The Hunter (Bonus Tracks, Remastered)

Blondie: Deborah Harry (vocals); Frank Infante, Chris Stein (guitar); Jimmy Destri (keyboards); Nigel Harrison (bass); Clem Burke (drums). Additional personnel: Rae Maldonado, Luis Ortiz, Richard A. Davis, Mac Gollehor (horns); Robert Aaron (saxophone); Sammy Figueroa, Manual Badrena, Roger Squitero (percussion); Janice G. Pendarvis, Zachary Sanders, Lani Groves, Darryl Tookes (background vocals). Producer: Mike Chapman. Reissue producer: Kevin Flaherty. Recorded at the Hit Factory, New York, New York in 1981. Originally released on Chrysalis (1384). Includes liner notes by Mike Chapman. All tracks have been digitally remastered using 24-bit technology. Personnel: Debbie Harry (vocals); Chris Stein, Frank Infante (guitar); Robert Aaron (saxophone); Luis Ortiz, Rafael Maldonado, Luis "Perico" Ort?z, Rick Davies (horns); Jimmy Destri (keyboards); Clem Burke (drums); Roger Squitero, Manolo Badrena, Sammy Figueroa (percussion); Darryl Tookes, Lani Groves, Zachary Sanders, Janice Pendarvis (background vocals). Liner Note Author: Mike Chapman . Recording information: The Hit Factory, New York, NY (1981). Photographers: Barry Schultz; Brian Aris; Ebet Roberts. Autoamerican was Blondie's last real album (until its 1999 reunion with No Exit), after which the band collapsed in legal problems and solo aspirations. The Hunter was only made because they still owed Chrysalis an album on their contract, and it sounds like the obligatory record it was. "Island of Lost Souls" (the album's only U.S. singles chart entry and, in fact, the only song released as a single in the U.S.) was a try at remaking "The Tide Is High," and "The Beast" tried to re-create at least the rap section of "Rapture." "War Child," which made the U.K. Top 40, was a dance rock effort in the style of "Call Me" and one of two somewhat autobiographical Debbie Harry lyrics, along with "English Boys." (Harry wrote all the album's words except for those to keyboard player Jimmy Destri's "Danceway" and the cover of the Marvelettes' 1967 hit "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game," which was written by Smokey Robinson.) "For Your Eyes Only" had been intended as the theme song for the 1981 James Bond film, but rejected (rightly) in favor of a competing entry by Bill Conti and Mike Leeson that went on to become a Top Five hit for Sheena Easton. The rest of the material was equally second-rate, consisting of funk-rock tracks with the barest of melodies and lyrics that ranged from impenetrable ("Orchid Club") to incoherent (the science fiction epic "Dragonfly," which alternated recited and sung sections having something to do with a spaceship race). Blondie was always a band with ideas -- musical, lyrical, and visual -- but The Hunter found them running short conceptually as well practically. It was a disappointing end. (The 2001 reissue adds an eight-minute extended version of "War Child," previously unreleased in the U.S., as a bonus track.) ~ William Ruhlmann