Let’s just face it: Deborah Harry and her bandmates just can’t stop being cool. If you want proof, just listen to the band’s new album “Panic of Girls” that was released last week. There you will hear classic Blondie sound but in a more contemporary — if that’s even possible — style than perhaps you’ve heard before.
“We had wanted to get into the studio for a couple of years, but we kept touring and touring and touring,” said Harry. “We were just trying to explore different tracks and how to get it released and marketed. It was a challenge.”
| Onstage |
| Blondie |
| When: 7 p.m. Tuesday |
| Where: The Fillmore Silver Spring, 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, Md. |
| Info: $35; 301-960-9999, filmoresilverspring.com; 202-397-SEAT, ticketmaster.com |
One that the band that was in the forefront of the new wave and punk scenes of the 1970s and 1980s clearly mastered. Even before the album was released positive buzz about the tracks, especially “Mother” about the one-time iconic club in New York’s Meat Packing district, bouncing around the web.
The band has always been a sonic trailblazer and this album shows the members still haven’t lost their edge, moving from new wave to reggae to rock to rap. The exploration is just part of the members’ natural creativity.
“We’ve always attempted to work in [different formats],” said Harry. “We’re always influenced by our surroundings. We’re an urban band and have grown up that way. It seems very natural to us to express our different moods and ideas with different styles.”
Much has been made about the album’s many nods to New York, the city that is so closely identified with the band. Although to some the city has changed dramatically, Harry said that it still has a vibrancy that unleashes the creative muse in her and her band mates.
“I don’t know if New York has really changed,” she said in discussing how the city’s variety inspired the songs’ various textures. “It’s more gentrified and more middle class but it’s always been very ethnically diverse. You can tell that by the variety of ethnic parades there. It’s truly a melting pot.”
In a way, so were the sessions to craft the new album. Harry confirmed that the band recorded more than 30 songs before whittling the number down to 11 for the album.
“We hadn’t recorded in a long time so we had a certain backlog of ideas,” she said. “We recorded as many of those ideas as possible. We had a decent amount of studio time and we were able to put [many] demos together. Deciding what to put on this collection seemed obvious. Certain songs naturally go together better. We tried to make it like we do shows, which is to make them really exciting with moments of thoughtfulness and a blaze at the end.”
