| Blondie | |
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Blondie in 1976
From Left: Jimmy Destri, Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Gary Valentine, Clem Burke |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, New York, United States |
| Genre(s) | New wave, pop rock, punk rock |
| Years active | 1976–1982 1997–present |
| Label(s) | Chrysalis/EMI Records Beyond/BMG Records SBMG Records |
| Members | |
| Deborah Harry Chris Stein Clem Burke Leigh Foxx Paul Carbonara Matt Katz-Bohen Jimmy Destri |
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| Former members | |
| Nigel Harrison Frank Infante Gary Valentine Fred Smith Billy O'Connor Eddie Martinez Ivan Kral |
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Blondie is an American rock band that first gained fame in the late 1970s and has so far sold over 60 million records.[1] The band was a pioneer in the early American new wave and punk rock scenes. Its first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, and although successful in the United Kingdom and Australia, Blondie was regarded as an underground band in the United States until the release of Parallel Lines in 1978. Over the next three years, the band achieved several hit singles and was noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles incorporating elements of disco, pop and reggae, while retaining a 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.[2] As members pursued other projects, Blondie's reputation grew over the following decade and the group reformed in 1997, achieving renewed success and a number one single in the United Kingdom with "Maria" in 1999. The group toured and performed throughout the world over the following years, and was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the RockWalk of Fame in 2006.[3]
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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 the band's vocalist, Deborah Harry. A former waitress and Playboy Bunny,[4] Harry had been a member of the folk-rock band, The Wind in the Willows, in the late 1960s. In 1974, Stein parted ways with The Stilettos and Elda Gentile, the band's originator. Stein and Harry formed a new band with drummer Billy O'Connor and bassist Fred Smith. By 1975, Smith and O'Connor had left, and the line-up was Stein and Harry plus drummer Clem Burke, keyboard player Jimmy Destri and bass player Gary Valentine. Originally billed as Angel and the Snake[5] the band renamed themselves Blondie in late 1975. The name was taken from comments from truck drivers who called "Hey, Blondie" to Harry as they drove by.[6] Two members of the original lineup were sisters Tish Bellomo and Eileen Bellomo (who is more commonly known as "Snooky"), who were both vocalists.[7] The two left the band, and now they are famous for starting the company Manic Panic.[7] The two of them are now the current vocalists in their band Sic Fucks[8], who only perform once a year.
Blondie became regulars at New York's Club 51, Max's Kansas City and CBGB.[9] They got their first record deal with Private Stock Records in the mid-1970s and released their debut album Blondie in 1976,[3] along with the single "X-Offender". Private Stock Records was then bought out by the UK-based company, Chrysalis Records, and the first album was re-released on the new label in 1977,[3] along with the single "Rip Her to Shreds". Rolling Stone wrote about Blondie for the first time in August 1977[10] 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".[11]
The band's 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".[3] Jimmy Destri later credited the show's Molly Meldrum for their initial success, commenting that "we still thank him to this day" for playing the wrong song.[12] 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".[13]
The single and album each reached the Australian top five 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 canceled a performance due to illness.[14]
1977 also saw the release of their second album, recorded as a four-piece band because Gary Valentine had left. Plastic Letters was promoted extensively throughout Europe and Asia by Chrysalis Records.[3] The album's first single, "Denis", was a cover version of Randy and the Rainbows' 1963 hit. It reached number two on the British singles charts, while both the album and its second single, "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear", reached the British top ten. That chart success, along with a successful 1978 UK tour including a gig at the Roundhouse (The Boomtown Rats opened), made Blondie one of the first American new wave bands to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom.[3] By this time, Gary Valentine had been replaced by Frank Infante (bass guitar/guitar), and shortly after that Nigel Harrison (bass guitar) was added, expanding the band to a six-piece for the first time.
Allmusic 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".[15]
Parallel Lines, Blondie's third album, was produced by Mike Chapman. Its first two singles were "Picture This" and "Hanging on the Telephone". "Heart of Glass" was their first U.S. hit. It 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 synthesizers and to rework the keyboard sections.[13] Although some members of the British music press condemned Blondie for "selling out", the song became a popular worldwide success. Selling more than one million copies and garnering major airplay, the single reached number one in many countries including the U.S., where, for the most part, Blondie had previously been 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 became their second hit single in the United States. Meanwhile in the UK, an alternate single choice, "Sunday Girl", became another number one smash.
Their fourth 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.[3] In the UK, the single "Atomic" reached number one, "Dreaming" number two, and "Union City Blue" was another top 20 hit, while in the U.S. their singles did not chart as strongly.[3]
Deborah Harry worked with the Italian songwriter and producer Giorgio Moroder, who had been responsible for Donna Summer's biggest hits, and they composed the song "Call Me" for the soundtrack of the film American Gigolo. The song spent six weeks at number one in the U.S. and became a hit throughout the world. Their album Autoamerican was released later that year and contained two more worldwide hits, the reggae-styled "The Tide Is High" and the rap-flavored "Rapture", which was the first song containing elements of hip-hop and rap vocals to reach number one in the U.S. and helped introduce the then-underground rap genre to a larger audience. "Rapture" would be the band's only single to achieve a higher chart position on the U.S. charts than in the UK, where it peaked at number five. By the end 1980, Blondie was one of the hottest bands in the country and were international sensations.
Following their success of 1978-80, Blondie took a brief break in 1981. That year, Debbie Harry and Jimmy Destri both released solo albums; Stein helped out with Harry's album Koo Koo, and Burke with Destri's Heart on a Wall. Also in 1981, Blondie was offered the chance to perform the theme to the new James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. They were under the impression that they had been asked to compose the track as well, but when they presented their song to the film's producers, they learned the offer was to record the theme already written by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson. The producers rejected Blondie's song and passed the offer on to Sheena Easton, who had a top ten hit with the Conti/Leeson song. Blondie's composition for the film was, however, included on their next album.
The band reconvened in 1982 to record and release The Hunter. In contrast to their earlier commercial and critical successes, The Hunter generally received lukewarm-to-negative reviews and failed to hit the top 20 in the U.S. The album did spin off two fairly minor hit singles: "Island of Lost Souls" (#11 UK, #37 US) and "War Child" (#39 UK).
With tensions within the band on the rise due to the commercial decline and the constant press focus on Harry to the exclusion of the other band members, events reached a breaking point when Stein was diagnosed with the life-threatening illness pemphigus. In August 1982, Blondie canceled their tour plans early and announced their break-up.
Stein and Harry (at the time a couple) stayed together, and retreated from the public spotlight for a few years. After Stein recovered from his illness, Harry resumed her solo career in 1985, with active participation from Stein in all her recordings. Meanwhile, Burke became a much-in-demand session drummer (and played for a time with Eurythmics), and Destri also maintained an active career as a producer and session musician.
During the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, Blondie's past work was recognized by a new generation of fans and artists including Madonna[16] Speaking in 1998, Clem Burke said he had recognized elements of Blondie in the band No Doubt, and Harry commented that she began to realize "our reputation had grown since we stopped".[13] Chrysalis/EMI Records also released several compilations and collections of remixed versions of some of its biggest hits.
In 1996, Stein began the process of reuniting Blondie and contacted Burke, Destri, and Valentine, who had by this time moved to London and become a full-time writer under his real name Gary Lachman; his New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation (2002) is a memoir of his years with the band. In 1997, the band reformed, performing live three times without Harrison and Infante, who had unsuccessfully sued to prevent the reunion under the name Blondie. An international tour in late 1998 and early 1999[17] followed. A new album, No Exit, was released in February 1999; it was described by Jimmy Destri as "15 songs about nothing".[13] It reached number three on the UK charts, and the first single, "Maria", which Destri had written thinking about his high school days,[18] became Blondie's sixth UK number one single exactly twenty years after their first chart-topper "Heart of Glass", giving the band the distinction of being the only American act to reach number one in the UK singles charts in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The band released the album The Curse of Blondie in October 2003. Curse was Blondie's least-successful album since its debut, although the single "Good Boys" managed to reach number 12 on the UK charts. In 2004 Jimmy Destri retired from touring, leaving only Harry, Stein and Burke from the original lineup appearing at live shows.[19]
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, reaching from their punk roots to embrace New Wave, disco, and hip hop.
In March 2006, Blondie, following an introductory speech by Shirley Manson of Garbage,[20][21] was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Seven members were invited to the ceremony, which led to an on-stage spat between the extant group and their former bandmates Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante, who asked during the live broadcast of the ceremony to be allowed to perform with the group, a request refused by Harry.[22] On May 22, 2006, Blondie was inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame at Guitar Center on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard. New inductees are voted on by previous Rock Walk inductees.[23]
On July 3, 2008, Blondie commenced a world tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Parallel Lines with a sell-out concert at the amphitheatre in Ra'anana, Israel. During the tour, drummer Clem Burke stated that the tour has inspired the band to make another record.[24] It will be their first new album since the release of The Curse of Blondie in 2003.
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