how I learned to love blondie's debut

Many people I know tend to recognize Blondie from their most popular work, from 1978 onwards ("Heart Of Glass", "Call Me", "The Tide is High" and 1999's "Maria"). That's ok, but still a bit unfortunate 'cause deep in its core, Blondie was an underground punk rock band with modern and tropical influences. Four male musicians, masters at their work, fronted by one hot blonde (with really dark roots), whose voice evocated sassyness, anarchy, sensuality and even vulnerability.

All the greatness of Blondie's catalogue should be traced from their 1976 selftitled debut on Private Stock Records. It's quick and fast (only 33 minutes long), with some intervals of slow jazzy tropicalia ("Man Overboard") and love magic ("In the Flesh"). Nevermind the lyrics, they are infused with remaniscent of the past, longings, romantic challenges and just pure crazyness: words from songs like "Kung Fu-Girls", "X-Offender" or "The Attack of the Giant Ants" would make a great example on how mental but how genius Debbie Harry & co could be.

With such fun, it would be a no-brainer to place this album into my list of favorites, just close to "Parallel Lines" or "Eat to the Beat" but not far away from "Autoamerican" please.

MP3: Blondie - X-Offender

introducing my (dusty) record collection

Before my love for cassettes, CD's and mp3's, there is my love for vinil. There's something special about them, about the way the needle is set in the first track, the hiss and dust creating a unique sound. We don't expect high quality, we expect the essence, the rawness, the elaborated design of the sleeve, that's why vinils have a strong, special place in my music heart.

One of my favorites albums these days is Mark Ronson & The Buisness INTL's "Record Collection", and Tashen's "Extraordinary Records" is a must in my night table. Taking that into consideration, I've taking the chance of digging out some dirt and look out for my own record collection, one that's filled with spiderwebs but also holds a cute little spot in my closet. It's been curated by myself ever since I moved to Caracas, and has been nutered thanks to my constant trips to a urine-smelling bridge with old books for sale and of course, old records.



One of my proudest achievements would be discovering most of Donna Summer's original releases. I hardly knew her before that, I guess only the basics, but never the album-only songs, nor the layout of the gatefold designs. One fine day, I decided to buy em all, it costed me like 200 Bs. each, as cheap as it was possible, I didn't care, I had to have them. So far, they are my favorites among the 120+ discs in my collection

Some downsides to my rack? It might be the "poor" state of some of the LP's like Diana Ross & The Supremes' "Love Child". I had to buy it coz I love the Supremes, but this one is pretty shitty. The sleeve is deteriorated and so is the vinil itself, it wouldn't be possible to hear it without skipping and hissing. Other downsilde would be me preffering a Milli Vanilli album over some cool looking ones from Michael Jackson or other 12 inchers. God, really, Milli Vanilli? I mean, I do think they made good songs, but they are not worth passing by some MJ goods.

Anyhoo, I hope you've enjoyed this post, I sure will try to update regularly, since apologies are few far in between. Till then...
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Mark Ronson & The Business INTL - "Record Collection" Feat. Simon Le Bon (of Duran Duran) and Wiley by Some Kind of Awesome