Blondie’s Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision (CD+DVD) is a choice sampling of what makes Blondie one of modern Rock & Roll’s seminal bands. The total package consists of a generous 20-track CD and 16-video DVD spanning Blondie’s entire career.
The CD opens with a chronological salvo of single mixes of U.S. and U.K. #1 hits including “Heart of Glass”, “Sunday Girl”, “Atomic”, “Call Me”, “The Tide is High”, “Rapture”, and “Maria”. The CD has a few moments of experimentation beginning with the “In the Flesh (Remix),” which I thought was all right, but not an improvement over the original track from their debut album, Blondie. The “In the Flesh (Remix)” kind of left me flat because the variations on the melody fricasseed and drained the original beauty of the melody in places, adding 24 seconds to the track for the sake of experimentation. In my opinion, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” applies here.
The CD also includes classics like “Union City Blue”, "Dreaming", "One Way or Another", and "Island of Lost Souls" that were US top 40 singles. Plus for the first time on a U.S. CD, the full promo (only available before now on 12" vinyl) "Blow-Up Mix" that Sanctuary Records issued for "Good Boys". For all of you collectors out there, this is a relatively rare track because it was just available as a Promo Only to DJs.
One of the most interesting items included in Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision (CD+DVD) is the bonus track and video of "Rapture Riders". This is an eerie but brilliant mash-up remix of Blondie’s "Rapture" and the Doors' "Riders on the Storm", courtesy of Mash-up Remix Wonderkind Mark Vidler (creator of other notable mash-ups including: “A Slim McShady” (fusing Eminem and Wings) and “Genie’s Revenge” (a hybrid of Christina Aguilera and The Strokes) and the infamous “Ray of Gob,” an enjoyably sinister fusion of Madonna with the Sex Pistols.
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