Parallel Lines - Blondie

...There is also a strange parallel here where we have Destri writing songs about lusting after women, sung by one of the most lusted after women of all time. '11:59' is no different, a fantastic, urgent, insistent song, one of the best on the album, with a fine opening line: "Leaning in your corner like a candidate for wax/Sidewalk social scientists don't get no satisfaction from your cigarette".

Jack Lee, he of the aforementioned ...
...'Will Anything Happen?', which signals its urgency and threat with the opening buzzsaw guitar riff. Probably more 'punk' than most of the rest of the album, this is still a fine tune.

One of Blondie's biggest hits was 'Sunday Girl', written by Chris Stein about his and Harry's absent cat Sunday Man. It has such a sweet, coying melody that sucks you in and remains in your head for ages, the guitars and drums heralding the arrival of ... more

'Parallel Lines': the story of how a small punk band from downtown New York ate the world.

First, the history lesson, so concentrate: In 1977/78, Blondie (vocalist Debbie Harry, guitarist Chris Stein, rhythm guitarist Frank Infante, bassist Nigel Harrison, keyboardist Jimmy Destri and drummer extraordinaire Clem Burke) were looking to break away from the punk label they had been tagged with. They had had some success in Britian with a cover of Randy & The Rainbows 60's pop nugget 'Denis', while their second album 'Plastic Letters' was met with critical acclaim. The band were looking to expand on that success with an album which would crystallise their vision. 'Parallel Lines' was released and for a short, fabulous time, Blondie were the biggest and best band on the planet.

It is hard to understate the importance of 'Parallel Lines' as it has informed so much of modern pop music. In short, this is quite the masterpiece. Blondie deserve a place at pop's round table on the merits of 'Parallel Lines' alone. It is a shame that this album, and generally this band I feel, have been forgotten in the mists of time (despite a recent, underwhelming reunion) while rather over-rated bands like Aerosmith and U2 get the accolades and acclaim and Lifetime Achievement Awards a'plenty. Blondie are extremely under-rated, so you should dig out 'Parallel Lines' as soon as possible just to make you aware of how important this band are to modern music.

Blondie came at an important time in music. Punk had cleared the battlefield for a new wave of music and now it was time for something fresh and new. Until Blondie came, having a woman front a serious rock band was almost unheard of (the one exception that springs to mind being Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane/Starship). Countless bands with female frontwomen have followed in Blondie's path, inspired by Debbie Harry and her trailblazing success. Without Harry and Blondie there would be no Madonna, no Garbage, no Cardigans, no Joan Jett, no Hole. Blondie are also pop art at its finest, the kind of band Andy Warhol wished he imagined, they are by turns counter-culture and mass culture, punk and pop, for-the-masses and elite, esoteric and popular and a whole host of other contradictions that make them so good. Their 'cool' clothes (courtesy of designer Stephen Sprouse), ironic lyrics and simple yet deceptive melodies define who they are. What is even more brilliant is that they were all too aware of how cool they were, Harry's trashy glamour making her an icon of the 1970's.

'Parallel Lines' opens with 'Hanging On The Telephone', a frantic, urgent opening in which Harry demands for the listener not to dare to hang up on her. Here we find a glimmer of Blondie's punk past, something they were apparently keen to forget but something which they would use to their advantage by proving that even a punk band could cross boundaries and move into the mainstream and then take the shocking step into... gosh... disco. More on that later. 'Hanging On The Telephone' was written by Jack Lee, of the American punk band the Nerves, who have been lost in the sands of time over the years.

The memorable 'One Way Or Another' follows, inspired by an obsessed ex-boyfriend of Harry's, one of Blondie's most memorable tracks, often covered and used in films and TV advertisements. It is one of Blondie's finest moments, as Harry demonstrates her most aggressive vocal over urgent new wave guitars, informing her target that she's gonna 'getcha getcha getcha'. Shades of punk here once again and also one of the most memorable guitar openings of all time.

'Picture This' is a coy, elegant ode to a loved one, perhaps. It certainly contains an ambiguous lyric - 'I would give you my finest hour/The one I spent watching you shower' - woah, slow down there! Not as frantic as most of the rest of this album, but still a good song. 'Fade Away And Radiate' is the slowest song on the album and a hint of the strangeness that Blondie would seek to explore later on in their career. This song highlights best the eclecticism in Blondie that they would include on a record that is highly commercial and mass product a song that is so un-commercial and certainly not single material. Robert Fripp, who, trivia fans, is married to Toyah Wilcox, guest stars on guitar on this number and he adds a sense of unearthly weirdness to the mix, his eerie guitar mixing well with the more down-the-line stylings of Harrison and Infante.

'Pretty Baby' follows, a song written by Harry and Stein about the (then) teenage (then) actress Brooke Shields, apparently. This song sounds so timeless, like we've heard it before, it strikes a chord with us. Blondie here seem like a band on cruise control, effortlessly knocking out quality song after quality song, and would have made for another successful single. The somewhat lightweight 'I Know But I Don't Know', written by Frank Infante, is possibly the weakest track on the album, yet the plinky-plonk keyboards that open the song are cute and this is one the few Blondie songs where you actually get to hear one of the guys (Infante) singing. Infante would find his role increasingly marginalized as Blondie moved further into experimenting and diversification into different styles of music, and by 1982 when the band split up he would have no role in the band seemingly other than to appear on album covers and in videos.

Keyboardist Jimmy Destri composed the next little number, the awesome '11:59'. Destri is greatly under-appreciated as a driving creative force behind Blondie as the media, when they cover Blondie, tend to focus a lot on the Harry/Stein axis as the nucleus of the band. That may have an element of truth in it, as after all they did put the rest of the band together, but Destri's role should be acknowledged in Blondie history as the writer of some mighty fine tunes. Destri's songs usually deal with unrequited love and teenage angst, another good example being the recent comeback hit 'Maria'. There is also a strange parallel here where we have Destri writing songs about lusting after women, sung by one of the most lusted after women of all time. '11:59' is no different, a fantastic, urgent, insistent song, one of the best on the album, with a fine opening line: "Leaning in your corner like a candidate for wax/Sidewalk social scientists don't get no satisfaction from your cigarette".

Jack Lee, he of the aforementioned Nerves, also contributed another track to this album, the punky 'Will Anything Happen?', which signals its urgency and threat with the opening buzzsaw guitar riff. Probably more 'punk' than most of the rest of the album, this is still a fine tune.

One of Blondie's biggest hits was 'Sunday Girl', written by Chris Stein about his and Harry's absent cat Sunday Man. It has such a sweet, coying melody that sucks you in and remains in your head for ages, the guitars and drums heralding the arrival of a perfect opening line: "I know a girl from a lonely street/Cold as ice cream but still as sweet/Dry your eyes, Sunday Girl". Blondie really should be teaching masterclasses in songwriting because here we have the quintessential pop song, bittersweet, yearning, cute and spunky. Harry's vocals are exceptionally good on this track, where she sounds so sweet and innocent, yet with a subtle undertone of menace. Genius!

And so to the disco song, otherwise known as 'Heart Of Glass'. Blondie stunned the punk community when they released this as a single. Blondie moved into the big league with 'Heart Of Glass'. Cries of 'sell-out' came from the punk fringe, who were so annoyed that Blondie had dared to move beyond the so constrictive realms of punk and cross over not only into the mainstream but the dreaded enemy of disco! This highlights Blondie's refusal to be boxed in by one single tag, their willingness to learn and expand into other styles of music and their sheer balls for doing something that no other 'punk' band would have dared.

Harry has commented that punk icons such as Joey Ramone and Joan Jett were exceptionally scornful of Blondie's move into enemy territory, but instead Blondie's boldness should be applauded as ultra-cool trendsetters, directly influencing the mixings of dance and rock that was to be a heavy chart feature in the 1980's. And this trend-setting and genre-hopping wouldn't just be a one-off, as Blondie would later turn their hands to hip-hop with 'Rapture', with Harry being the first white rapper, and to reggae on the soothing, lilting 'The Tide Is High'. 'Heart Of Glass', though, is a phenomenal record, and its importance to the course of popular music should never be underplayed. The band is on cruise control, oozing cool from every pore, arriving with a song which seems like effortless genius. The song also defines the entire Blondie approach to life and love - while other female singers were warbling on about how their hearts have been broken by some cruel, evil man but they are desperate to have him back, Harry here says "Once had a love and it was a gas/Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass'. Harry plays the icon with cool detachment and nobody else can do it as good.

The Mauldin-Sullivan-Petty composed number 'I'm Gonna Love You Too' follows, and is frantic, frenzied, hysterical pop at its very best. The opening 'uh-uh-uh-uh's are furious in their pace and the pace doesn't relent at all throughout the song. The album closes with 'Just Go Away', a Harry-composed ditty about how she wants a former love not to hang around but, well, go away. Harry repeats the cool detachment of 'Heart Of Glass' once again here and pulls it off to maximum effect.

This album was recently digitally re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks and new sleeve notes from producer Mike Chapman. Chapman, it is important to note, was a massive figure in Blondie's transformation from a semi-respected punk band to international pop stars. A former producer of the Sweet, Suzi Quatro and other glam rock stars, his natural pop sensibilities brought the best out of Harry, Stein and company, and made them more commercial than before. Credit is due to Chapman as well for the record sounding so fresh and contemporary after so many years, the production here really is faultless. His new sleeve notes are also refreshingly frank and honest, he praises the band when it is due but slams them when it isn't, he doesn't suck up to them in any shape or form and this is much better than having somebody who would write reams upon reams of praise without exposing any kind of truth behind the scenes. Chapman's sleeve notes carry on through 'Eat To The Beat' through to Blondie's final album 'The Hunter', when his honesty becomes painfully frank.

The bonus tracks add something different to the mix. Firstly we have 'Once I Had A Love', the original form of 'Heart Of Glass', which was originally conceived as a reggae song (note the experimentation even at this early stage) but one which Chapman turned into a massive shiny disco number. This is an excellent example of a work in progress and an indicator of the freshness that Chapman brought to the band almost as a seventh member. After this we have three live tracks, the first of which, 'Bang A Gong', is a cover of the T-Rex classic. Blondie, sadly, do not do the song justice and the same can be said of the other two live tracks 'I Know But I Don't Know' and 'Hanging On The Telephone', which just don't seem to have any atmosphere. It is popularly regarded that Blondie were an excellent band on record but quite average live, and from the evidence on display here I would tend to agree. The band seem to meander on pointless solos, padding songs out for no particular reason and there just doesn't seem to be any life in evidence.

Still, as an product of its time 'Parallel Lines' still sounds fresh and modern, the template for modern pop for years to come. One day this band will be afforded the critical respect they rightfully deserve, and when that day comes, you can bet I'll be dancing in the streets. 

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