My Blondie Playlist

Some Blondie Favourites

As usual, this one won’t be a greatest hits list, there are plenty of Blondie compilations about and you probably have one in your collection, but these are just a few songs that are my favourites in the Blondie Canon.

I probably first heard Blondie on John Peel but I cannot be certain of that but I remember tracking down “X-Offender” on the Private Stock label, and I think following that up with the eponymous debut album.

When “Plastic Letters” letters came out I saw them at the King George’s Hall in Blackburn either supporting or supported by Television and obviously “Denis” and “Presence Dear” went down a storm.

These songs are some that I still love and enjoy hearing, when they returned Blondie have still shown they are a musical force to be reckoned with and the fact they are still here creating and performing shows of their talent and durability.

I have created a Youtube Playlist which you can see here for the songs that I have used in the playlist detailed below.

X-Offender

This was my “in” to Blondie one a Private Stock single and harking back to the girl groups of the sixties

Long Time

A power song from “Pollinator” the second single from the album, co-written by Debbie Harry and Dev Hines.

Rip Her To Shreds

A viciously fun song recalling the sound of the Velvet Underground and the atmosphere of Max’s Kansas City where Debbie Harry worked as a waitress.

Fade Away And Radiate

This is probably my favourite Blondie song. From “Parallel Lines” is probably their most commercially successful album and the one where they really hit paydirt., but this song is anything but commercial. It was the “B” side of the single “Hangin’ On The tElephone” and is brooding and menacing with Bob Fripp on board to take it a little further out there.

Denis

From “Plastic Letters”, a huge hit, a cover of the Randy and the Rainbows song “Denise” but dropping the “E” from the name changed female to male for Debbie Harry to sing it as a love song.

Call Me

From the film “American Gigolo” with Giorgio Moroder on board. I love th relentless beat of this piece but it does bear a very close resemblance to “Children of the Grave” by Black Sabbath from their “Master of Reality” album, but that is no bad thing.

Shayla

Wistful and synth-heavy but harking back to sixties girl groups for inspiration. A stand out from “Eat To The Beat” powered by “Be My Baby” drums.

Maria

After their reformation in 1999 this hit number one in the UK. It was written by Jimmy Destri, the band's keyboard player and featured on “No Exit” their comeback album.

Fragments

Thus is an amazing episodic seven-minute closer from “Pollinator”. It is a cover of a song by a Canadian artist Unkindness (Adam Johnston who hails from Vancouver), stately, weary and angry. It is like nothing else the band has done.

In The Flesh

To close the playlist I have gone back to the beginning. With a Shangi-Las inspired introductory monologue, and the fact that Richard Gottehrer (writer of the Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back” in the sixties) is on production is even more of Blondie updating the sixties girl group sound.

A Blondie Conclusion

While I am fine if you know all these songs, but if you don’t, check out the playlists and you may be thinking of getting a few more Blondie albums.