Blondie, "No Exit" (Beyond/BMG)

You can't fault Blondie for lack of ambition on their first album together in 17 years. The reunited group clearly hit the studio hungry to recapture every strong point of their original releases, and more. Over the course of 14 tracks, they race through an encyclopedia of musical genres, moving track by track from reggae to ska to dance-rock to girl-group pop to new wave to rap. They even add new sounds for them: jazz, psychedelic pop and country....

You can't quibble much with the individual tracks. They're graced with melodies as sturdy as the band's classics. "Maria," an ideal melding of '60s girl-group pop and '70s punk, would feel right at home on a Blondie album like "Plastic Letters," while "Forgive and Forget" has the rich dance rhythms of a smash like "Call Me"....

Source: New York Daily News, February 14, 1999
 

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