1999 Blondie: Maria

If Blondie's rise to fame in the seventies was swift, their decline was swifter, with the hits drying up in 1982 as quickly as if an 'off' button was hit. For my own part, I tended to believe it was for the best, that the eighties (as they panned out) would not have been welcoming for the band, just as the seventies wouldn't have been for The Beatles. That said, I greeted news of their reformation with a raised eyebrow and a disappointed sigh at what looked like another reputation tarnishing go round from a band who had surely said all they had to say. That it should result in their first number one in nineteen years was the last thing I expected.

First thing that strikes from the opening buzz of guitar and Clem Burke's bullworker drumming is how close to the familiar, classic skinny tie pop of old 'Maria' is. But as it was written by the band's Jimmy Destri as basically a re-working of his own 'Walk Like Me' from 1980 (right down to the "walking on imported air" line) should that come as a surprise? Not really - comeback singles are no places for experimentation and in Blondie's case there was a lot of ground to be made up in terms of a record buying generation not even born when they were at their peak. What does come as a surprise is how confident Ms Harry's voice has grown in the intervening years. Yes the New York drawl of old remains, but now it's tempered with a control and a maturity born of age and experience that lets her hit the high notes on the "Maria, Ave Maria" of the chorus with a pitch and force that Debbie of old would have bottled. She's hardly become Cher, but there's a difference, and it's noticeable.

Musically too, things have circled and re-loaded - power pop with the emphasis on the power, 'Maria' is Blondie with muscle. Curbing the experimental excesses of the preceding albums, 'Maria' harks back to the punky spark of 1978's 'Plastic Letters', but rather than mask the reediness of the sound with an in your face CBGB aggression, 'Maria' is carried with the chunky urgency of a band with chops, all grown up and with a point to prove. And proof of the pudding is that 'Maria' could (and does) sit comfortably on the tail end of any chronological 'Best of Blondie' album - it sounds like classic Blondie, but not as a wallow in simple nostalgia for saps like me who wish it was still 1979* and there's enough here to make it more than the work of a tribute band. A very pleasant surprise.


* And a personal level, there's two things about 'Maria' that hooks its claws deep into whatever soft spots are left in my heart. Firstly, the "She moves like she don't care. Smooth as silk, cool as air. Oooh it makes you wanna' cry. She doesn't know your name and your heart beats like a subway train. Oooh it makes you wanna' die. Oooh don't you wanna' take her, wanna' make her all your own?" could be Debbie reaching through the years to taunt the adolescent me who slept with a huge poster of her over my head throughout my early teens, while (secondly) the gamut of expressions that play across her face between 0:59 and 1:03 on the official video serve to remind me of why I fell in love with her in the first place. 'Iconic' is too small a word.