I picked up “Parallel Lines” from my local charity shop for £1 before Christmas and I’ve been playing it in the car almost non-stop ever since. I hadn’t listened to it for over 30 years and I’d forgotten what a wonderful thing it is. From the iconic cover to the last drop it’s so of it’s time but different because of Debbie Harry. I don’t know much else about Blondie I have to admit, maybe there isn’t much else to know but where better to ask than here? (Bets can be placed on when “that” picture will be posted…..) “Picture This” indeed!
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retropath2 says
It and its predecessor, Plastic letters were the 2 albums that really connected with me, surprising both their CBGB cohorts and the listening world. Fabulous. Would love to have seen them live then, I think, unless it was just studio brilliance.
jockblue says
I saw them on the very first day of the 1980s – my first concert let out on my own… (which is pretty cool compared to the first single I ever bought (Two Little Boys!) and album (Bat out of Hell) )
They played for about an hour and a quarter, seem to recall DH looked gorgeous, but it was all over far too soon….
fentonsteve says
I recently read the Kris Needs book Parallel Lives, which covers early years to the Panic of Girls LP. A real page turner for a new-wave nerd like me. It’s about to be revised.
I loved Blondie so much in my youth that I have passed up on the opportunity to see the reuinion tours. I have a mental image of Debbie at 30-odd, not 70, and I don’t want to break the spell.
Carl says
I’m not sure which “that” picture you mean as there are probably at least half a dozen famous and very memorable photos of Debbie Harry from the late 70s and early 80s.
Black Type says
I love their music and Debbie’s iconic status, and admired her greatly for the way she looked after Chris Stein when he was seriously ill, but I have to say that my adoration has been somewhat reduced in recent years by the vindictive and mean-spirited way the both of them have treated the other (former) band members, who to a greater or lesser degree contributed to their success.
fentonsteve says
Agreed, but that was already starting after Parallel Lines. By the time of Eat To The Beat, Chris did all the guitars in the studio. The shambles at the Hall of Fame awards did them no favours.
Jackthebiscuit says
I saw them live 3 years ago & they were fantastic (& I still would).
Uncle Wheaty says
The 1979 New Years Eve performance from the Glasgow Apollo on YouTube, it was a “simulcast” (remember them) on BBC TV and Radio 1 in glorious stereo on FM (none of your 275/285 medium wave shit).
I remember as a 14 year old being transfixed by the performance.
A great way to end the 1970s and Pink Floyd were no.1 in the singles chart as well!
Clem Burke does a great Keith Moon impression during Union City Blue.
Happy days!
Black Celebration says
Fantastic band and great songs. I saw a documentary where there was the time-honoured resentment that the singer got all the attention. They were a band after all – not just Debbie Harry. True – yet the band traded heavily on the star quality of DH, even unto the name of the band itself. If Stein (the songwriter) and the singer regarded themselves as the most important part of the unit – well that’s because they were.
Debbie Harry was also a great example of a female singer that was in total control. Like her contemporaries, Siouxsie, Chrissie Hynde and Kate Bush.
Hawkfall says
The Best of Blondie is one of the world’s great compilation albums. This is widely regarded as scientific fact and there are lots of data to back this up.
I’ve got a few of their albums and to be honest, I think you only really need The Best of and Parallel Lines.
Debbie Harry doesn’t get the credit she deserves for giving early Hip Hop a lot of exposure, and not only via the Rapture video. She and Chris Stein were involved well before other pop stars.
metal mickey says
I’d also make a case for “Autoamerican” as an album to add to Greatest Hits & Parallel Lines – it’s ridiculously eclectic, featuring semi-classical, reggae, disco/rap and jazz amongst their stock-in-trade new wave powerpop, even a showtune to finish off (Follow Me from Camelot), and probably marks the beginning of the end for them, but I have a soft spot for it…
And I’d recommend original bassist Gary Valentine’s book “New York Rocker” – by default it stops just as the story really gets going – he’s sacked during the making of “Plastic Letters, though he did write (I’m Always Touched By) Your Presence Dear – but it’s very vivid on the early days, and he’s not as bitter as he might be…
mutikonka says
I played Plastic Letters to death when I first copied it on to a cassette from a mate’s LP. When I hear the songs now I still anticipate the chewed up bits where the tape got mangled and I had to repair it with sellopate. When Parallel Lines came out I thought it sounded a bit lightweight and poppy by comparison, but still loved it. Still worth a listen but I don’t have much time for the current Blondie after seeing the way they humiliated the original members on Hall of Fame.
moseleymoles says
A proper Imperial Period: Plastic Letters, Parallel Lines, Eat To The Beat, Autoamerican all superb. And around 1980/1 one of the the biggest bands in the world possibly – 4 US number ones in two years and possibly the only band from punk/new wave to be as big in the US as here (helps they were American of course).
On another Parallel Lines matter, it was many years before I realised Hanging On The Telephone was a cover.
Hawkfall says
I only discovered a few years back that Women in Uniform by Iron Maiden was a cover. They never taught you that in school. I blame the Tories.
fentonsteve says
Is their a finer example of jumping the shark than The Hunter?