Customer Reviews

Blonde & Beyond: Rarities & Oddities

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a bit surprised by the lukewarm reviews this disk gets. I own "Best of" and "Parallel Lines" but this is the one I listen to the most. The rough, early version of Heart of Glass, included here as "Once I had a love" is a riot and the live covers are fun. Maybe not as many unique finds as you might like and much of this will be redundant if you have a lot of their albums, but its a good disk to put on and listen to all the way through - not a bad song to be found.

I love artists who sing in different tounges. Deborah Harry does just that with Sunday Girl(sung in French)& Call me(sung in Spanish). Not only are those pieces present but live tracks such as Ring of fire(yes, the Johnny cash song!)& Bang a Gong(A Marc Bolan tune)are here, sung with verve. The popular Blondie greatest hits -The best of blondie-is great for those who just want the mainstream, but for those who want more, give this cd is listen to. I never heard of Underground girl before; fine song & the music doesn't let up.

Length:: 0:40 Mins

I agree with the last reviewer - not sure why some folks give this collection such a lukewarm response.

I have been a Blondie fan since I was a wee wee little one. As such I have almost all of the collections, albums, etc. This collection is by far my favorite and most listened to. I much prefer it to the "Best Of" and "Parellel Lines" collections as well.

In fact I purchased it here from Amazon because the original one I had - that I think I purchased while overseas - got scratched and a few songs were skipping. It drove me crazy and made me sad - thank goodness Amazon had it.

My faves - Sunday Girl French version (even though a French friend always says it is not grammatical French just a litteral translation - ah - what does he know!), Island of Lost Souls, and Ring of Fire.

My header sums it up, but if you don't already have the filler tracks (from other albums) then you'll enjoy it all.

there are some great, neglected album tracks on this collection (especially English Boys and Angels On The Balcony), but the live tracks are duff, and the demos are pretty much as you'd expect. The Robert Fripp credit is really a misnomer - he only plays guitar on the live version of Heroes. Try the Platinum Collection.

Blonde & Beyond was ment to recapulate to what Blondie stood for: punk and new wave. But it isn't !! Too many great Blondie songs are lacking and you hardly get anything in return.

The only reason why I bought this album was for the spanish version of Call me and Underground girl. The rest of the album tracks is easy to get nowadays on their originally remastered albums. And if your not such a big Blondie fan to buy all their albums. You can buy their latest Greatest Hits remastered and contain 19 of their biggest hits. And if you want more Blondie try the excellent Platinum Blonde double collection, it gives you a lot more pleasure for your money!