By Eleni P. Austin
It’s hard to believe, but Blondie is celebrating their 40th anniversary this year. The band formed in New York in 1974. Along with the Ramones, Television and Talking Heads, Blondie became the standard bearers for the nascent New York Punk Scene.
Lead singer, Deborah Harry grew up in Hawthorne, New Jersey. After finishing college in the mid-‘60s, she migrated to New York where she waitressed at Max’s Kansas City, was briefly a go-go dancer and worked as a Playboy Bunny before joining the folk rock band Wind In The Willows.
By the early ‘70s, she was singing with a group called the Stilettos, where she met guitarist, Chris Stein. The duo began a personal relationship and broke away from the Stilettos, intent on starting their own band.
They were originally the Angel and the Snake, (ugh). Taking their name from the cat-calls and taunts that Harry received walking the streets of New York, they quickly became Blondie. Recruiting drummer Clem Burke and bassist Gary Valentine they began gigging at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s. Adding keyboard player Jimmy Destri, the band signed to tiny Private Stock Records.
Produced by Richard Gottehrer, their self-titled debut arrived in 1976. Their sound was a potent combo-platter of trashy Punk Rock and sighing, Girl Group vulnerability. Harry’s vocals shifted from arch and dismissive to sensitive and heartfelt. The album did well in England and Australia but failed to chart in America.
Gary Valentine left, and as a four-piece the band bought out their Private Stock contract and signed with Chrysalis Records. With Gotthehrer again behind the boards, they released their sophomore effort, Plastic Letters, in 1977. The record fared well abroad, but the band still hadn’t broken through in America.
In 1978, Chrysalis hooked the band up with producer Mike Chapman. Along with producing partner Nicky Chinn, Chapman was responsible for most of the Glitter/Glam hits on the British charts by artists the Sweet, Suzi Quatro and Mud. Chapman streamlined Blondie’s songs. Adding a four-on-the-floor beat, he married two of New York’s indigenous sounds, Punk and Disco.
The resulting album, 1978’s Parallel Lines, catapulted the band to the top of the charts on both sides of the pond. The first single, “Heart Of Glass” went to #1 in eight countries. The follow up singles, “One Way Or Another” and “Hanging On The Telephone” also charted.
Guitarist Frank Infante and bassist Nigel Harrison had joined Blondie in time to record Parallel Lines, making the band a six-piece. But as far as the media was concerned, it was all about Deborah Harry. She was feted on the covers of magazines, and anointed as the Marilyn Monroe Of Punk, (even Andy Warhol became an acolyte). They soon adopted the slogan “Blondie is the name of the band.”
By the end of 1979, Blondie released their fourth album, Eat To The Beat. The album went platinum, charting three singles, “Dreaming,” “Union City Blue” and “Atomic.” The band’s contribution to the “American Gigolo” soundtrack, “Call Me,” assured their continued presence at the top of the charts.
The band continued at a punishing pace, and it was beginning to show. Their fifth album, 1980’s Autoamerican veered in a completely different direction. The first single, “The Tide Is High,” was a cover of an old Jamaican Ska hit. The second single, “Rapture,” was a massive hit. Here the band blended Disco, Funk, Jazz and Rap. More than anything, this song introduced Rap to the (White) masses.
Blondie’s last hurrah, The Hunter, arrived in 1982. It was met with indifference. The band quietly broke up. Harry and Stein spent the remainder of the decade dealing with Pemphigus, a rare autoimmune disease that Stein contracted. Harry sporadically pursued a solo career with negligible results.
Blondie reformed in 1999 and released No Exit to respectable sales. They followed up with The Curse Of Blondie, and Panic Of Girls in 2003 and 2011, respectively. To commemorate their 40th anniversary the band has released a two-disc set, Greatest Hits/Ghosts Of Download.
The first CD offers a truncated history of the band that doesn’t even include any tracks from “Plastic Letters.” The second disc offers 13 new songs. Although it’s credited to Blondie, it’s really just Deborah Harry and Chris Stein. Other Blondie members are glaringly absent.
The album opens with a pithy slice of Nuyorican Soul, “Sugar On The Side.” With hip-swiveling grace, Harry plays the wronged lover bent on revenge. “I left a note on the mirror, took the keys to the brand new car/So don’t get mad at me, ‘cause you know you treat me wrong/But with a little sugar on the side I’ll be fine.” Unfortunately, the song is ruined with an extraneous rap from Colombian Beat Collective, Systema Solara.
That’s the pattern on this record, halfway decent songs cocked up by superfluous guest “stars.” Three tracks, “Rave,” “I Screwed Up” and “A Rose By Any Other Name” start out promisingly and then wither on the vine.
“Rave” is a spacey, pulsating ode to an illicit assignation. ..“’Do Not Disturb’ is on the doorway, we are both inside burning up the room-rate.” The song features the gratuitous presence of Miss Guy, lead singer of the Toilet Boys.
“I Screwed Up” begins as a disarming Caribbean pastiche anchored by accordion and an oscillating cha-cha rhythm. Harry is blunt: “I fucked up, it isn’t like it’s the first time it happened/I got so wasted I was blowing kisses at your mother, I thought she was Johnny Depp in drag.” Of course the effervescent mood is ruined by a distracting rap en espanol from Los Rakas.
Powered by a four-on-the-floor Disco thump, “A Rose By Any Other Name” is a pansexual dance floor anthem. The addition of Gossip vocalist, Beth Ditto feels more like a subtraction.
A couple of songs, “Winter” and “I Want To Drag You Around” aren’t bad. On the former, Harry puts a duplicitous lover in his place with this withering couplet, “If honesty kills, you’re going to have a long life.” The melody is piloted by stabby ‘80s synths and an honest-to-god guitar solo.
The latter is propelled by frisky synths and a slithery sitar-like guitar. Harry offers up this admission, “The details they don’t matter much to me.” Uh…duh. Clearly inattention to detail is the theme of this record.
The rest of the album is kind of ho-hum. Songs like “Take Me In The Night,” “Make A Way” and “Mile High” are pleasant but not essential. “Euphoria” borrows the Brazilian rhythms Paul Simon employed on his “Obvious Child” song, while “Take It Back” offers an amped-up amphetamine beat.
The most glaring mis-step on Ghosts.. is the pointless recast of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” as a lounge-y piano ballad. Nothing like savoring outre’ (for 1984), lyrics like “Relax, don’t do it when you want to suck and chew it, relax when you want to come,” over languid piano runs.
The album closes with the rubbery Reggae of “Backroom.” It feels dull and uninspired. Deborah Harry and Blondie were trendsetters and pioneers. She practically invented the sneering sexuality that later launched the careers of Madonna and Lady Gaga.
Now she’s singing with “guest stars.” Maybe that kind of pandering crap works for Santana, but here it just feels lazy. Had they just labelled this a Deborah Harry solo album it might have been less of a disappointment.
Ghosts Of Download is unsatisfying and depressing. Ultimately, the legacy of Blondie has been tarnished. What a drag.
