Three decades into their career, Blondie evidently want to move beyond their New Wave-era glories, and on their first album in five years, they're stretching out. They open it with an embarrassing stab at rap metal (just because Debbie Harry made "Rapture" doesn't mean she should bust a rhyme) and also attempt a drone-rock adaptation of an Okinawan folk song, some heavyish rockers and two draggy, jazz-inflected numbers with saxophones. Still, the vintage sound they're evading is precisely what they're best at. "Good Boys" is a deliberate evocation of their past disco groove — Chris Stein's guitar provides punk-funk punctuation, Harry sings with ice-goddess affectlessness — and the most fun song here by a New York mile. A few other moments recall Blondie's old hits, too ("End to End" is a lesser rewrite of "Call Me"), but too much of The Curse would be blandly anonymous if not for Harry's inimitable coo.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.