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monstersandcritics - 25th September 2007

Music - Necessary Evil

Anyone hoping for the 62-year-old Debbie Harry to sit up and act her age will be sorely disappointed by the former Blondie vixen's sixth solo album (and first in 14 years). Viscerally contemporary, Necessary Evil harnesses youthful exuberance from across the charts, and Harry and her team of producers and songwriting partners do radio-ready rock, pop, and soul-lite with à la mode savvy to spare. Big-time sing-alongs ("Two Times Blue," "You're Too Hot") rub elbows with spare, distorted guitar lines piled in arena-sized stacks ("Love with Vengeance," "Charm Redux," and the especially vivacious "Whiteout"). "The Devil's dick is hard to handle," Harry growls in "School for Scandal," encapsulating the attitude of shameless defiance coursing through this and other lean, mean, up-tempo numbers like the half-rapped, full-lipped "Dirty and Deep." Between the reversed hip-hop break bisecting "Charm Alarm," the title track's stolen riff from Rage Against the Machine's "Know Your Enemy," and Harry's bits of Internet imagery, this album won't dare let go of its of-the-moment moxie. Gumdrops like the flaccid "What Is Love" and closer "Paradise" are irrevocable but few; in all, the occasional slice of tripe strangely sweetens Harry's otherwise surprising longevity, ready to rock and salty as ever. --Jason Kirk

Album information
Release Date (USA): 2007-10-09 

Release Date (UK): 
Artist/s: Debbie Harry 
Label: Eleven Seven Music

Track Listing
1 Two Times Blue 
2 School for Scandal 
3 If I Had You 
4 Deep End 
5 Love with Vengeance 
6 Necessary Evil 
7 Charm Redux 
8 You're Too Hot 
9 Dirty and Deep 
10 What is Love 
11 Whiteout 
12 Needless to Say 
13 Heat of the Moment 
14 Charm Alarm 
15 Jen Jen 
16 Naked Eye 
17 Paradise 

Link: monstersandcritics - 25th September 2007