Eat To The Beat – BLONDIE***

Dreaming/The Hardest Part/Union City Blue/Shayla/Eat To The Beat/Accidents Never Happen/Die Young Stay Pretty/Slow Motion/Atomic/Sound-A-Sleep/Victor/Living In The Real World

Blondie continued their turn of the decade dominance of the UK singles chart. Although not as acclaimed as its predecessor Eat To The Beat features two strong singles, the UK No. 1 Atomic and No. 2 Dreaming. (US:17 UK:1)

“After the groundbreaking Parallel Lines Blondie had a tough act to follow. There are some fabulous moments on this album like Dreaming and Atomic which brings back the whole signature pop disco back again. However, most of the songs here are almost like imitations of better Blondie songs. This doesn't sound as energetic as they used to be and it doesn't bode well for their sound. They are clearly moving more towards the pop market and losing their edge. The material is at least familiar sounding and a bit above average, but this is the last of the necessary classic Blondie albums to get.”

“Following up an album like Parallel Lines is a difficult task, so you can't really blame Blondie for not being able to duplicate that album's success here. This album does have some great tracks though, such as Dreaming and Atomic. But overall, the quality fluctuates a lot from track to track, which diminishes the album.”

“Eat To The Beat is a slight letdown after the previous year's Parallel Lines, as it could hardly help but be. The musical direction is oriented more towards pop than punk, and the band displays more variety to their sound, but the results are a little inconsistent, especially towards the end of the album.”

“Eat To The Beat has two very different album sides; the first is wonderful pop music, but side two has some unsuccessful experiments with that are completely outside Blondie's comfort zone. Stick to the first side and you'll be in pure pop heaven.”

“The album is similar in places to its predecessor, and takes the sounds of Parallel Lines to new extremes. It's a passionate and vibrant, and seems to bridge the band's earlier punkish roots with the more commercial pop they acquired along the way.”

“Stylistically this features a lot of tracks from Blondie's playbook but manage to avoid being by the numbers. There's more of a new wave slant to this effort than their prior works and less disco/punk which I take as an indicator that they were willing to change with the times.”