Worth pointing out that the song – from the film ‘American Gigolo’ – follows the movie’s plot about a high-class whore. Debbie’s “airless” (above) performance, and the whole slightly manufactured plastic-ness of the song actually works in its favor when the subject matter is taken into account. She *doesn’t* care, she just pretends that she does; she’s artful but cold; sensual but aloof; she’s singing dirty rock, but her heart is under lock-and-key. She wants you money and she’ll give you a good time. We got exactly what we paid for; cold clinical producer-lead rock, and she got what she wanted – a # 1 hit. Everybody won.

Love it.

“Call Me” is the fastest-paced of all Blondie singles, but its Moroder-assisted electro-new wave schaffel pounding only works fully in the context of American Gigolo, where it provides a pulse sufficiently loud to drown out the notion that Richard Gere is trying to do as little as possible to convey the concept of a man without interiors, a man built only to glide across immaculate surfaces. First choice Travolta would have brought far too much undue, awkward humanity to the role; but few do blank better than Gere, whose lack of external emotions, or reactions of any meaningful kind, remains constant despite falling in love, or being framed for murder. The film depicts L.A. as a place too noisily empty even for camp to make itself useful, let alone tears or real sex.

In that atmosphere, “Call Me” comes across as a little too frantic and emotional, but also greatly uncomfortable. Stein’s guitar riffing is furious but Moroder’s glacially bending synths dominate the sonic picture. Debbie does her damnedest to care – the bending down to wink when she murmurs “day or night” or “share the wine,” the genuine expressionism of her yelled (drowning rather than waving?) choruses, the slight nudge of irony as she breathes deeply in sighing “Roll me in designer sheets” – but the general picture is one of Blondie shifting their aesthetic to fit, square peg-like, into an airless environment designed by another. They sound as though they are being forced to record it – and Blondie were always very far from great when trying to force miracles to occur. The record is seamless but also bloodless; its dynamic is only surface…and as with the film, it helped to usher in some of the more disagreeable aspects of art as it was known and bought throughout that decade.

“(…) fully-fledged flatulent wallyhood for the wet man’s Babara Windsor (…) it’ll take more than an apologetic synthesiser and a verse in Francoise Mind Your Language Pascal French to pull the sleeveless denim jacket over my eyes. (…) ‘Call Me’ has a deaf aid firmly pressed to the floor: The transformation of strobe sister Debbie circa the American number one ‘Heart of Glass’ to the hairy chested Harry (…)”

No single of the week this issue. Also reviewed;

The Ramones – Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?
Elvis Costello – High Fidelity

….oh..er..yes..I did.
I’ll get me coat.

Thankfully, this remains a disaster still waiting to strike. Matthew, I feel your pain.

MORRISSEY: Oh, you’re very fortunate. I’ve had some bad experiences with people.

(Melody Maker, 1988)

As I travelled down in the lift afterwards, I discovered the tape was totally unlistenable. Had to dash into a cafe and write the whole thing out from memory before it drifted away.

re 41 the Diana Ross/ Chic songs are another honorable exception but Nile Rogers seemed to lose the plot a bit with his work with Davis Bowie and others.

Can anyone vouch for KooKoo, the Debbie Harry solo album NR produced? It seemed to die a death at the time.

U2 and Brian Eno seem to bring out the best in each other, I’d argue.

*copyright Smash Hits

Do tell!

Re 30 – we’ll get a chance to come back to it, but “AutoAmerican” although a complete mess contains some of their best work, including “Rapture”.

My favourite record in this particular Top 40 though was “Food For Thought/King”. Which I think deserves at least a passing mention, although not strictly a No 2 (or even 3) watch…

Giorgio Moroder – Sparks
Rick Rubin – Johnny Cash

Tom’s description of this as being a chaotic collision leads me to reconsider it – Of course! It’s *packed* with things going on. My usual reaction of slight disappointment with this whenever I’ve heard it in my adult life has been because I was expecting the Moroder of ‘I Feel Love’ or ‘From Here To Eternity’ when he’s more like a disco/ new wave Roy Wood in this instance.