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Blondie boxed. New 6LP vinyl set.

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Universal will release a Blondie vinyl box later this year that collects all the studio albums from the original 1976-1982 era.

The six-LP set will be pressed on 180g vinyl and the packaging will seek to replicate the originals. All the records are housed in a Parallel Lines-style outer slip case.

The albums included are Blondie (1976), Plastic Letters (1978), Parallel Lines (1978), Eat to the Beat (1979), Autoamerican (1980) and The Hunter (1982).

The set is simply titled Blondie and is due out on 1 December 2014. 


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Darren Sumner

these sound great, but the packaging is really bad. The box set is too small and its a job to get the vinyl out of the slip case and impossible to get them back in. The Hunter now lives on my vinyl shelf and not in its rightful place. Shame

James Patrick

If you are talking 1977-1982 Mark – I think you are right, basically

Mark

so many snobs posting here. there’s not a bad record in the blondie collection. my personal favourite is eat to the beat.

Zakk

Does the band get any of the proceeds from this little money-spinner? I doubt it somehow. Oh, and a word to some of the trivia-obsessed cork-sniffers: b*ll*cks.

Don

I wish Back To Black would get with the program and offer lossless downloads with their vinyl. Who cares about mp3s?!

colin wilcox

This is a must for the completist collector. The japanese cd box on ebay is a 2006 issue and not part of this release

arrgee

@Guy, sadly up to £84 now. I saw it at £54 and dithered mainly cos I have all the original LPs bar The Hunter. That said my Autoamerican wasn’t a very good pressing. Will dig them out.

John

I’m in New York City and ordered this from Amazon UK. Total cost including shipping to the U.S. came to $77.38 USD or £49.42 GBP

Guy

Currently £53.55 on Amazon UK at the time of writing! £9 an album with the box to boot.

Foxee

I always thought that ‘AutoAmerican’ was the best Blondie album by miles, and that ‘The Hunter’ was a much better album than any reviews then or now have ever admitted. Their Bond theme song would have been one of the best in the series, rather than that Sheena Easton vomit.

Anyway, this does throw up the opportunity to put in a bid for a DH solo career overhaul. I actually love Koo-Koo, and still play it quite often, Rockbird had some really excellent tracks (‘Feel the Spin’ notwithstanding), and Def, Dumb is probably her best effort to date.

Would love to see deluxe editions properly remastered of all the Harry back catalogue replete with all the alternative 7″ and 12″ mixes, b-sides, and the songs that went to the movies. There must also be some terrific demo material out there too.

James Patrick

If the powers that be can’t get those Chrysalis BLONDIE albums the proper treatment, well I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Got the lyric/music book to Autoamerican recently – the fact that those band photos have never been reprinted in an Auto Deluxe CD really proves my point- not to mention Dutch TV appearances, Midnight Special ‘Sunday Girl’ – just to name a few- as DVD inclusions
The BLONDIE Catalogue CDs that are currently available are poor – and that is being kind

James Patrick

I love the first 5 Blondie album sleeves
Autoamerican at #2 – it’s that Noo Yawk thing
Blondie 3rd
Plastic Letters 4th – raw
Eat to the Beat 5th

The Hunter always intrigued me – much more than DH KooKoo – we know now why, in a way, that it looked the way it did. I can look at it, listening to Warchild 12″ and know that this was a great band who were going ‘out there/slightly off the rails’ – but it’s better and more compelling than any Blondie that followed it

James Patrick

I know where you are coming from Mark, but I think some will be pulled in by that box and the thought of that box; the thick card sleeves and the fat 180g vinyl

My only perfect Parallel Lines are Mini LP CD Card sleeve issue (2006)
And F4 21192 USA Cassette – I don’t know how many perfectionist post here but I guess it is probably quite a high number!

Mark J

I agree that there is no way to no whether or not this is an item worth considering without details about whether these are mastered from analog tapes or from a digital source. If they aren’t from the original tapes, it seems much cheaper and much better to just seek out original copies of each album.

andrew

Looking forward to this release as I have never owned the albums on vinyl. Shame that The Best of Blondie, from 1981, isn’t included as it means that Call Me will not be included within the set, leaving it slightly incomplete.

James Patrick

Hi Andrew, I guess that from your post that you are quite young (vinyl admission). Call Me never belonged on a BLONDIE album – true home was Polydor’s American Gigolo Soundtrack album.
I don’t think this set is pretending to be a total collection – but I do think there is an opportunity to produce some all encompassing CD Sets: e.g Parallel Lines with original vinyl CD and including DVD with Euro/US TV Appearances for Heart of Glass, One way or Another etc.
I certainly hope they do something classy!
Fingers crossed!!

John

James, you come off as a bit smug in your response to Andrew. He was stating that without the Best of Blondie, the set does not include Call Me. It’s a factual statement regardless of when Call Me originally appears. For that matter, the Best of Blondie version of Rapture & the bilingual version of Sunday Girl are also not in this collection without that album.

James Patrick

No offence intended – I think you possibly mean patronising rather than smug?

The Best of Blondie is compilation – so it doesn’t really belong in there really – but I think it is about time that a super CD/DVD release of Best of Blondie is long over due – and it doesn’t need to add any tracks – just be super!

andrew

James, I wasn’t offended and perversely flattered by your young comment. :) I used to buy cassettes rather than vinyl LPS. With regards to your CD comment, I am amazed that there has never been a proper Blondie rarieties boxset. The problem would be now, I suppose, that a majority of the rare material has been spread over previous reissues and releases. Shame really.

andrew

John, thank you for your response. I wasn’t offended. I was just suggesting that the ” Best of Blondie” would have been a nice addition to the set as ” Call Me” was a major hit (I believe their biggest in the US) and also would have completed the Chrysalis years. Apart from “Call Me,” there were only two other released studio tracks from this era. On a more aesthetic level, I just love that cover image and it would have been nice to have it included.

James Patrick

Beautiful looking – but I hope they (Warner/Rhino Europe or Universal USA) update those crap 2001 CD releases too. Nice also if these are available as individual items

David Olstein

Frankly, this type of reporting is useless unless it tells us how the records are being mastered and cut. If the albums were mastered and cut from the original analog mater tapes, or even second generation copies of the original mater tapes, by someone like Doug Sax or Bernie Grundman, then this could be a worthwhile purchase. But more likely, these records are being cut from redbook digital files, which makes then a complete waste of time for anyone other than a hard core Blondie collector or vinyl fetishist.

fan

I’m a vinyl fetichist and I opt for the ist comment :
“charity shop fav,save your pennies”

plus you have the chance to hear the original master and mix!

that’s why I never buy reissues (except rare exceptions like post 90’s albums by Bowie where the original press costs 200€)

bruh

its resonably priced. Its around 135 for the set, 6 albums in a set, $135 divided by 6 is $22.50 per album. Each vinyl is new, pressed on 180 gram vinyl, which is what most repressed albums go for. plus its in a pretty box.

Shane

Alone worth it for the box in Parallel Lines design

claudio

…CD box collection!!!!!!

auteur55

I’m not a vinyl guy and only own two of these on CD. Really wish they would release the same thing in a CD box collection.

John

Which 2 do you own? I was just discussing with a fellow Blondie fan how surprisingly well Autoamerican & The Hunter aged.

James Patrick

I always thought The Hunter was better than it’s reputation deserved – especially when you compare it to what followed 3/5

Autoamerican had me scratching my head in 1980 (I was 12) but it resonates still, not because of the hit singles, but for the unmistaken BLONDIE sound of ‘Go Through It’, ‘T-Birds’ and of course, best of all ‘Angels On The Balcony’
It is true that ‘Suzy & Jeffrey’ is a stronger cut than some of the ‘experiments’ though…….4/5

The others, well, are ‘almost’ faultless

I always thought – and still do – that Jimmy’s Heart album had some lost BLONDIE on it – much preferable to Debbie’ s KooKoo

Chuck

Chuck: a CD box set is available on eBay. It’s 7 CDs, including THE BEST OF BLONDIE. It’s manufactured and was released only in Japan….the sound quality is amazing and artwork true to the original including inner sleeves. Hope this helps….

England

I’m wondering if they replicate the first album with Private Stock labels, or the green Chrysalis labels that it secondly appeared with (before being repressed with blue labels)…

Alan

I have bought Eat To The Beat, Parallel Lines and Auto American for a $1 each over the last few months, all sound and look fabulous too.

DaveDogFacedBoy

Charity shop faves – save your pennies and get em all for less than a tenner