4. BlondieParallel Lines
For me, there’s no filler on this album, and the musicianship and songwriting is second-to-none. You always get that thing of, "Who would you like to have been in musical history?" and who wouldn’t have wanted to be Chris Stein? He got to write some of those great songs and he was with his partner all the time, but I guess that must’ve had its drawbacks. Although you could say that those early records were a testament to their love.
It’s an album of fantastic songs and while it’s a great pop record, it does rock out as well. The solo on ‘Picture This’ is one of my favourite guitar solos ever. It’s not super flash but it delivers the emotion that’s right for the song. Then you’ve got things like ‘Fade Away And Radiate’, which is quite surprising to have in the middle of these pop songs. It’s a phenomenal track and a really beautiful song with all these surprising moments. It starts off very, very moody with the keyboard line and then you end up with this reggae jam. It’s a great record.
