success and buoyed by a stabilized six-piece lineup, Blondie made its third — and finest — album with British glam-pop maestro Mike Chapman (Sweet, Suzi Quatro), a shameless-but-savvy Top 40 button-pusher suited… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorLike other new wave groups active in the early days of MTV (Simple Minds, OMD, Berlin), Blondie put their musical mark on a film, and had their greatest chart score with "Call Me," which Giorgio… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorLike other new wave groups active in the early days of MTV (Simple Minds, OMD, Berlin), Blondie put their musical mark on a film, and had their greatest chart score with "Call Me," which Giorgio… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorFor a group with a lot at stake, career-wise, Blondie showed a lot of guts in making Autoamerican, a Petri platter of unprecedented stylistic ambition. Rather than play it safe after losing Parallel Lines' commercial… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorIt's always unsettling for a band that has strong songwriters to find success with other people's material, but two borrowed numbers are all that separate Blondie's second album from being an accomplished dud. Paradoxically, as… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorThe keys to Blondie's future success could be discerned on their 1976 debut, but not in the music's amateurish charm so much as in its highly marketable lack of rebellion. For an offbeat band emerging… more »
By Ira Robbins, eMusic ContributorIn the fall of 1975, when Blondie could often be found playing the back room of Mother's, a gay bar-turned-rock club on West 23rd Street, it seemed far from likely that they (or, for that… more »
By Douglas Wolk, eMusic ContributorGreg Levin of Charlotte, NC, writes with a very good question: I have noticed over the past several months that many new bands sound like the new wave music from 20 years ago. Interpol and Ladytron… more »
By Neal Pollack, eMusic ContributorA few months ago, somewhere between the I-35 North on-ramp and Texas State Highway 183, an important thing happened: I introduced my two-year-old son to jazz. Elijah had been particularly fussy after his nap, and… more »
