The 1960s band Blondie never wanted to be compared to
When we think of the 1970s New York new wave scene, we usually think of only one band: Blondie.
Well, technically, we think of Talking Heads too, but Blondie was arguably more significant in revolutionising blending multiple genres with pop-adjacent accessibility, injecting punk-derived defiance, and guiding entire cultural movements… As Talking Heads’ genius leader himself, David Byrne, recently said, everything Blondie did was “beyond my capabilities”.
He explained: “They were writing pop songs with an attitude, and they would write them in different genres. They just loved pop music, so they’d write a reggae song, they’d write a rap song, an electronic dance song, they’d jump from one thing to another.”
One factor that pushed Blondie to greatness was that they emerged from the punk scene, appearing as a confident force that had a lot to offer. This was pretty revolutionary in itself, especially when you think about the fact that most people who hung around the scene at the time had never seen a woman in music, let alone one who fronted an entire band.
According to Debbie Harry, however, that wasn’t what made them stand out. In her view, it wasn’t even the fact that they were seen as a punk band, because they weren’t. At least, not in the “traditional sense”, anyway. According to Harry, they rose to the top because they were risk-takers, experimentalists, and always “developing, reaching out, and embracing different types of music”.
This isn’t so difficult to believe when you consider that the band’s biggest hits are the ones that blend it all together, becoming a melting pot of reggae, disco, pop, and rock with those familiar pop-leaning melodies that make them entirely timeless. And also why they withstood the test of time in other ways, not just because they did the unimaginable, but because they simply had the drive to make it.
It’s no secret that the best and most legendary musicians are those who had the talent from the start. But while Blondie undeniably ticked all the creative boxes when it came to gaining popularity, they also genuinely really wanted to be great and did everything they could to make sure they weren’t just a fad or one of those rock bands that only made sense if you existed on the inside of the cult.
Like Grateful Dead. Now, the Grateful Dead’s impact can never be understated, especially when looking at the major stalwarts of American rock culture. However, they’re also not exactly what you’d call globally resonant, mainly because they took a completely different route than most of their peers, shunning radio commercialism entirely for a more direct-to-fan approach.
Clem Burke once discussed something similar with Rolling Stone, explaining that Blondie wanted to be one of the great rock bands, “Not like the Grateful Dead”. And then when they asked Harry her thoughts on this, she essentially confirmed once again that the reason why they reached for something greater and ultimately became rock legends is that they had “the same kind of drive” to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
