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Eat To The Beat

I first heard and saw Blondie in 1978 when 'Denis' became a no. 2 UK hit. As I was nine years old, my admiration for Debbie and the band was appropriately childlike and innocent: at least to begin with. By the following year, my sister had the Parallel Lines LP, and, while I must have heard it at least a hundred times, it never lost its shine. As for myself, I eventually bought The Best of Blondie on cassette.

I never saw them live, but I did catch Deborah Harry (as she then styled herself) in London performing on her Def, Dumb and Blonde tour in '89 or '90. In later years, I could easily have bought Blondie's albums on CD, but in my mind I'd associated the band with analogue media, and felt that listening to them digitally somehow wouldn't be right. Eat To The Beat was my first Blondie LP, acquired about seven years ago. I've since bought copies of Parallel Lines and Plastic Letters too, plus a few singles.

While not quite on a par with Parallel Lines, Eat To The Beat is nevertheless a very strong collection, its only weaker links, for me, being the throwaway title track and the overblown 'Victor'. I loved 'Dreaming' on first hearing it, and still love it now. Nor has 'Atomic' been diminished by the passing of time. Of the tracks not issued as singles, 'Slow Motion' and 'Living in the Real World' are my favourites.

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