Blondie

New York

Blondie formed in New York City in 1974 around the singer Debbie Harry and the guitarist Chris Stein, who had both been in a band called the Stillettoes. The name came from truck drivers who shouted "Hey, Blondie" at Harry. They became regulars at Max's Kansas City and CBGB, took on the drummer Clem Burke and the bassist Gary Valentine in 1975, and added the keyboard player Jimmy Destri that November. Their first single, X-Offender, came out in June 1976 and the debut album, Blondie, followed that December on Private Stock. Neither was initially a commercial success. In Australia, though, the TV show Countdown mistakenly played the video for In the Flesh in 1977, and that single reached number two there.

In early 1977 they opened for David Bowie and Iggy Pop on Pop's US tour. Valentine left in July and Frank Infante replaced him, and in September the band bought back its contract and signed to Chrysalis. Plastic Letters (1978) took the single Denis to number two in the UK, and the British bassist Nigel Harrison joined to make a six-piece.

Parallel Lines

For the third album, Chrysalis paired them with the Australian producer Mike Chapman. They entered the Record Plant in New York in June 1978 and finished Parallel Lines in six weeks, although the label's Terry Ellis had allowed six months. Chapman later called them musically the worst band he had worked with, yet singled out Infante as an amazing guitarist and spent hours with Stein getting every part right. Several songs were unfinished at rehearsal, and Harry was still writing lyrics when it was time to sing. Robert Fripp added guitar to Fade Away and Radiate. Chapman said he had made a pop album, not a punk or new wave one.

It reached number one in the UK in February 1979 and number six in the US, and was the UK's biggest-selling album of the year, with an estimated 20 million copies sold worldwide. Heart of Glass, an old Blondie song rebuilt around a Roland drum machine, went to number one in both countries. Harry said lots of people were angry at the band for going disco with it, and that Burke at first refused to play it live. Hanging on the Telephone, a cover of a Jack Lee song, reached number five in the UK, and Sunday Girl, written by Stein, gave them a second UK number one in a row. One Way or Another was the US follow-up.

Number ones

Eat to the Beat (1979), again produced by Chapman, went to number one in the UK, and Atomic became their third British chart-topper. Call Me, the theme to American Gigolo, was composed by Giorgio Moroder with lyrics by Harry, and spent six weeks at number one in the US in 1980. Autoamerican (1980) ranged wider, with a reggae-style cover of The Tide Is High and Rapture, the first US number-one single to feature rap vocals. The Hunter (1982) was a commercial failure, and in November 1982 the band announced that it had disbanded.

Return

Blondie re-formed in 1997 and played their first reunion show on 31 May that year at the HFStival in Washington. No Exit (1999) gave them Maria, their sixth UK number one, twenty years after Heart of Glass. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, and in 2008 toured for the 30th anniversary of Parallel Lines. Pollinator (2017) reached number four in the UK. Clem Burke died on 6 April 2025, and a new album, High Noon, is due on 26 February 2027.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says the band experimented with nearly every genre on record, from reggae and rap to punk and disco, while staying anchored in tuneful Sixties pop. Pitchfork's Scott Plagenhoef called Parallel Lines one of the most accomplished pop albums of its time. The Library of Congress selected it for the National Recording Registry in 2024.