Blondie’s album The Hunter, released in 1982 and at the time thought to be their final album (the next, No Exit, wasn’t released until 1999), is regarded by many to be a stinker, an ungainly mix of styles and songs that don’t really hold together (Rolling Stone charitably describes it as “an offbeat stylistic jumble” more to be pondered than enjoyed). The band became so interested in making thought-provoking songs that it sounds like they aren’t having that much fun. Presumably the listener doesn’t have much fun hearing the results, either.
And yet I have been listening to the album a lot lately and I find it strangely irresistible. In some ways it’s a retread of Autoamerican, replicating a lot of the songs (Orchid Club = Europa, Island of Lost Souls = The Tide is High, The Beast = Rapture) and the experiments here don’t come off as well as they did on Autoamerican. “Dragonfly” is about a spaceship race (!), “For Your Eyes Only” is a rejected James Bond theme, “Orchid Club” sounds like the theme for a cheesy jungle adventure film from the 1940s. Mixed in with these are lighter pop songs like “Danceway” and the sweetly nostalgic “English Boys.” There is no coherence and many of the songs don’t quite gel, lacking passion or vitality in some cases and in a few instances literally sounding as if a song was recorded in the wrong key. My favorite example is the Autoamerican B-side “Suzy and Jeffrey” which sounds like it was accidentally recorded at two-thirds the intended speed, though “For Your Eyes Only” also has a peculiarly sluggish rhythm to it. This is Blondie being dilettantes, more interested in experimenting than crafting the kind of catchy songs that propelled them to fame in the late 70s.
And I like it! Listen to the first thirty seconds of the opening track “Orchid Club” with its tribal drums and monkey screeches. This is not a group interested in duplicating “Heart of Glass.” The album unsurprisingly flopped and the band split up.
But still, I can’t deny that “Danceway” is catchier than it deserves to be and “War Child” could be a great song with only a few tweaks, mostly related to the generally muddy production (a problem the entire album suffers from). “Orchid Club” is great because of its cheese.
Even the album cover is ridiculous, directly playing up the whole hunter angle, with Harry decked out in a giant pile of hair mimicking a lion’s mane and the other band members bedecked with tribal paint on their faces (and looking thoroughly nonplussed about it). It’s silly and yet it’s all part of what makes The Hunter work for me.
I can’t really recommend the album, but if you want to hear what happens when a group gains commercial success then largely turns it back on it to do their own thing, The Hunter is an intriguing listen.
