These bands achieved their initial notoriety while playing in the same place (an esophagus of a bar called CBGB, in lower Manhattan) and have been lumped together with other habitués of this joint as purveyors of "punk rock." In their self-consciousness and liberal open-mindedness, these bands are as punky as Fonzie: that is, not at all.
Blondie is a quintet which juggles genres of fast rock, from a thick, Spector-ish vision of street crime called "X Offender" to a thick, Who-like vision of womanhood called "Rip Her to Shreds." Blondie is for the most part a playful exploration of Sixties pop interlarded with trendy nihilism. Everything is sung by Deborah Harry, possessor
Read More
of a bombshell zombie's voice that can sound dreamily seductive and woodenly Mansonite within the same song. It's an interesting combination and forces all the songs on
Blondie to work on at least two levels: as peppy but rough pop, and as distanced, artless avant-rock. The group's original material has no trouble yielding to this malleability of meaning since the songs are so broad in theme—the plots of "Kung Fu Girls," "Rip Her to Shreds" and "The Attack of the Giant Ants" are exactly what their titles suggest: the aural equivalents of tabloid newspapers. Absolutely
anything, from joke to political manifesto to hoax, can be ascribed to them. Two things save Blondie's music from a lack of focus and sincerity. One is producer Richard Gottehrer's adroit echoing of decade-old pop songs, replete with hooks and innocent melodrama. The other is Deborah Harry's utter aplomb and involvement throughout: even when she's portraying a character consummately obnoxious and spaced-out, there is a wink of awareness that is comforting and amusing yet never condescending.
The Ramones' second album contains 14 songs, all around two minutes long. So did their first. They have lost none of their intensity, and if to "leave home" implies a certain broadening of experience, its main evidence on the new record is an occasional use of harmony and the boys' discovery of carbona ("Carbona Not Glue"), a substitute for airplane glue in getting high.
The Ramones are as direct and witty as before. They've also lost just a pinch of their studied rawness: whether this is a sign of maturity or sellout is a matter for debate. The Ramones make rousing music and damn good jokes, but they're in a bind: the hard rock of this group is so pure it may be perceived as a freak novelty by an awful lot of people.
Marquee Moon, Television's debut album, is the most interesting and audacious of this triad, and the most unsettling. Leader Tom Verlaine wrote all the songs, coproduced with Andy Johns, plays lead guitar in a harrowingly mesmerizing stream-of-nightmare style and sings all his verses like an intelligent chicken being strangled: clearly, he dominates this quartet. Television is his vehicle for the portrayal of an arid, despairing sensibilit
The Ramones' second album suffers a bit from being sandwiched between the twin triumphs of their debut and Rocket to Russia, but crunchy guitar riffs and pop hooks are still here in spades, even if a few of the songs aren't that memorable. Still, it's the Ramones and "Pinhead," "Â…Good Boy" and their cover of "California Sun" are all priceless.
