Just as
Blondie's second album,
Plastic Letters, was a pale imitation of their self-titled debut,
Eat to the Beat, their fourth album, was a secondhand version of their breakthrough third album,
Parallel Lines: one step forward, half a step back. There was an attempt, on such songs as
"The Hardest Part" and
"Atomic," to recreate the
rock/
disco fusion of the group's one major U.S. hit,
"Heart of Glass," without similar success, and, elsewhere, the band just tried to cover too many stylistic bases.
"Die Young Stay Pretty," for example, dipped into an island sound complete with modified
reggae beat (a foreshadowing of the upcoming hit
"The Tide Is High"), and
"Sound-a-Sleep" was a lullaby that dragged too much to be a good change of pace. The British, who had long since been converted, made
Eat to the Beat another chart-topper, with three major hits, including a number one ranking for
"Atomic" and almost the same success for
"Dreaming," but in the U.S., which still saw
Blondie as a slightly comic one-hit wonder, the album was greeted for what it was -- slick corporate
rock without the tangy flavor that had made
Parallel Lines such ear candy. [The 2001 reissue added four bonus tracks that expanded on the album's eclecticism.
"Die Young Stay Pretty" and a cover of
the Four Tops'
"Seven Rooms of Gloom" came from a New Year's Eve 1979 show in Glasgow, Scotland, and were previously unreleased in the U.S.; a live cover of
David Bowie's
"Heroes" had been the B-side of
"Atomic" in the U.K.; and the live cover of
Johnny Cash's
"Ring of Fire" came from the
Roadie soundtrack. But the reissue's most striking feature was producer
Mike Chapman's surprisingly frank liner notes, which detailed the band's troubles during the recording sessions.] ~ William Ruhlmann
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