Released: 1978 & 1979
Sometimes impossible decisions can only be resolved by compromise. Attempting to capture the impact of Blondie’s music on 20th century pop by selecting five songs would be negligent in scope; picking just one arguably counts as an insult, but a format is a format, so a pair will have to do.
Parallel Lines was their third album, a once unlikely milestone for a band who’d been the last of the infamous CBGB’s scene to be offered a deal and whom Patti Smith had at one point dismissed with the comment “Get the fuck out of rock ‘n’ roll.” Producer Mike Chapman – who’d spent time previously honing the chops of Suzi Quatro, Mud and the Sweet – was equally unimpressed at the beginning of the recording process with their technical proficiency, a disease he cured by rehearsing the shit out of the album’s raw materials.
Chapman had been especially interested by a track the band had originally premiered in 1975 called Once I Had A Love, or The Disco Song, which boasted a scrabbly guitar and Modern Lovers feel. Having failed to make the cut on the first two releases, his aim for the re-recorded version – now known as Heart of Glass – would be much higher. It wasn’t one shared by everyone, Chris Stein telling Mojo in 2000 “We didn’t expect the song to be that big. It was a novelty item to put more diversity into the record.”
Short lived, LA power pop trio The Nerves are now regarded as one of the forefathers of the city’s punk scene, but during their brief lifetime they released only a solitary EP in 1976, Hanging On The Telephone. Two years later their former singer Jack Lee was destitute and about to have his electricity cut off before getting a call from Debbie Harry asking him if they could cover what had been their finest moment. Lee gratefully accepted.
The Blondie version is in many ways a faithful recreation of the original, right down to the phone noise at the beginning, but Harry turns into something lustful, abandoned and x-rated, giving the song qualities it never knew it could have just by turning the creepy stalker theme on it’s head. In retrospect, it’s one of the greatest straight covers of all time.
Parallel Lines went on to be the foundation of the slick, ultra cool Manhattanite Blondie the public would come to know; there was a period in 1979 where it felt like it was simultaneously playing on 90% of the world’s turntables. But if there are to be just two songs with which to acknowledge it’s and their enduring legacy, then god help us all, these will be those.
The Voice Of Unreason 