Pitchfork

Deborah Harry was the quintessential punk frontwoman: platinum out front, jet black in the back, wit as sharp as her cheekbones, strong enough for CBGB's bathrooms, yet gentle enough to hang with the Muppets. Without her, there'd be no Madonna, Gwen, or Lily Allen, and the Misshapes kids wouldn't know how to pout in pictures.

As iconic as she was fronting Blondie, her solo work has never been as consistent. Instead of albums, Harry's best moments often come in singles, soundtracks, or cameos, such as her cover of the Castaways' "Liar Liar", from Married to the Mob, "Rush Rush", from Scarface, or mugging with Iggy Pop on "Did You Evah", from the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue. And that's the key: Harry works best as a collaborator. But sometimes, even the best collaborators aren't always the right ones, like the Nile Rogers-produced Koo Koo that strangely fell flat.

Necessary Evil, her first solo album in 14 years, sets up an interesting scenario: it's Harry's three-decade musical journey through punk, dance, hip-hop, world music, and jazz, as well as offering a rare perspective from a non-Botoxed, 63-year-old woman in the rock world. The Rolling Stones will be singing about sweet young things when they're 100, but when Liz Phair dared to broach the topic of sex as a late-30s divorced mom, her former fanboys cried foul. (That the songs themselves weren't all that great is another matter). But Harry's not your mom's mom. The fiercely independent, still-single Harry approaches themes of love and intimacy as sources of strength and weakness, and when she reveals her rarely seen vulnerable side, it's an act of bravery. "Two Times Blue", the soaring first single, cheekily says it all, "Well maybe, I could've been better. Yeah, maybe I've been kind of bad."

The bulk of the songs, co-written and produced by New York City production team Super Buddha (Scissor Sisters, Rufus Wainwright), are in the dance-rock template of Blondie's "Atomic", with some soft-focus acoustic numbers and string-drenched ballads like "What Is Love" and "If I Had You". Like "Rapture" and Fab Five Freddy, there's another tribute to a rapper, a celebration of Lil' Kim on "Dirty and Deep". In "Charm Alarm", a duet with the Toilet Boys' Guy Furrow, Harry refers to him as "a dainty jewel hooked on a chain, a souvenir of some other time," but she could be talking about herself. Harry's voice has improved with age, dropping to a lower, huskier tone that's both menacing and sexy.

It's not until the last few tracks that Harry finds her best collaborator-- naturally, it's former Blondie bandmate and paramour Chris Stein-- on the hypnotic groove of "Jen Jen", which loops an African work chant, and "Naked Eye", which uses tattoos as metaphors for romantic histories. "Your ink can't rub off on me, but yet you mark me easily," she sings over tribal drums and Middle Eastern guitar lines. Necessary Evil's chilling closer is "Paradise", a seemingly gentle ballad backed by the Jazz Passengers' Roy Nathanson and Bill Ware, where Harry ethereally meditates on a suicide bomber's last thoughts of ecstasy. It's here, on this quiet song about a troubling subject, that Harry finally finds her place.