The five most overlooked Blondie songs
Blondie remain one of the dominant forces in rock music, standing the test of time with ease. Listen to anything they produced 40 to 50 years ago, and it still sounds fresh and effortlessly cool. In many ways, that’s because it’s the only status Debbie Harry and her bandmates have ever known. Having spearheaded the new wave movement in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, they made it the genre everyone wanted a piece of.
Between monster hits like ‘Atomic’ and ‘Heart of Glass’ taken from this prime period, to comeback tunes like ‘Maria’ in 1999’s No Exit, it’s fair to say Blondie have been through their trials but always come out on top, with a storming back catalogue of a songbook to show for it. They’re not giving any signs of calling it a day yet, either.
Few bands have endured the trials of time quite like Blondie. Even through their rough patches, their cultural power has kept the Blondie machine in perpetual motion. From their self-titled debut in 1976 to a hotly tipped 11th studio album allegedly arriving this year, they have long since cemented themselves as part of music’s very fabric.
But in that sense, behind the main tracks are a whole slew of lesser-known Blondie songs that run the risk of being chronically underrated by those who are only tuning in for the big hits. With ten records to choose from, there’s definitely a lot to dive into. Here, we give a quick rundown of just five of the most overlooked Blondie bangers.
The five most overlooked Blondie tracks:
‘Rip Her to Shreds’ – Blondie
It was the song that started everything, and in that sense, it’s held close to the hearts of the band themselves, but on a public scale, ‘Rip Her to Shreds’ made less than a ripple compared to the tidal wave that Blondie would later become. As their first single released in the UK from their debut self-titled album in 1977, this was a song all about hitting the zeitgeist – yet somewhat fell short of that mark.
Hailing from the mean streets of New York City, it seemed Blondie were already primed for the pernicious side of fame, as frontwoman Harry later revealed the tune was about the toxic effects of magazine gossip columns and the disasters it can wreak on celebrity lives. However, perhaps they could already get a taste of that from their star-crossed inner circle, as among their classic CBGB contemporaries were the Velvet Underground, whose tune ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’ guitarist Chris Stern said inspired ‘Rip Her to Shreds’.
It’s a ditzy electronic earworm that certainly sets the pace of all Blondie’s future tunes, but the muted commercial appeal it received upon release means it’s not exactly an instant classic. Failing to chart at all in the UK and only peaking at number 81 in Australia, it’s fair to say ‘Rip Her to Shreds’ didn’t make the band an overnight success, but it bears revisiting to unravel the beginning of their story.
‘11:59’ – Parallel Lines
Merely two years after their debut, Blondie had powered through to their third album—this time, unlike ‘Rip Her to Shreds’, they took the world by storm. In that vein, some may argue there’s no such thing as an underrated song from Parallel Lines, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Even so, ‘11:59’ deserves its own moment in the spotlight.
Overwhelmed by an album chock full of monster tunes like ‘Hanging on the Telephone’, ‘One Way or Another’, and ‘Sunday Girl’, it was easier for ‘11:59’ to fall by the wayside only because it wasn’t officially released as a single. It really should have been, though – even if just for the opening lines, “Leaning in your corner like a candidate for wax/ Sidewalk social scientist don’t get no satisfaction from your cigarette,” because could there be any better image?
Harry and the band are in a race against time in the minute before midnight, reflected in the shot off the block beat that soars through the song “like a bullet to the ocean” and celebrates the band in all their classic bursting energy. If you need a quintessential Blondie tune that’s not been heard a million times before, this song needs to be your weapon of choice.
‘Detroit 442’ – Plastic Letters
It was Blondie’s sonic savviness in the early part of their career that really made them stand out above the crowd, harnessing a fusion of hard rock and feminine pop that turned Harry into the poster girl of a punk princess and which buoyed the band with a constant simmer of excitement wherever they went.
Nothing lays out the blueprint for this better than the song ‘Detroit 442’ from the sophomore Plastic Letters, which bridges the gap between innocent adolescence and blossoming womanhood with a vengeful force. Through this lens, you can understand why Harry was classed as the ultimate bombshell of the time—all edgy and sexy but with that platinum hair really stealing the attention.
As such, the journey in ‘Detroit 442’ is both a literal and metaphorical one, charting the transition into a new style of life not just for young girls the world over but also for the frontwoman herself, by now tasting her first proper proclivities of fame but very much, it seems, enjoying the show. She was the iconic face of rock and roll’s new reckoning.
‘Danceaway’ – The Hunter
Years later, as tensions increasingly tore the band apart, it seemed unlikely that their sixth studio album, The Hunter from 1982, was set to produce any real treasures. Indeed, it seemed the behind-the-scenes scraps were transparent to the critics, who rated the record as one of the worst of Blondie’s tenure and claimed the band had lost their instinctive spark.
However, amid the slew of negativity we risk missing the depth of tunes that have been tarnished by an unfair branding, such as ‘Danceaway’. This tune was former keyboardist Jimmy Destri’s ode to the marvels of Motown, and sees Harry pining for a “Stairway going one way/ To the subway waiting for the train/ Take it to the runway,” all against a characteristically joyous and upbeat tempo.
What we also can glean from this is a perhaps unintentional theme of travel laced in Blondie’s lyrics, found elsewhere in the likes of ‘Detroit 442’. Maybe they just liked the idea of being free spirits, but could it possibly have been an omen for the dark direction they were headed in as differences set in to move them apart?
‘Union City Blue’ – Eat to the Beat
However, returning to brighter times and indeed Harry’s own roots, the track ‘Union City Blue’ stands as a true Blondie classic, though it may not seem that way to everyone. It bears understanding that, in some ways, the song could be seen as a bit of a misnomer because it was released in the UK and charted reasonably well, but it didn’t receive that same special fate across the pond, even though it had some pretty famous fans.
Despite grumblings from some of the band over the matter, ‘Union City Blue’ was never pushed as its own single in their native US as it was in the UK. It’s slightly ironic given the nature of its lyrics – Harry reflecting on growing up with her childhood in New Jersey as well as her acting role in the film Union City in 1980, but instead of the esteemed status it received in other countries, the song remained merely an album track on Eat to the Beat.
That said, it remains a standout of what Blondie’s pillars really were in a sonic capacity. It marked the turning of their hand from rock music to catching the new wave and riding it successfully to shore as the beacons of the freshest movement of the burgeoning decade. This was Blondie in their prime, and their romantic yearning for the city streets is, quite simply, essential listening.
