The Hunter

Product Information

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

If Blondie kept up the same sense of experimentation and intrigue as "Orchid Club" for the duration of _The Hunter_, it may be hailed a gem or one of their most interesting works. English Boys" is sweetly serene, and contains some of Debbie's most introspective lyrics about how the world was changing during her formative years. Though Harry’s pancultural heart is in the right place, her rap diction is about as convincing as, say, trying to imagine Dick Clark belting out “Soul Man.Appreciate for the potpourri of Third World rhythms, which are handled so well; for the diversity of the music, which runs the gamut from Grace Jones-style club funk to reggae and rap; and, finally, for the literariness of Debbie Harry’s lyrics, which sketch a desolate, despoiled modern world driven by primitive passions. All well and good, perhaps, but the austere, foreboding tone of this record suggests that Blondie has forgotten how to have a good time, and how to make one.

The fun, new wave, late seventies party disco vibe of their earlier albums has given way to some sort of gloom which for the most part doesn't entertain as much as it could. A curiously poetic and mysterious lyric, delivered in a dreamier side to Harry's voice, glides over the pulsating tribal drums of Clem Burke. I love the dark simplicity of the final track, "The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game" which is a cover written by Smokey Robinson (performed by The Marvelettes).

War Child”: a fierce electro-disco with stabs of percussion and wind instruments – again, a faultless track. In the liner notes to the 2001 reissue of The Hunter, producer Mike Chapman stated, "I knew that we were in a different and far less accessible artistic space. The first single (and also the only single released from this record) "Island of Lost Souls" is a calypso-flavored gem. The Hunter" isn't as flashy like "Autoamerican" or have much variety like "Eat to the Beat", but what this album does have is a heart and soul.

Determined to end on a high at the same time as having the desire to pursue solo projects, particularly the band's lead singer and obvious focal point Debbie Harry (Deborah Harry), it seemed as if Blondie would take great memories of a string of hits with them as they went. The New York-based rock group was briefly under consideration to perform the movie theme before Sheena Easton was chosen. Some user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.

The high amount of reverb plus the lack of general sharpness makes this shit sound too airy and distant for this kind of music. I guess part of the reason why some people think this is the worst Blondie album ever is because it's so damn serious. It's not really a gem, but it's certainly underrated and also hugely diverse (the intense jungle rock of "Orchid Club," the sci-fi "Dragonfly," reggae of "Island of Lost Souls" and "Little Caesar," low-key jazz of the Smokey Robinson cover "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game"), which makes for an adventurous listen. Some might say that the band went at the material halfheartedly or without much passion, with Harry enjoying solo success with 1981's KooKoo. It's dark and menacing, but strangely beautiful and a glimpse into the little-known talents of bassist Nigel Harrison, who also co-wrote the similarly dark "War Child.