10 Most Overrated Rock Albums Of The '70s
4. Blondie - Parallel Lines
It seems unkind, even unfair, to dig at an album simply for containing a degree of filler. Parallel Lines, though, is an album often held up with the best of an era, and to that end it’s perhaps only fair that it’s given a closer scrutiny.
While the high points of Parallel Lines can stand among the best of new wave and post punk, when you peruse beyond the hits and the classics, the good stuff dries up fairly quickly. It’s a record that can whip from the inspired to the mundane awfully quickly; on the one hand the ethereal “Sunday Girl” or the utterly distinct “Heart Of Glass”; on the other the throwaway “Pretty Baby” or the popular but dirge-like “One Way Or Another”.
The band does the hard part very well - they absolutely have a sound of their own and a cohesive vision - but the inconsistency of the songwriting means that even this fairly short record has some trailing gaps in it.