Music history

50 years of Blondie: Between underground & pop Olympus

Blondie with Chris Stein and Deborah Harry (front) on their last studio album to date in 2017.

(Bild: Alexander Thompson)

New York City in the 1970s was a mangy metropolis on the verge of collapse: there were dozens of porn cinemas around the busy Times Square and no one was thinking about the thin glass skyscrapers in which the billionaires at the southern end of Central Park live today. It was in this climate in the late summer and fall of 1974 that Blondie and frontwoman Debbie Harry, who would later become a cult band, emerged on the club scene.

In the East Village in the mid-70s, a number of exciting new bands played their hearts out in tiny clubs like CBGB on the Bowery. There was no "country, bluegrass and blues" here; instead, the mini-club, covered in thousands of stickers and graffiti, became a breeding ground for punk.

Style-defining club
Opened in December 1973, just a few months after the end of the Vietnam War and six months before Richard Nixon retired as president due to the Watergate affair, the club was a style-defining venue for acts such as Patti Smith, the Talking Heads and Television, especially in the early years. It made history 50 years ago this summer.

On August 16, 1974, the opening band played their music for the first time in a four-piece line-up to the small number of guests - the history of the Ramones took its course. After them, Angel And The Snake took to the stage, another young project, with lead singer Debbie Harry attracting attention right from the start due to her striking hair. They only played one more time under this band name on August 31, 1974.

Name from the street
In October, the group changed their name to Blondie. Harry later said in an interview that men on the street used to shout "Hey, Blondie!" after her because of her hairstyle - "I thought to myself: Well, that really is a damn catchy name."

Thus began the story of one of the most successful crossover acts in music history; no other band brought new wave, punk and pop together so well. In addition to Harry, guitarist Chris Stein and Fred Smith on bass joined the band at this time, with Ivan Kral joining as second guitarist.

Punk and disco
In 1976, the band released their first album "Blondie", but it received little attention. It wasn't until 1978 that "Parallel Lines" was their big breakthrough worldwide. The group fused the "CBGB" sound with the sounds of another New York institution, right in the center of Manhattan: the emerging disco music in "Studio 54".

With the driving "One Way Or Another" and the anthem "Heart Of Glass", the band scored two worldwide hits on one album. These were quickly followed by "Call Me" for the soundtrack of "American Gigolo" and the reggae cover "The Tide Is High" for the album "Autoamerican", which was released in 1980.

Problems with commerce
A year later, the MTV era began and Blondie quickly understood how video clips featuring the fascinating Harry could contribute to even greater success. In the alternative punk scene, the increasing commercial success brought the band into disrepute.

Although Harry was still rebellious and wild on stage at this time, he also posed as a model, the music continued to change and the front woman in particular now became the idol of a new style of music: New Wave.

Partnership before the band
Shortly afterwards, Harry wanted to use her fame for a parallel solo career, but her projects were not very successful and shortly afterwards Blondie also went quiet. The band broke up in 1982. Harry was now in a relationship with guitarist Stein and looked after him for years during a serious skin disease.

She also worked as an actress and found roles in David Cronenberg's "Videodrome", "Forever Lulu" alongside Hanna Schygulla and as Velma Von Tussle in John Waters' "Hairspray". The band made a comeback in 1999. The seventh album "No Exit" was dismissed by critics as banal, but "Maria" with Debbie Harry's characteristic scream in the song title gave Blondie another worldwide hit.

It goes even further
After that, things went a little quieter again, with the most recent album "Pollinator" being released in 2017. To mark the band's anniversary, Chris Stein published his autobiography "Under A Rock" in June 2024. He and Harry have announced a new album for next spring.

However, Blondie were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland (Ohio) in March 2006 - due to an exorbitant rent increase, the club "CBGB" closed its doors for good in October of the same year. The former punk club is now an expensive fashion store, but the original graffiti and stickers still adorn the walls.