When I was barely a teen for instance Debbie Harry was there, striding dreamily across badly lit beginning-of-the-eighties tv studio stages with flashing disco lights behind her while my jaw dropped; she was there staring out of countless posters of countless older teenage sisters’ walls, not only mine, while my knees gently buckled; Blondie was the backbeat to the onset of my teens. Blondie the band and Debbie Harry the singer were just cool.
They just were. Part of the 70s new wave cum punk NY phenomenon, they were a proper rock band: they were fucked up, they took drugs, they imploded, former bandmates sued them, they were thrown off labels, feted, castigated, and eventually the lead singer, after dealing with her own drug problems and selling her and lead guitarist boyfriend’s five storey 5 million dollar mansion to pay off band debts, went on to lead a less successful solo career before the band finally, much later, reunited to be eventually inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. See what I mean? You don’t get much more proper rock band than that. They had great songs, they had attitude, they rocked, they did new wave, they did hard dirty rock music, they were the first ones to hit No1 with a rap song, they gave birth to Garbage and No Doubt, they were cool. Did I mention that?
From their definitive cover of Tide Is High to the Kraftwerk-inspired Heart of Glass to that first rap hit, Rapture, to the hard new wave rock of Call Me to the disco of Atomic to….the list of their hits is endless.
Text by Noel Maurice
Photos by Caterina Gili
The legendary BLONDIE live at Tempodrom
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