Consumer Guide Album

Blondie: Pollinator [BMG, 2017]
Not much clever pan-referentiality in the most consistent material this 43-year-old band has assembled since No Exit, half a career ago in 1998. But for a 72-year-old glamourpuss to excavate multiple affairs in one post-ironic, pro-erotic song after another--only two Stein-Harry, although there's also a Hynes-Harry and their newish 4?-year-old keyb guy chips in a couple--is a lyrical coup in itself. Any youngish person who doesn't buy her "Take me back home again/I wanna make love again," not to mention 53-year-old Johnny Marr's "Human beings are stupid things when we're young," has much to learn about the aging process in this ever-changing world we hope we all age in. Yes, she's had "work done," and one way or another, so to speak, this may extend to her vocals. But neither her voice nor the rest of her body is any less hers than it ever was. A-