And We Danced

Originating out of the New York City Punk scene of the mid to late 1970’s, Blondie’s music revealed a musical eclecticism far beyond that of their contemporaries. Rightfully given credit for proving the value of merging Rock guitar and Punk attitude with Disco beats and introducing much of the world to early Hip-Hop, Blondie exerted a powerful influence on the future direction of American popular music.

Blondie first emerged in the fall of 1974 out of the nucleus of singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band played gigs at New York clubs such as CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. By the end of 1975 drummer Clem Burke, bassist Gary Valentine and keyboardist Jimmy Destri had joined to create a permanent lineup. The first self-titled Blondie album was released at the end of 1976. In 1977 Gary Valentine left and was replaced by Frank Infante. By the end of 1977 the group expanded to six with the addition of Nigel Harrison on bass and Infante switching to guitar. This became the standard Blondie lineup.

Blondie were a significant part of the burgeoning New York Punk scene of 1977. Their second album Plastic Letters, released in the fall, would be their first breakthrough. The song Denis became a top 10 Pop hit in the U.K. in the spring of 1978 and the album broke into the U.S. top 100. For the third album Parallel Lines, the group collaborated with Bubblegum Pop producer Mike Chapman, known for his successful work with Sweet, Exile, Nick Gilder and others. Parallel Lines is a multi-genre masterpiece. Energetic Pop-Rock tunes Picture This and Hangin’ On the Telephone climbed the U.K. charts, but it was the 3rd single Heart Of Glass that turned Blondie into stars. Fueled by a Disco bass and percussion line, Heart Of Glass topped the singles charts in both the U.S. and U.K. in 1979 and became Blondie’s first hit to appear on U.S. Dance charts.

Eat To the Beat followed in the fall of 1979 featuring a wide stylistic range of music from the Power Pop of Dreaming to 60’s reverbed guitar on Atomic and reggae beats in Die Young Stay Pretty. Some Blondie fans were shocked by the release of Call Me in early 1980. Composed by Debbie Harry and Disco producer Giorgio Moroder, Call Me was a brilliant merging of Punk energy and Disco style. The song perfectly set a decadent mood as title song for Paul Schrader’s film American Gigolo. Spending over a month near the top of Disco charts, Call Me firmly established Blondie as a group for club DJs to watch.

On the album Autoamerican, released in the fall of 1980, Blondie alienated many of their hard-line Punk fans but gained legions of new fans with the powerful one-two punch of The Tide Is High and Rapture. The Tide Is High, Blondie’s reworking of a tune by John Holt and the Paragons, brought reggae beats back to the top of American Pop charts. Rapture brought the emerging New York Hip-Hop scene to the attention of America as a whole. Rapture effectively name drops key early Hip-Hop figures like Fab Five Freddie and Grandmaster Flash as part of a cock-eyed horror movie tale rapped by Debbie Harry. The combination of the two songs gave Blondie their first chart-topping Dance hit.

Just when it seemed Blondie were exploding into superstar status, everything fell apart. A number of the group numbers had become disenchanted with the group’s eclectic approach that left some of them absent from ‘group’ recordings. The group managed to pull together for 1982’s disappointing The Hunter album, but by the fall the group had split up. Debbie Harry spent much of the following decade nursing Chris Stein back to health from the effects of a rare genetic disease. She made occasional appearances on the Dance chart as a solo artist and remix projects of the group’s work appeared in 1988 and 1994. A remix of Atomic was another #1 Dance hit for the group in 1995.

By the late 1990’s members of the original group began playing and recording together. The fruits of their labor appeared on 1999’s No Exit album. The leadoff single Maria became a top 10 Dance smash and Danny Tenaglia recorded a gorgeous extended mix of Nothing Is Real But the Girl. Another four year gap took place before the release of additional Blondie material. The single Good Boys returned Blondie once again to the top 10 of the Dance chart in early 2004 and the accompanying album The Curse Of Blondie was finally released in the U.S. in April.