The Hunter (Blondie album)
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| The Hunter | |||||
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| Studio album by Blondie | |||||
| Released | 5 June 1982 | ||||
| Recorded | 1982 | ||||
| Genre | Pop, New Wave | ||||
| Length | 45:17 | ||||
| Label | Chrysalis Records | ||||
| Producer | Mike Chapman | ||||
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| Blondie chronology | |||||
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| Debbie Harry chronology | |||||
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The Hunter is the sixth studio album by the US band Blondie. It was released in 1982 and would be Blondie's last album of new material until 1999's No Exit.
The album had two singles, "Island of Lost Souls" and "War Child". "War Child" was also released as a 12" extended version.
The song "For Your Eyes Only" was originally written for the 1981 James Bond film of the same name. The producers of the film however favoured a track composed by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson and asked Blondie to record that song instead. Blondie declined, the Conti/Leeson song was passed on to Sheena Easton and Deborah Harry and Chris Stein's Bond theme subsequently ended up on The Hunter.
Jimmy Destri's Motown pastiche "Danceway" is one of the few light and joyful songs on the otherwise sombre album that became Blondie's swansong; "Dragonfly" ironically comments on the ongoing space race between the world's superpowers at the time, the USA and the USSR. "The Beast", musically a sequel to "Rapture", deals with Deborah Harry's experiences of becoming a public figure; "I am the centre of attraction, by staying off the streets". "English Boys" is Harry and Chris Stein's melancholy tribute to "those English boys who had long hair"; The Beatles, recorded the year after John Lennon's assassination in New York City, describing the innocence and idealism of the 60's and, just like "War Child", the following cold shadows of the Vietnam War and the Middle East crisis. The album concludes with a poignant cover version of Smokey Robinson's "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game", originally recorded by The Marvelettes in 1967; "What's this whole world coming to? Things just ain't the same..." and things weren't the same within the band either. As producer Mike Chapman says in his liner notes to the 2001 re-issue of The Hunter; "I knew that we were in a different and far less accessible artistic space. And that worried me. I could tell that things were different now, and I knew that this would be the last Blondie album."
The album peaked at #9 in the UK and and #33 in US. Compared to Blondie's three previous albums with Chapman as producer (Parallel Lines, Eat to the Beat and Autoamerican), The Hunter proved to be a disappointment, both commercially and critically and six months after its release the band dissolved.
The Hunter was digitally remastered and re-issued by Chrysalis Records UK in 1994, and again by EMI-Capitol in 2001, both times with the 12" version of "War Child" as the only bonus track.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
Side A:
- "Orchid Club" (Harrison, Harry) – 5:45
- "Island of Lost Souls" (Harry, Stein) – 4:42
- "Dragonfly" (Harry, Stein) – 6:00
- "For Your Eyes Only" (Harry, Stein) – 3:07
- "The Beast" (Harry, Stein) – 4:54
Side B:
- "War Child" (Harrison, Harry) – 4:00
- "Little Caesar" (Harry, Stein) – 3:00
- "Danceway" (Destri) – 3:19
- "(Can I) Find the Right Words (To Say)" (Destri, Harry) – 3:07
- "English Boys" (Harry, Stein) – 3:49
- "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game" (Robinson) – 3:37
Bonus Track (1994 & 2001 CD reissues)
- "War Child" (Extended Version) (Harrison, Harry) – 7:58
[edit] Personnel
- Deborah Harry - vocals
- Frank Infante - guitar
- Chris Stein - guitar
- Jimmy Destri - keyboards
- Nigel Harrison - bass guitar
- Clem Burke - drums
- Rae Maldonado - horns
- Luis Ortiz - horns
- Richard A. Davis - horns
- Mac Gollehor - horns
- Robert Aaron - saxophone
- Sammy Figueroa - percussion
- Manual Badrena - percussion
- Roger Squitero - percussion
- Janice G. Pendarvis - background vocals
- Zachary Sanders - background vocals
- Lani Groves - background vocals
- Darryl Tookes - background vocals
[edit] Production
- Mike Chapman - record producer
- Recorded at the Hit Factory, New York, New York in 1981. Originally released on Chrysalis (1384).
- Kevin Flaherty - 2001 reissue producer.
[edit] Chart Peaks
- UK: 9
- Australia: 15
- Sweden: 18
- USA: 33
- Germany: 49
[edit] References
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