Tyler: Blondie, Travis. My first encounter with them came through an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head. The boys watched the video for “Heart Of Glass.”
This right here, Parallel Lines, ranks as their most celebrated album, no?
Travis: I’d say so. It was their most successful commercially and critically, reaching number 1 in the UK and becoming the best-selling album of the year there. They weren’t quite as successful in the US but “Heart of Glass” did hit number one. For my money, Parallel Lines is the only essential album you’d need in your collection. It contains by my count five or so of their best songs, is the best album of their career front-to-back, and the other essential Blondie material all would appear on a greatest hits collection.
“Heart of Glass” and “One Way or Another” are probably the two defining songs of Blondie’s career, as well.
So what do you think? Did it getcha getcha getcha getcha?
Tyler: It’s a good damn record. Incidentally, “One Way Or Another” is my least-favorite track, exclusively because I’ve heard it in ads and the like ad nauseum over the years. But, overall, this album is hot shit.
Debbie Harry here is on point. Yearning, romantic, lusty.
Travis: I would like to assert, just to be clear to her or anyone else who might be reading, that I would let her get me, one way OR another.
Tyler: A man of fine taste.
Travis: But yes. This album is where she became a bonafide pop star.
Tyler: Not without good reason.
Travis: Impossibly cool, tough, sexy, glamorous, but still as comfortable tearing through a high-speed, surfy punk song like “Will Anything Happen” as a chart-topper like “Heart of Glass” or a girl-group-style tune like “Picture This” or “Sunday Girl.”
Tyler: See, there it is. Some of these hooks and arrangements are downright poppy. But the songs hang together beautifully thanks to the tight, welcoming, not-too-angular sound.
Travis: They may have hit the charts the hardest, but they still came out of the same CBGB/Max’s Kansas City NYC scene as the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith Group, and all those others. What struck me listening to this was how they have a lot of the same influences as, say, the Ramones–60s garage rock, girl groups, B-movies and trash culture–but did such different things with them.
And those influences are all over this album. It all adds up to “new wave” but there are bits of pop, surf rock, garage rock, reggae, post-punk, disco of course, and it all fits because Debbie Harry can sing and snarl and the band itself has the chops for all of it.
Tyler: As it stands, my other less-than selection was “I Know But I Don’t Know,” and I think much of that comes from Harry’s obscured presence up front.
Travis: I like that song in the context of the album but it’s definitely not a standout. I don’t really skip any tracks on this one, but the weak link in my opinion is the Buddy Holly cover “I’m Gonna Love You Too.” I don’t think it does anything exciting that the original doesn’t, and I am utterly dumbfounded that the record label chose it–not “Heart of Glass” or “One Way or Another” or “Sunday Girl” or “Hanging on the Telephone”–as the lead single. Complete misreading of this whole situation by them, in my opinion.
Tyler: That’s a bizarre choice. Why lead with a cover period?
Travis: I’m not sure. I just figured everyone knew “Heart of Glass” would be a massive hit.
Tyler: It’s a diamond. After all this listening, it may still be my favorite—if one must be chosen—on this album.
Travis: I think it’s pretty much perfect. Apparently they’d been toying around with it (under the titles of “Once Had a Love” and just “Disco Song”) since 1975 and based the groove on the Hues Corporation song “Rock the Boat.” I guess they weren’t sure how well it’d go over, a punk band doing a disco song, but then they just decided, fuck it, we’re going for it. It’s a lot of fun, dancy and catchy but still sort of has their sly sense of humor.
My other favorite is “Hanging on the Telephone,” which is incidentally a cover. It was a song by a never-was power-pop band from LA called the Nerves, and Chris Stein (Debbie Harry’s longtime partner, guitarist and Blondie’s most prolific, but not only, songwriter) and Debbie were hanging out with Jeffrey Lee Pierce of LA punk band the Gun Club, and he played it for them, and they were like “we have to record this.” Theirs blows the original, which is fine, out of the water.
Tyler: That’s a standout. Triumphant way to kick off an LP.
Travis: They then asked the Nerves songwriter if he had any other songs and he gave them “Will Anything Happen”, which I would also assert, at least as done by Blondie, whips ass.
Real mishmash of songwriting credits on this one. The default songwriting credit on a Blondie song is Stein/Harry, but the only band member who doesn’t have a credit on this album is the drummer, Clem Burke.
Incidentally, Burke is an awesome drummer, which I think he shows on “Heart of Glass” and “Hanging on the Telephone,” but his real star turn is on a later single, “Dreaming,” which is also a banger.
I got into this album probably 10 years ago when I picked up a cheap vinyl from Vintage Vinyl. Before then I’d been a singles-only, casual fan of the band. But I have a million good things I could say about this one. Anything else that sticks out you want to comment on?
Tyler: I had a copy, but it got busted up along the way. I keep the sleeve in my crates so all the people who browse my collection can know how badass and cool I am.
Travis: It’s a good cover! Iconic.
Tyler: “Sunday Girl” is especially delightful, I reckon. Harry really brings both heat and those girl-group vibes.
Honestly, I’m with you—there aren’t any real skippers here, and I agree that “I Know…” is appropriate in the context of the album.
A double-bill of Blondie and Pretenders around this time very well might have been an okay show. Hunch.
Travis: I wonder if they ever played together. That would have been a good bill.
Tyler: December the 8th at Enmore Theatre in Australia. …2010.
Travis: Eh, was probably still good.
I don’t really have a ton else to say other than “this song is also good,” so we can probably put a bow on this one.
Oh! I should note that “Sunday Girl” is a tribute to Debbie Harry’s cat, “Sunday Man.”
Tyler: That is wonderful.
Travis: And I’ll say that if one listens to Parallel Lines and enjoys it, I also recommend the slimmed-down greatest hits collection Best of Blondie, which has vinyl copies abound in used bins. I think all their albums are fine, but none really essential. My favorite song that isn’t on either Parallel Lines or Best of Blondie is “Ex-offender” from their first album, so I guess stream or YouTube that one. Only essential if you are a true weirdo: Debbie Harry’s starring role in the David Cronenberg film Videodrome.
Writers' Loom 