Hot Traxx: The Top 10 Blondie Songs Of All Time


American band, formed in 1974 by Chris Stein and Deborah Harry. Drummer Clem Burke and keyboard player Jimmy Destri joined in 1975. In 1976 they released their first album "Blondie". The band embraced a wide variety of pop music styles (New Wave, British Invasion Rock and Roll, Garage Rock and Roll, Disco, Reggae, Latin rhythms, and Hip-Hop). Inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 (Performer).

10. Union City Blue (1979)


Union City Blue is a song by the American rock band Blondie from their fourth studio album Eat To The Beat. The song was written by bassist Nigel Harrison and vocalist Debbie Harry. The song is about Debbie's experiences acting in the 1980 film Union City. The song did not appear in the film for contractual reasons.

9. Picture This (1978)


"Picture This" was written by Chris Stein, Debbie Harry and Jimmy Destri. According to Destri, Debbie Harry wrote the lyrics while Destri wrote the verse melody and Stein the chorus. Destri explained, "We all had little pieces of one anothers' songs, just throwing in bits. I always write with the band in mind."

8. Atomic (1979)


Blondie keyboardist Jimmy Destri wrote this song with lead singer Debbie Harry, who claimed in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "He was trying to do something like 'Heart Of Glass,' and then somehow or another we gave it the spaghetti western treatment. Before that it was just lying there like a lox. The lyrics, well, a lot of the time I would write while the band were just playing the song and trying to figure it out. I would just be scatting along with them and I would just start going, 'Ooooooh, your hair is beautiful.'"

7. Dreaming (1979)


“’Dreaming’ is pretty much a cop of ‘Dancing Queen,” Stein told EW.com earlier this year. “I don’t know if that was where we started, or if it ended just happening to sound like that.” With all due respect to Stein, there doesn’t seem to be much of a similarity between the two songs, other than the fact that both are lushly melodic. Besides, no ABBA song ever had a drum beat as propulsive as the one that Clem Burke lays down on “Dreaming.”

6. Rapture (1980)


Harry's rap is so goofy that it sounds like she could be mocking the genre, but this was very early in the evolution of hip-hop, and many of the rhymes that came out of the New York block parties were just as silly. Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie championed rap and got involved in the community, often attending these block parties - they even took Nile Rodgers to one, which is where he learned that his song "Good Times" was a DJ favorite. Blondie brought rap to a far larger audience with this song; Debbie Harry says that a lot of rappers - including members of Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan - told her it was the first rap song they ever heard, since the genre wasn't welcome on the radio then.

5. The Tide Is High (1980)


Lead singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein wrote most of Blondie's songs, but not this one. "The Tide Is High" is a cover song, originally recorded by a Jamaican vocal group called The Paragons in 1967. Harry and Stein heard the song on a compilation tape they picked up in London; they thought it was too good not to record. Their version was a huge hit, going to #1 in both the US and UK.

4. Hanging On The Telephone (1978)


"Hanging on the Telephone" is a song written by Jack Lee. The song was first performed by his short-lived US West Coast power pop band The Nerves. Blondie had discovered the song via a cassette tape compilation which Jeffrey Lee Pierce had given the band. Beginning with a phone sound-effect courtesy of producer Mike Chapman, Blondie's version of the song was released on the band's breakthrough third album, Parallel Lines. The single was a top five hit in the UK and has since seen critical acclaim as one of the band's best songs.

3. One Way Or Another (1978)


This song is about a stalker. The lyrics are very dark and go into detail about a guy with evil intentions, but the music is very light and catchy, which masked the meaning of the song. According to Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry, it was inspired by real events. She told Entertainment Weekly: "I was actually stalked by a nutjob, so it came out of a not-so-friendly personal event. I tried to inject a little levity into it to make it more lighthearted. It was a survival mechanism."
 
2. Call Me (1980)


European disco producer Giorgio Moroder wrote this with Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry, who thus became the first woman in British chart history to write three #1 hits. However she wasn't Moroder's first choice. The Italian disco king had originally wanted Stevie Nicks to provide vocals on the track but the Fleetwood Mac vocalist declined the offer.

1. Heart Of Glass (1978)


According to Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 Songs, Harry and Stein wrote the song in their dingy New York apartment and keyboardist Jimmy Destri provided the synthesizer hook. The result brought punk and disco together on the dance floor. Said Destri, "Chris always wanted to do disco. We used to do 'Heart Of Glass' to upset people."

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