Cabaret: New York Times Disses Debbie Harry

Photo by Michael Wilhoite for Café Carlyle

Debbie Harry is currently performing a sold-out residency at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City.

Sold-out or not, Stephen Holden of the New York Times was not impressed by the 69 year old punk rock legend’s cabaret act:

Making a grand entrance in a black leather jacket and tinted sunglasses, she was every inch the platinum-haired downtown bad girl and face of the seminal, still-extant post-punk band Blondie. She resembled a tabloid American Catherine Deneuve. Instead of a band, she brought with her a one-man computer-and-synthesizer sound machine in the person of Blondie’s current keyboardist, Matt Katz-Bohen, who also played a little piano and guitar.

Those hoping that Ms. Harry would sing Blondie hits like “Rapture,” “Heart of Glass” and “Call Me” were treated to a program of songs taken mostly from her uneven solo albums, whose musical styles ranged from poppy dance numbers like her minor 1986 hit, “French Kissin’, ” to more sophisticated ballads like “Imitation of a Kiss,” which she recorded with the Jazz Passengers.

[snip]

Nothing could camouflage Ms. Harry’s vocal difficulties. She was so consistently off-pitch that the songs nearly disappeared under her struggle to sing the notes. The show was the professional equivalent of a very shaky audition.