ILX 70s album poll - results

Not easy listening, though. But Levene is hardly wanking. He, even more so than Wobble, is the anchor of that band. Thus, the suckage following his departure...

-- Naive Teen Idol (matthewjweine...), January 8th, 2003.

It's proudly displayed (well, displayed) on my bookcase, but I swear it's been well over 10 years since I've played it. I do remember liking it, although isn't it meant to be boring and/or annoying in places? Also it plays at 45 rpm, doesn't it? I remember reading somewhere that it was funny/cool that it was designed so that you couldn't get the records out without scratching them, but of course you can just turn the package upside down and let them fall out (not at a great height, of course).
-- Sean (saturns...), January 8th, 2003.

It's sort've become a post-punk Rosetta Stone of sorts (and I don't mean the lamentable goth band) that is required listening for anyone seeking information about the genre/era, but that doesn't mean it makes for the easiest nor most enjoyable listening experience. I'm glad I own it, I'm glad it exists, it's *INTERESTING* (in much the same way watching a disquieting snuff film or autopsy in interesting), but I'd be fibbing if I said I played it a lot or that it changed my life. I tend to prefer a bit more melodic cohesion in my post-punk, thank you very much, ala Gang of Four, early Killing Joke, Joy Division, et al.
Still...."Poptones" and "Swanlake" are uproariously, gloriously ugly in the most intriguing way.

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), January 8th, 2003.

Erm...
I changed my mind!* Metal Box is actually quite brilliant. For some reason it clicked for me this time. Lydon sounds like Gollum. Levene sounds like he's scratching your eyes out. Wobble is implacable (I like that word today). The electronics are genuinely strange, alienating in that way that electronics were back then--you know, they sound like they're wheezing from some big gray mainframe that takes up half a room. The drums are just like, heavy, man. It's a big granite slab of sound rolling over you.

I think my problem was that I bought the album after reading the usual rhetoric about it, and then I didn't hear what I expected to hear based on that rhetoric. I still don't, really... but I like what I hear instead now.

* Well actually, I still think the suburbia-is-conformist stuff is cliched (suppose it wasn't at the time tho) and just wrong, Albatross is a dirge, and it really doesn't have much to do with dub. Even the bass isn't dubby--it's just fat and high in the mix. I only hear about one moment where he plays anything like a dub bassline (midway through Graveyard I think), most of the time it's more rock. And OK, they phase the drums every now and then. But dub is a process more than anything else, and they don't apply that process anywhere--there's no abrupt mixing in and out of instruments, no space in the music (the opposite--it's claustrophobic), no echoing....they're still playing songs, not deconstructing them. Not that it matters, but "avant-garde dub" is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in relation to this album.

-- Ben Williams (benwilliam...), January 9th, 2003.

They should've replaced Lydon with Mrs. Miller:

-- hstencil (hstenci...), January 9th, 2003.
Great blog. As for me, what Matos said. Either you feel this music in your bones or you don't. Metal Box says everything is NOT going to be alright. It's mocking, too, as if depression or fear were below it, and it makes me feel detached, grooving, fuck everything. The complete antipathy is also highly moral, which sets it apart from the nihilist pigfuck/no wave/goth it inspired. Like Sandinista!, it's more punk than most punk.
-- Pete Scholtes (pscholte...), January 11th, 2003.

no-one's topped Beefheart at his own game -- except maybe PiL, and then only once (metal box).
-- Tad (llamasfu...), January 20th, 2003.

Classic with reservations - the last two tracks are weak (Gonna Love You Too + Just Go Away)and it lacks the absolute highs of the two previous albums and Eat to The Beat. My favorites are 11.59, Pretty Baby and Sunday Girl.
There's nothing as good as X Offender, In The Flesh, Rip Her To Shreds, Out In The Streets, Fan Club, Scenery,I'm Always Touched By Your Presence, Dreaming, Union City Blue, or Atomic on there.

-- Dr. C (Daveatcrossdee...), December 2nd, 2002.

reading Please Kill Me, i found it so funny the way that blondie were viewed as the runt of the cbgb's litter, and television used to beat up on them and steal their bassists and stuff, but in the end, it was blondie that had the most long lasting success and widespread appeal. new yorkers are stupid. mwah hah hah.
-- kate (masonicboo...), December 2nd, 2002.
their best record by miles. still holds up pretty damn well to these ears. would be perfect but for the final track ('just go away') but 11 out of 12's a decent strike rate by any measure.
-- angelo (discusdude7...), December 2nd, 2002.

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"i know a girl from a lonely street/cool as ice cream and still as sweet" is the most perfect opening couplets to a pop song ever.
the only thing that bugs me about parallel lines are those ugly green mesh and canvas boots that she's lacing up on the back cover.

debbie, debbie, debbie... it's so unlike you to pick unflattering footwear.

-- Fritz Wollner (fritzwollner5...), December 2nd, 2002.

I listened to this for the first time in, gosh, about 20 years when the remastered CD came out. It sounded way different than I remembered, because all the deadpan chick-fronted guitar-pop bands since Blondie - from the Primitives to Slumber Party - have really spun off from just one aspect of their sound. I was conditioned to hear Parallel Lines that way, but everything was more varied and modulated. Deborah Harry's singing was so demonstrative, it's like she's in a Broadway revue. Each song is a different little character portrait. The drumming was a lot less metronomic than my ears have become accustomed to.
-- Curt (curtisgoul...), December 2nd, 2002.

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slumber party are HARDLY a "chick fronted guitar-pop band" thank you very kindly. grrrrrrr.
one of the things that i always loved most about blondie was their genre-slut style-hopping. blondie albums were like mini-musicals, really. i believe that was quite deliberate.

-- kate (masonicboo...), December 2nd, 2002.

-- mark grout (mark.grou...), May 9th, 2004.

The original LP faded the track. The CD and the remaster let the track conclude to a brilliant ending, adding 2 mins onto the track.

Regards

-- mark grout (mark.grou...), May 9th, 2004.

Television's Marquee Moon influenced a lot of bangladeshis to move to Britain and thus changed English cuisine forever. In the same year, Verlaine also invented the sewing machine.
-- Pulpo (pulpopulpissim...), July 10th, 2002.