The Cover Uncovered: Why did Blondie hate their breakthrough album art?
Parallel Lines by Blondie boasts one of the most iconic album covers in rock history—and not just because Debbie Harry is front and centre. For proof that even she wasn’t immune to a less-than-flattering shot, just take a look at the cover of Blondie’s sixth album, The Hunter. But when it comes to their breakthrough record, everything about the Parallel Lines sleeve—its sleek, monochromatic aesthetic and effortless cool—perfectly mirrors the bold, genre-defining sounds contained within. It’s a rare case where the visual and the music feel like a seamless, unified statement.
Both are stylish and iconic, dripping with poise with a subtle edge that warned people not to mess around with one of the most influential bands of their generation. For how collected they appear on the surface, though, not everything was plain sailing for the band themselves at the time, and ironically enough, the cover was a perfect example of this.
By 1978, Blondie’s career was at something of a crossroads. Their first two albums had stalled in their home country and only made a reasonable dent in Europe, and their third album needed to hit big if they wanted to stay together. A number of industry people still saw a meal ticket in Debbie and the gang and were piling the pressure on them to be as big a band as their potential suggested.
Chief among these industry folks was the bands loathed manager Peter Leeds, for whom it wasn’t exactly drummer Clem Burke or bassist Nigel Harrison putting dollar signs in his eyes. It’s true, despite how hard the band championed that “Blondie is a group”, their own manager disagreed with them. Peter Leeds took a quite frankly uncomfortable degree of relish in reminding the blokes in the group how disposable they were.
Now, Harry always pushed back against the idea that Blondie was just about her—she was, after all, one of the main architects behind the “Blondie is a group” slogan. However, her undeniable star power—a force so potent it could practically be spotted through the Hubble Space Telescope—inevitably cast some massive shadows. That star power, along with the growing public perception of Harry as the focal point, began to create tension within the band. By the time the now-iconic Parallel Lines cover was pitched, that tension bubbled over—all of the band members hated it. Yet, despite their initial disdain, it would go on to become one of the most recognisable images in rock history.
The idea of the boys in dark suits grinning bashfully while Harry glared down the camera in that white slip dress went down like a limestone helicopter. They felt it made them look like hired guns serving Debbie, and since the vision was Leeds’ own, that was almost certainly the idea. The band had a shot from photographer Roberta Bayley of them on a downtown NYC rooftop that they were adamant would be the record’s cover.
Leeds may have been a cold-blooded showbiz manipulator, but he had conceptualised one of the best visuals in rock history, and even he didn’t know it yet. He made sure that when the record was pressed, the company used his image. He also made sure the band themselves had no idea, and upon the record’s release, they were absolutely livid with him.
Harry later told Q Magazine in 2011: “Everyone just flipped out. We were shocked that the artwork had been completed without our approval and that the decision had been made without the band.”
Fortunately, the record’s astonishing success meant that the band finally had the clout to ditch Leeds and move on with a new manager. However, though it came from barefaced deceit and trickery, the band do have him to thank for one of the best images in the history of rock.
