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Not a greatest hits compilation, not quite a rarities collection, but a weird hybrid of the two with various lesser-known singles (“Picture This”) and album-only tracks (“English Boys”) thrown in for good measure. Blonde and Beyond exists in a strange nebulous zone that is not quite the testament to this iconic band that it could be. To be fair, there’s plenty of great music still to be found here, including a Parallel Lines reject (“Underground Girl”), an early version of “Heart of Glass” (“Once I Had a Love”), and a suite of live covers (a cartoony “Ring of Fire,” a garage-rock rip on “Bang a Gong,” an impressive “Heroes”). Some of the B-sides have since been added on to the remasters of their original albums, like the adult melodrama of “Susie and Jeffrey” that reveals the stark influence of the Shangri-Las on the band popping up on AutoAmerican. Strangest of all are the two foreign-language remakes of two of their best songs, a Spanish “Call Me” and a “Sunday Girl” completely in French. Still, Blonde and Beyond is clearly for completists and the curious only.
DOWNLOAD: “Underground Girl,” “Heroes,” “Once I Had a Love”
