It was two weeks ago, on a cold and windy Boston night, when I found myself pressed against a group of strangers, mesmerized as I stood 20 feet away from the stage at Avalon. My common day-to-day concerns were the farthest things from my mind. The backbreaking drudgery of finals, the impending doom of graduation and an uncertain future that could include selling my record collection to buy canned ravioli these things were all forgotten. The reason: a 57-year-old Deborah Harry, twirling and writhing across the stage like some intergalactic hooker, reminding me why I’m glad to be a male and alive. Even if the peroxide has to work a little harder these days to combat the strands of gray, there’s something about her face that the years haven’t been able to touch. Her eyes scan the crowd, and for a second, I’m sure she looks right at me.
Why does she fluster me so? Furthermore, why should anyone still care about Blondie, a band more than 20 years past its commercial prime? Well, maybe because it’s partially responsible for saving Rock ‘n’ Roll not once, but twice.
The first time around, Blondie’s ability to market punk rock to mass audiences saved us all from an inevitable future of Yes and Foreigner. The ’70s were a dreadful time for mainstream rock, as bell-bottoms and 10-minute guitar solos became the order of the day. There were minor revolutions before Blondie broke, most notably The Stooges and The New York Dolls, but they never had the charm to catch on in the suburbs. When a biker bar called CBGBs opened in New York’s Bowery, the resistance finally had its headquarters.
From the beginning, Blondie seemed the only band out of CBGBs’ stable that could achieve mega-success. The Ramones weren’t cute enough and Television was too abstract. You could tap your feet to the Talking Heads, but they might have been a touch too artsy for middle America. Blondie was the perfect ratio of punk, pop and image. An ex-Playboy bunny, Harry brought a certain pouty-lipped allure to the power chords and ’60s inspired organ riffs. With her golden blond coif and sculpted cheekbones, she was like New Wave Barbie the quintessential hot girl from your high school who could have been head cheerleader, but instead, spent her happy afternoons in used record shops.
Throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, Blondie expanded on the typical punk sound, trying its hand at reggae (‘The Tide Is High’), disco (‘Heart of Glass’) and hip-hop (‘Rapture’). The band’s foray into rap was truly groundbreaking; its collaboration with Fab Five Freddy came years before Steven Tyler shuffled alongside Run DMC. In short, Blondie brought some much-needed excitement back to the pop charts, proving to everyone that you could be edgy and different (gasp!) and still sell albums.
Today, Blondie is indirectly responsible for helping to save rock ‘n’ roll again. In the late ’90s, things looked bleak. Teenagers had to choose between sticky sweet teen pop and the misogynistic steroid-rock of nu-metal. A brief ska revival and the emergence of emo weren’t enough to make significant gains for underground music on commercial radio. Then, for some reason, the critics began to embrace the new ‘garage’ movement. While many of the bands under this banner may very well have had ’60s influences, most of the NYC groups owe their model girlfriends and inflated bank accounts more to CBGBs than The Kinks.
And critics have little business calling a band like The Strokes a garage band. Its over-hyped but solid debut Is This It? borrows heavily from Blondie, circa Parallel Lines. The Strokes boys also appropriated Blondie’s fashion sensibility their vintage suits and Chuck Taylor sneakers were first popularized by Blondie members Chris Stein and Clem Burke. Kindred spirits like The Realistics and Phantom Planet imitate Blondie’s look and sound as well, mixing it in with their other influences. Even more obvious is the stylistic effect Deborah Harry has had on modern female rockers like Gwen Stefani, who might be the closest thing we have to Harry in our generation. Stefani has assumed the hot chick/tough rocker duality that worked equally well in ’79.
I wanted to think about Blondie’s legacy while at the show a couple weeks ago, but I couldn’t quite get my mind to work. Standing that close to a legend, particularly one as beautiful (despite her age) as Harry, all I could do was stare some bands deserve our respect and admission money even after they are pass their commercial peak. Obviously, rock ‘n’ roll has some great things on the horizon, but it never hurts to take a peek in the rearview every now and again. Blondie is more than a blip on the map or a car commercial jingle. Blondie is living proof that original music can triumph in the age of Viacom and Clear Channel. And Deborah, I don’t care if you’re 57 or 87, you can call me
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