Perfect Crime
Blonde on Blonde

Back in the day this Norwegian band was called Blonde on Blonde and they released their debut album in 1989. Then for some reason they changed their name to Perfect Crime and released their second album called Blonde on Blonde. Why they decided to call the album the same name as the band was called before the name change, why that is is only known to the band themselves. There’s a reason for speculation. This is that album which was released in 1990 and it was remastered and rereleased just recently. According to the press info this is a long sought after album that has been out of print for too long. This always has me wondering, why if this was such a wonderful release wasn’t it rereleased earlier.

Is the perfect crime how they managed to take all the ingredients of the classic AOR and put them together into a perfect template of the genre. Their AOR is easily accessible with straight melodies and catchy choruses, an excellent show on how generic AOR sounds. The female singer of the band is great and their songs are well written albeit there is nothing new they offer but apparently they know how to make AOR that appeals to the masses. Commercial simple, decently varied, short and to the point. AOR, in accordance with the formula, plain and simple.

I think that this is a good album, not massively fantastic but still one that should go down fairly well for those who enjoy AOR, especially female fronted AOR. It is clever and catchy and amusing but not really that fresh. Sure the production feels fairly up to today’s standard but their music is just not unique of fresh enough to really stand out in today’s crowd of AOR bands. I like this album but not to the extent that I like the best albums in the genre, but nevertheless it is a fun album to listen to.

Is it worth rereleasing? that is the main question I have to ask myself when doing this review and researching it. The answer is that I suppose it depends on your outlook towards the genre, if you feel that there is never enough AOR then this is a no brainer. I on the other hand who listen to incredible amounts of music am not as impressed and I am not sure there is a real point to rereleasing this because to be completely honest I don’t see what we have been missing while this album was out of print. It is good and there’s no denying that but it is just not that good.

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