Blondie were just too punk.
The band that grew out of the late ’70s New York scene surrounding CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City chafed punk hardliners when they first appeared. Their songs were too glitzy, too pop, too disco-indebted and too pretty. But in the true spirit of the movement, Debbie Harry and Co. couldn’t stop to give a sh*t what any scenesters thought. They were too busy smashing together B-movies, ska, disco and the early strains of ’50s-aping punk to let in the opinions of wrongheaded puritans.
Of course, that strong-headedness served them well, eventually landing them massive global hits that sanded down the group’s punk edges but left in Harry’s “who the hell are you?” sneer. Their stubbornness forged a band and a sound so strong that the group was able to stage a comeback more that 20 years after their first album, hitting No. 1 in the UK — who always loved them best — in 1999 with the single “Maria.”
Given that Blondie are looking to do it again with the release of their new album Pollinator, it seemed as good a time as any to revisit the career of the punk icons whose songs were simply too undeniable to be left off of the Top 40 charts. Rather than a top 10, we figured we’d offer a primer on one of the greatest and most unique acts to emerge from the New York punk scene (and just about the only one still doing it).
“In The Sun”
This track from Blondie’s self-titled debut is a perfect example of everything that grated people about the act early on. It also shows exactly what the band were known for in their early days, cherry-picking their favorite aspects of ska, punk and surf music and blending them all together with a helping of kitsch and cheese. Being this willfully goofy might stand to annoy some self-serious types, but “In The Sun” contains its own counterargument by virtue of being great.
“X Offender”
That’s not to say that Blondie were getting love outside their own circles. Truthfully, their debut album sold relatively poorly. If it weren’t for Aussies and Brits latching on to this song and the follow-up single “In The Flesh,” who knows if the group would have kept after it? Though it would take a few more albums for the band to break out in their own country, across the pond they went absolutely nuts for the bouncing keyboards, girl-group “oohs” and “aahs” — the group were huge fans of the Phil Spector-led tough girl groups of the ’60s — and Harry switching between high notes and a mocking deadpan.
Though the track has an ear toward pop, there’s definitely still a bit of anti-establishment sentiment in a band releasing a song based around the word “sex offender” as their debut single.
“(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear”
This track is a good indication that Blondie were always gunning toward something bigger than middling punk rock stardom. “Presence, Dear” kicks off almost in ballad mode, with Harry yearning for a few lines over some sustained organ chords. Of course, the group brings it back with a crashing and tight chorus that fits well with their roots.
But the cut from the 1977 album Plastic Letters contains a few major sins against the CBGBs aesthetic, not the least of which is a soaring guitar solo. This is a group that weren’t going to be the province of hip Brits for much longer.
“Heart of Glass”
This is it, the group’s biggest single step away from their early sound and their breakthrough hit in the states. “Heart Of Glass” is a shimmering slice of disco, an unstoppable pop move looking to capture the sound of the charts at the time. And Blondie knew that such a blatant nod toward the mainstream wasn’t going to fly with their friends.
“When we did ‘Heart Of Glass’ it wasn’t too cool in our social set to play disco,” Debbie Harry said in a later interview. “But we did it because we wanted to be uncool.”
The rest of the band were equally forthcoming with their disco nerdiness. Drummer Clem Burke said that he was actively trying to emulate drum patterns on Beegees songs. And while “Heart Of Glass” is an oddity among typical post-punk and new wave tracks that make up the rest of their 1978 album Parallel Lines, it’s definitely the track that made the album and the band a phenomenon.
“Hanging On The Telephone”
Did we mention that most of the tracks surrounding “Heart Of Glass” sounded like this? That had to be a shock for anyone who picked up the album expecting more cold Italo-disco sounds. This track is the exact opposite of the glistening pop pander of “Glass,” a neurotic stab of pop-punk that also happens to be a cover of short-lived cult favorites The Nerves.
While the single was a hit in its own right, joining the relentless “One Way Or Another” and helping push Parallel Lines toward its eventual 20 million albums sold mark, we can’t help but feel that this is a bit of a flex. Covering an unknown punk band like The Nerves and making it a hit on the same album as your global smash dance song is definitely a way for Blondie to remind the haters shouting “sell out” that this band is cooler and smarter than they’ll ever be.
“Dreaming”
Blondie got a taste of the pop life and they decided they liked it. Unfortunately, Eat To The Beat didn’t do as well as its predecessor, in spite of incredible bouts of craftmanship like the soaring cut “Dreaming” and the end-of-the-world dance party “Atomic.” Though the former would eventually works its way into how we remember the time period via soundtracks and end credits usage, it was only a modest hit at the time of its release. Given that this all-out pop gamble didn’t quite work, it’s easy to see where the grab bag aesthetic that closed out Blondie’s first run came from.
“Die Young, Stay Pretty”
Okay, so it wasn’t all pop. “Die Young, Stay Pretty” nodded back to the rocksteady and ska albums the group were pilfering in their early days, laying Harry’s sardonic vocal performances over a seemingly punk rock ideal. The whole song was an eye roll at the idea of living fast, delivered over a soundscape that the band genuinely loved. It’s also a reminder that the later songs from Autoamerican weren’t formed in a vacuum.
“Call Me”
After the somewhat stumble of Eat To The Beat, the group returned to the disco fold in search of another smash. And what they found there was about as divorced from Donna Summer as a song could get. Though the track was produced by disco legend Giorgio Moroder, this cut from the American Gigolo soundtrack scuffs the sheen off of the guitar chords that were ringing across dancefloors and leaves us with an aggressive and sexual stomp.
The song dismisses disco’s coyness just as readily, with Harry coming straight for the throat of her paramour. She makes sure that the only thing soft about this dance song left out in the rain are the designer sheets she wants to roll in. It’s one of the most naked and bold come-ons in the history of pop music and that’s why it endures.
“The Tide Is High”
Among the weird jazz freakouts and stilted rapping of 1980’s Autoamerican was this straightforward cover of ’60s hit by Jamaican group The Paragons. Harry really committed to the vocal, abandoning her trademark disaffection to wail “I’m not the kind of girl who gives up just like that.” Taken as a part of the whole, it’s another example of the endless ways that the group could reconfigure themselves, becoming a reggae act, a bunch of new wavers or a sleek disco outfit based on the whims and wants of themselves and their fans.
“Rapture”
Okay, so let’s get this out of the way. “Rapture” is more important than it is good. It’s famously the first rap song to reach number one on the mainstream charts and, as such, was many people’s first interaction with rap music in general. Debbie Harry’s game attempt sent people in search of the real thing and that’s to be commended, especially as the last successful gamble in a career that was absolutely full of them. From their genre-bending early days to their disco crossover and back, Blondie were always taking risks. And “Rapture” was probably the biggest of them all.
The band has gone on to have later hits — their comeback single “Maria” hit number 1 in the UK in 1999 — but this song marked the end of Blondie’s golden age. They would release one more album in their initial run before hanging it up for nearly two decades. Given that they are back again today with Pollinator, an album that sounds like a mish-mash of all of their peak sounds, maybe it’s time to admit that “Rapture” deserves a place in the canon. At the very least that bassline is a motherf*cker.
After you finish running through this skimming of the band’s history, check out their new album Pollinator below:
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