Blondie (band)
Blondie is an
American rock band that first gained fame in the late
1970s and early
1980s. They were pioneers in the early American
punk rock and
New Wave scene. Their first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, and although they were successful in
Australia and the
United Kingdom, Blondie were regarded as an
underground band in the
United States until the release of their third album in 1978. Over the next three years, they achieved several hit singles and were noted for their eclectic mix of musical styles as they incorporated elements of
disco,
dance,
hip hop and
reggae, while retaining their basic style as a new wave band.
Lead singer
Deborah Harry achieved a level of celebrity that eclipsed other band members leading to tension within the group. Following a poorly received album, and with core member
Chris Stein diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, the group disbanded in 1982. As members pursued other projects, Blondie's reputation grew over the following decade and the group reformed in 1998, achieving renewed success and a number one single in the United Kingdom the following year. The group toured and performed throughout the world over the following years, and were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.
In the early 1970s,
Chris Stein moved to
New York City, and inspired by the
New York Dolls, aimed to join a similar band. He joined "The Stilettos" in 1973 as their
guitarist, and formed a romantic relationship with one of the band's vocalists,
Deborah Harry. A former waitress and
Playboy Bunny, Harry had been a member of the folk-rock band "Wind in the Willows" in the late 1960s. In 1974 she parted ways with "The Stilettos" and Elda Gentile, the band's originator. Stein and Harry formed a new band with drummer
Clem Burke, keyboard player
Jimmy Destri and bass player
Gary Valentine. Originally billed as "Angel and the Snake" the band soon renamed themselves "Blondie", the name was taken from comments from truck drivers who called "Hey Blondie" to Harry as they drove by.
They became regulars at
New York's Club 51,
Max's Kansas City, and
CBGB's. They got their first record deal with
Private Stock Records in the mid 70s, and released their debut album
Blondie in 1976, along with the single "
X-Offender". Private Stock Records was then bought out by the U.K based company
Chrysalis Records and the first album was re-released on the new label in 1977 along with the single "
Rip Her To Shreds". By this time Valentine had been replaced by
Nigel Harrison, and another guitarist
Frank Infante had been added.
Rolling Stone wrote about Blondie for the first time in August 1977, and observed the eclectic nature of the group's music, comparing it to
Phil Spector and
The Who and commented that the album's two strengths were
Richard Gottehrer's production, and the persona of Deborah Harry, saying she performed with "utter aplomb and involvement throughout: even when she's portraying a character consummately obnoxious and spaced-out, there is a wink of awareness that is comforting and amusing yet never condescending". It also noted that Harry was the "possessor of a bombshell zombie's voice that can sound dreamily seductive and woodenly
Mansonite within the same song".
The album was not a commercial success in the U.S.
Their first commercial success occurred in Australia in 1977 when the music television program
Countdown mistakenly played their video "
In the Flesh", which was the b-side of their current single "
X-Offender". The video was well received and gained popularity through repeated screenings. The program's host and talent co-ordinator,
Ian Meldrum, enthusiastically promoted the band and Chrysalis Records released "In The Flesh" as a single in its own right. Jimmy Destri later credited Meldrum for their initial success, commenting that "we still thank him to this day" for playing the wrong song.
In a 1998 interview bandmember Clem Burke recalled seeing the episode in which the wrong song was played but he and Chris Stein suggested that it may have been a deliberate subterfuge on the part of Meldrum. Stein asserted that "X-Offender" was "too crazy and aggressive [to become a hit]", while "In the Flesh" was "not representative of any punk sensibility. Over the years, I've thought they probably played both things, but liked one better. That's all". In retrospect Burke described "In the Flesh" as "a forerunner to the
power ballad".
|
Blondie, 1976. From left to right : Gary Valentine, Clem Burke, Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Jimmy Destri. |
The single and album each reached the top 5 in October 1977, and a subsequent double-a release of "X-Offender" and "
Rip Her to Shreds", was also popular. A successful Australian tour followed in December, though it was marred by an incident in
Brisbane when disappointed fans almost rioted after Harry cancelled a performance due to illness.
The following year they released their second album,
Plastic Letters which Chrysalis Records promoted extensively throughout Europe. The album's first single, "
Denis", a cover version of
Randy and the Rainbows's 1963 hit, reached number two on the British singles charts, while both the both the album, and the second single, "
(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear" each reached the top ten, making Blondie one of the first American new wave bands to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom.
All Music Review later described
Plastic Letters as inferior to its predecessor, saying that with the exception of the two singles, it appeared to have been constructed from "leftovers" from the
Blondie album. It noted that Gottehrer's production could not compensate for the "pedestrian musical tracks" or save the album from "general mediocrity".
Their next album
Parallel Lines was produced by
Mike Chapman, and its first two singles, "Picture This" and "
Hanging on the Telephone", were hits in the U.K. The next single "
Heart of Glass" was a reworking of a rock song that the group had performed since its formation, but updated with strong elements of
disco music. Clem Burke later said the revamped version was inspired partly by
Kraftwerk and partly by the
Bee Gee's "Stayin' Alive", whose drum beat Burke tried to emulate. He and Stein gave Jimmy Destri much of the credit for the final result, noting that Destri's appreciation of technology had led him to introduce synthesisers and to rework the keyboard sections .
[>] Although some members of the British music press condemned Blondie for "selling out" the song became a worldwide success, selling more than one million copies, and reaching number one in many countries including the U.S. where until this point they had been largely considered an "underground" band. The song was accompanied by a music video that showcased Deborah Harry's hard-edged and playfully sexual persona, and she began to attain a celebrity status that set her apart from the other band members, who were largely ignored by the media.
Blondie's next single in the U.S. was a more aggressive rock song, "
One Way or Another" and it reached the top 30 but the band's greatest success continued to be in the U.K. where "Sunday Girl" reached number one.
Their next album
Eat to the Beat was well received by critics as a suitable follow up to
Parallel Lines but in the U.S. it failed to achieve the same level of success. In the U.K., the single "Atomic" reached number one, and "Dreaming" and "Union City Blue" were substantial hits, while in the U.S. they achieved only minor success.
Deborah Harry worked with the
Italian songwriter and producer
Giorgio Moroder, who was responsible for some of
Donna Summer's biggest hits, and they composed the song "
Call Me" for the soundtrack of the film
American Gigolo. The song became the biggest hit of Blondie's career spending seven weeks at number one in the U.S. and becoming a hit throughout the world. Their album
Autoamerican was released shortly after and contained two more worldwide hits, the reggae styled "
The Tide Is High" and the hip-hop "
Rapture", both U.S. and U.K. number one singles. "Rapture" was the first song containing elements of
rap music vocals to reach number one in the U.S. and helped introduce the then underground hip-hop genre to a larger audience.
Blondie's popularity declined rapidly; despite two number one singles, Chrysalis Records elected not to release a third single from
Autoamerican and stopped promoting the album in favour of Deborah Harry's solo album
Koo Koo (1981), which attracted mediocre reviews and insubstantial sales.
Rolling Stone's review placed most of the blame for the album's failure on the producers and songwriters,
Nile Rodgers and
Bernard Edwards though it also commented that "Harry is less a trained singer than a moody presence, someone who can breathe atmosphere into a tune without benefit of a wide vocal range".
Blondie's next album
The Hunter (1982) and the single "Island of Lost Souls" were released to largely negative reviews. The single barely made the U.S. charts, peaking at number 37 and became their final top 40 hit. An extensive U.S. tour was commenced, but many shows were cancelled due to low ticket sales.
Blondie disbanded in 1982, amidst media reports of tension within the group and Harry launched a solo career. Stein developed the autoimmune disease,
pemphigus vulgaris and while Harry nursed him over the course of several years, she disregarded her career and did not perform for five years. Clem Burke was a highly regarded session musician and during this period his most notable work was with
Eurythmics.
During the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, Blondie's past work was recognised by a new generation of fans as artists such as
Elastica and
Blur cited them as an influence, and Chrysalis Records released remixed versions of some of their biggest hits. Speaking in 1998, Clem Burke said he had recognized elements of Blondie in the band
No Doubt, while Harry commented that she began to realize "our reputation had grown since we stopped".
In 1996, Stein began the process of a Blondie reunion and contacted Destri, who was then producing, and Burke. In 1998, the band reformed, without Harrison and Infante who unsuccessfully sued to prevent the reunion under the name "Blondie". The album,
No Exit, described by Jimmy Destri as "15 songs about nothing",
reached number 3 on the U.K. charts, and the song "
Maria", which Destri had written while in high school
, became a number one single. During this time Harry also worked as a vocalist for the
avant-garde jazz troupe,
The Jazz Passengers, after collaborating with them on their 1997 debut album
Individually Twisted.
In 1999,
BBC Radio aired a documentary on the band: "Sunday Girl: The Blondie story",
BBC Radio 2, (first aired 1999/09/18), presented by
Toyah Willcox.
They released the album
The Curse of Blondie in October 2003, followed by the single "
Good Boys". The continue to tour, but by May 2006 Jimmy Destri had left the band, leaving only Harry, Stein and Burke from the original lineup.
In 2006, a
mash up of Blondie's "Rapture" and
The Doors "Riders on the Storm" was released as a single titled "Rapture Riders", and reached the top 30 on the Australian
ARIA charts, and the top 10 on
Billboard Hot Dance Club chart. Neither Harry nor Stein were involved in the song's production, but Harry commented that the song was "amazingly good.... it's rare that I really love something"
and Stein also approved of the song, with the two allowing it to be included on Blondie's
Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision album.
By 1982, the year the band broke up, Blondie had released six studio albums, each exhibiting a stylistic progression from the last. The band is known, not only for the striking stage persona and vocal performances of Harry, but also for incorporating elements in their work from numerous subgenres of
popular music, including
punk,
new wave,
disco, and
hip hop.
In March of 2006, Blondie was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. All six members from the "Parallel Lines" era line-up were invited to the ceremony, which led to an on-stage spat between the group and their former bandmates Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante when the latter pleaded to be allowed to perform with the group at the ceremony - a request refused by Harry.
A BBC documentary on the group, aired Friday July 21 2006, discussed the legal battle between Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante, on one side, and the present day band, on the other (most likely over terms of their implied 'partnership' agreement as a band). This has something to do with the frosty reception they received from Harry and Stein at the induction.[
1]
Blondie have influenced many musicians - among them
Madonna,
Shirley Manson, the band
L7, and
Gwen Stefani. Musical critics have drawn many parallels to the band
No Doubt, including the drastic stylistic changes from album to album, and the enormous popularity of their lead singers versus the rest of the band.
On May 22, 2006, Blondie was inducted into the RockWalk of Fame, at
Guitar Center on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard. Especially important regarding Blondie's RockWalk induction is the fact that currently, RockWalk inductions are voted on by previous RockWalk inductees, making this truly a musician's award.
They remain the only American act to reach number one in the U.K. singles charts in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Coincidentally, their last number one hit, Maria, topped the UK charts exactly twenty years after their first chart-topper, Heart of Glass did in 1979.
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Clem Burke - percussion (1975-present)
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Paul Carbonara - guitar (2004-present)
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Jimmy Destri - keyboards (1975-2004)
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Leigh Foxx - bass (2004-present)
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Nigel Harrison - bass (1977-1982)
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Deborah Harry - lead vocals (1974-present)
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Frank Infante - bass, then guitar (1977-1982)
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Kevin Patrick aka
Kevin Topping - keyboards (2006-present)
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Chris Stein - guitar (1974-present)
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Gary Valentine aka
Gary Lachman - bass (1975-1977)
Studio albums
Compilations
Singles
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List of best-selling music artists*
List of best-selling albums worldwide
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blondieforum.com, a forum about Blondie and Deborah Harry, exclusive downloads
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blondie.net, official Blondie web site
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deborahharry.com, official Deborah Harry web site
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deborah-harry.com, Deborah Harry web site
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The Complete Blondie Discography, Extensive Blondie / Deborah Harry Discography
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Blondie, From Punk to the Present: A Pictorial History, compilation book on Debbie Harry and Blondie.
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"The Blondie Review", independent Blondie fanzine
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"Blondie and Debbie", Fangroup with news postings, polls, photos, etc
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rip-her-to-shreds.com, UK Blondie site including extensive press and memoribilia sections
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UnRated Magazine: Blondie Review*
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame entry
