Face It (3*)

 

Women don't get much more rock 'n roll than Debbie Harry, not even Patti Smith.  The Blondie "star" definitely makes the case here and even throws a little shade Smith's way regarding her stealth competitiveness.  Two Jersey girls making the CBGB scene, so well-described you almost feel like you're doing the pogo in the sweaty crowd, with Debbie indulging a lot more in the sex and drugs part of the cliched equation.  Harry acknowledges how big a role her looks played in her success--a waitressing gig at Max's Kansas City at exactly the right time helped put her face in front of the right people--and page after page of fan art gives this book a unique visual element that also emphasizes the superficial aspect of her talent instead of her bracing vocals and protopunk sensibility.

Oh, you know her, would you look at that hair
Yeah, you know her, check out those shoes
She looks like she stepped out of the middle of somebody's blues

She looks like the Sunday comics
She thinks she's Brenda Starr
Her nose job is real atomic
All she needs is an old knife scar

Yeah, she's so dull, come on rip her to shreds
She's so dull, come on rip her to shreds

Harry writes convincingly of her love and respect for Chris Stein (as well as Andy Warhol and David Bowie) and lacerates the sexism she faced in the music industry but there's also a lot of woo-woo spiritual claptrap that helps harder nosed-readers see how easily she might became the victim of unscrupulous management and accounting.