Six years ago, I purchased a copy of Blondie�s Greatest Hits, and thus began a years-long love affair betwixt myself and this crazy, new wave-cum-punk band fronted by an energetic dervish named Debbie Harry.
Yeah, yeah, so it�s kinda gay. Sue me. I�m kinda gay. The point is that I fell for their inimitable style -- the frenetic hooks, the unpredictable rhythms, the off-beat lyrics, and the entire mis-en-scene of a group that sprang full-grown from the darkened basement of CBGB at the height of the punk rock movement in the 1970s. Debbie Harry was a bit of a nutcase -- in fact, some interviewers were afraid to be alone with her -- and her beauty and bizarre vocal flexibility made Blondie a force to be reckoned with.
Seriously, though, can you think of a single artist today who could pull off disco, reggae, punk, new wave, pastiche, and rap all on the same album? I think not. In fact, Blondie was the first group to use rap in a mainstream single, and that was back in the late seventies. Yes, ladies and gents, the first mainstream rapper was a skinny white chick from Jersey.
I guess my point is that Blondie is kind of a twisted band with a hardcore pedigree that forcibly carved its own niche in music history by doing and being nothing anyone else could remotely accomplish. This is why, last night at around 8:40 PST, I started screaming bloody murder at my television and tried in vain to reach through the glass and wrap my hands around the scrawny chicken neck of a certain blonde pretender to the rock throne.
Faithful reader, it pains my very soul to relive this, but I must exorcise my demons or they will never be put to rest. Now that you know how I feel about Blondie, you can understand how excited I was when American Idol�s Ryan Seacrest announced that one of the contestants would be singing Blondie�s infectious hit �Call Me�. I was ecstatic, all clapping my hands and bouncing up and down like a little kid on a carousel. Then, you can imagine my sheer, unmitigated horror when he went on to announce that the contestant who would be singing it was none other than the Dread Carmen Rasmusen.
I nearly went fetal. I kept chanting, �No, no, no, no, no,� over and over, as if I could will it not to be, but my pleas were futile. The Dread Carmen took the stage and proceeded to beat all the soul out of one of my favorite group�s most popular tunes. And that cold-hearted little monster did it with a smile on her face! How sick is that??? She shrieked, she whined, and she bleated like an air horn with a faulty valve, and she did it all off-key to boot. She trashed �Call Me� beyond recognition and left it, broken and bloody, on the floor of that soundstage in Glendale.
It was unforgivable. She should be incarcerated for what she did to that song! I am sorry, but the Dread Carmen Rasmusen is not a bad girl! She�s not fit to wipe Debbie Harry�s ass, let alone cover one of her signature hard rock singles! Kimberly Caldwell could have done that song okay, and last season�s Nikki McKibbin could have pulled it off too (and last season I have to say I wondered constantly why Nikki didn�t do Blondie�s definitive punk hit �One Way or Another�, as it totally fit with the image she was trying to create for herself), but not the Dread Carmen! Never the Dread Carmen! Stick to country or pop or, you know, high school Carmen, but leave the rock music to people who have some edge! In fact, you should just take a great big step back from that edge before you hurt yourself, because you obviously don�t know what you�re doing out there.
Now, I�ll say this: Carmen seems like a perfectly lovely girl. Probably no one I�d have hung out with in my high school days, and although she seemed a little ungracious to find herself in the bottom three for the first time last week (which I can kind of understand, as it�s not a fun place to be, but c�mon -- it was her first time out there! Take a cue from Kim Caldwell, who�s been out there three or four times now with a smile on her face, and deal with it), I don�t wish her ill. Regardless of her crimes against Blondie, I don�t hate the Dread Carmen Rasmusen. I just really don�t think she should be a professional singer. You know?
Awesome. I fucking love that album.
