Reproduced, adapted, and edited by Allan Metz, with the permission of Salon Magazine

Original citation: "Blondie: Behind the Music" By Michelle Goldberg, Salon Magazine, March 3, 1999

The members of the reborn band discuss their past, their reunion and their first recording in 17 years, No Exit.

There's hardly a single major '90s pop music phenomenon that doesn't have its antecedent in the sugary, ironic, thrilling pastiche of Blondie. Madonna's obvious inspiration was Debbie Harry, not Marilyn Monroe ("Everybody admits that but Madonna," says Blondie keyboardist Jimmy Destri). The Spice Girls, too, are Harry's daughters. An ex-Playboy bunny, Harry perfected the marriage of airbrushed, blow-up doll glamour and tough, me-first attitude that every MTV nymphet strives for--the insistent, carnally aggressive chorus to "Call Me" prefigured do-me feminism by a decade. Even hip-hop, which everyone from Vibe to Time magazine acknowledges as the music of the '90s, has a few blond roots, for while Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc invented it, Blondie brought it to the masses--"Rapture" was, after all, the first No. 1 rap song ever. The sweet and sour harmonies of critical darlings Sleater-Kinney follow straight from songs like "In the Flesh" and "X Offender," Blondie's punk takes on the girl-group sounds of the Shangri Las and the Angels. The Beastie Boys are often credited for merging punk, funk, hip-hop and dance music, but again, Blondie did it first, pumping out disco hits and keeping their CBGB street cred at the height of the "disco sucks" backlash. This remarkable genre diplomacy was made possible by the band's sophisticated use of parody and winking exaggeration (especially the bitingly blasé lyrics to "Heart of Glass") and by Debbie Harry's indomitable coolness--a glamour that, at 53, still seems to burn as intensely as it did two decades ago.

When Blondie announced that they were reuniting, 17 years after their less-than-mediocre final album, The Hunter, and subsequent rancorous breakup (two ex-members filed a lawsuit against the band), even loyal fans might have groaned a bit, picturing the pathetic recent Sex Pistols tour or the geriatric, increasingly self-parodic Rolling Stones. Once again, though, Blondie amazes, producing what may be the most triumphant comeback record ever. Unlike the desultory greatest-hits packages of Blondie's past-their-prime peers, No Exit has all the manic energy and confectionery gloss of classic albums like Parallel Lines and Plastic Letters....
 

Click here to go to 'The Blondie Reunion Image Galleries'

Click here to go to the next page