Blondie - Parallel Lines

[Metalweb]

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[Metalweb]

It's often fun to look back at contemporaneous reviews of classic albums.

Arriving in the wake of the indifferently received single Picture This (which Danny Baker in NME had compared to Petula Clark!), Parallel Lines received middling reviews from the UK music press. Certainly no-one spotted the two future number one singles hidden in the middle of Side Two!

Nick Kent in NME compared the album very unfavourably with Plastic Letters, criticising the "fanatical commercialism" of Mike Chapman's production and complaining that "everything here sounds so clean". He dismissed Will Anything Happen,11.59, Pretty Baby and Sunday Girl as listless and formulaic and called Heart of Glass "pure throwaway pop pap".

Sheila Prophet in Record Mirror was kinder, praising Pretty Baby and Fade Away and Radiate but dismissing Heart of Glass and I Know But I Don't Know as substandard.

Harry Doherty In Melody Maker called the album a "healthy compromise" between the "pure pop" of the debut album and the "hard Rock" of Plastic Letters. He found the production commercial and efficient but felt Debbie's vocals were too high in the mix. He called Pretty Baby "brilliant" and a sure-fire future number one...

In Sounds, Sandy Robertson gave the album four stars but felt it safe and unadventurous, a bid for Bee Gees style superstardom. He liked opener Hanging on the Telephone best, but quite liked the Buddy Holly cover. He concluded the review by wondering..."will any of it matter in five years time?"

[LastDreamer]

Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)
My rate : A (Wonderful)

Top 5 songs :
1. Sunday Girl
2. 11:59
3. Heart Of Glass
4. Picture This
5. Hanging On The Telephone

It's very rare time, when I agree with music critics, but "Parallel Lines" actually all-time classic.
"Sunday Girl" spent 9 weeks on the top of my retrospective chart.

[menime123]

Re: Blondie: Parallel Lines

I do love a short but brilliant album

I’m always shocked when I remember One Way or Another was never released in the U.K. - absolute madness.

[Wayne]

Re: Blondie: Parallel Lines

I think part of its brilliance is its length - I think it's less than 40 minutes end-to-end and there isn't a bad song on there.

Anything other than probably I Know but I Don't Know and that Buddy Holly cover could've been a successful hit single - they were massive in the late 70s/early 80s.

[menime123]

Re: Blondie: Parallel Lines

Playing this a lot lately... honestly, one of the best albums of all time.

[NothingFails]

Their best IMO, though Eat To The Beat isn't far behind it.

[menime123]

Iconic

Clearly one of the best albums of all time. Honestly, every song could have been a hit. Blondie at their best.