Did Blondie Set The Pace For The '80's?

The 80's were a good decade for pop songs. I can literally get lost on youtube revisiting all of those great songs. There was also a healthy underground scene running underneath it all, as well.

 

How can a note for note cover of a 60's reggae track be an influential 80's track?

Blondie were no more influential in the 80's than Kajagoogoo, as has already been pointed out Joy Division and Kraftwerk were far more influentional.

 

But some are more equal than others.

 

Decadist! Decadist!

 

The 80's were an amazing decade if you were generation X. 1980-1986 is one of the golden eras of pop.

Roxy Music,Bowie,Kraftwerk set the pace for the 80's.

 

Hi. Thanks for your question. I would never say that Blondie was anywhere near as influential as either Joy Division or Kraftwerk.

But, the three singles I mentioned were both historically important and influential. "The Tide is High" may have been a note-for-note cover, but it was also the first reggae song to hit no. 1 since "I Shot the Sheriff" 10 years earlier. I think it opened radio and MTV to reggae, which helped UB40, Maxi Priest, Musical Youth and others to this day. Remember that Bob Marley never even had a Top 100 single (or at least I don't think he did . . . . .)

And people forget, but "Rapture" was actually the first rap song to hit no. 1, as well as the first rap video ever broadcast on MTV. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

 

The period from New Wave to Live Aid was a fantastic golden age of pop. Blondie were a good pop band with some great singles but as someone mentioned Autoamerican was a big disappointment after their previous album. They were just one of many great acts around at that time.
I am certainly not comparing Blondie to Abba but it is interesting how they both managed to carry their success over into the new decade and still be huge, but both acts quickly and suddenly burnt out after a couple of years into the 80's.

 

And it's a HORRIBLE song. I'll never forget watching Debbie Harry dance in that video and thinking: "That girl has absolutely no rhythm whatsover." And of course, there are some of the dumbest lyrics of all time.


Flash is fast, Flash is cool
Francois sais pas, Flashe no deux
And you don't stop, sure shot
Go out to the parking lot
And you get in your car and you drive real far
And you drive all night and then you see a light
And it comes right down and lands on the ground
And out comes a man from Mars
And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head
And then you're in the man from Mars
You go out at night, eatin' cars
You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too
Mercuries and Subarus
And you don't stop, you keep on eatin' cars
Then, when there's no more cars
You go out at night and eat up bars

 

Blondie's first album was the only thing from them I'd call influential, and remember that was back in the 70's when "new wave" was still on the fringe.

 

He was important in the '80s, but I don't think he set the stage the way Blondie did. His influence didn't really begin until 1999 took off in '83. By that point - as others have noted - Blondie had already broke New Wave, had a #1 hit with a reggae tune, and introduced rap to white audiences with three #1 singles.

Except that magpie quality is precisely what makes them the most influential act when it comes to defining the playing field of the '80s. If you look at the pop charts before them acts were pretty genre siloed - rock acts did very conventional rock songs, New Wave acts wore skinny ties and did herky jerky songs (or maybe droned lots of synths), soul acts were all discofied and Off The Wall followers, etc.

And then suddenly Blondie breaks thru to the mainstream with a New Wave tinged disco song (that started out as a reggae tune). That was unusual. Their subsequent big hits were a straight ahead reggae cover and a jazzy, almost Steely Dan-esque foray into sci-fi rap. And it all worked well enough to net them three #1 singles. This sent a powerful message to both other artists and to the label heads.

Within a year you got this proliferation of cross-pollinating acts. Prince fused funk with New Wave. Madonna arrived on the scene as a white woman singing R&B dance music. Eurythmics crashed Motown/Stax into Kraftwerk/Can. Everyone from Culture Club to Cyndi Lauper came barging in thru the hole Blondie had smashed open in the charts.

That was certainly an important change, but it discounts the musical impact they had on the charts. You simply can't ignore the timeline - the charts pre-Blondie sound incredibly different from the charts post-Blondie in America. I was a little Top-40 radio addict at that point and the change was unbelievable. It started as a trickle and within a year it became a stream, and then by '82 a flood.

Nobody listening to the radio in the US had the vaguest idea who Kraftwerk or Joy Division were. They influenced other artists and a small band of fans, but it would never have gone beyond that if someone hadn't broken New Wave on American radio. It had been fermenting for several years in Manhattan and London with no American chart success. Blondie changed all that, ironically by doing what they always did best - mixing New Wave with other genres to create something arresting and unique.

 

I don't think it's a great track, but "horrible" seems a bit extreme. I didn't like it at the time, but I don't mind it today. I like the chimes - they must have gotten the idea from Chic's "I Want Your Love". I'm not sure that the lyrics are that dumb, either. I think it's about the late 70's club scene, dancing to Grandmaster Flash, loving, drugging and halicinating. Or, at least I hope it is. The Alicia Keys version from Sex and the City 2 changes the lyrics makes it about shopping, which is indeed dumb.

Anyway, as the song that introduced rap to the mainstream, it is historically very significant.

 

Autobhan was a top 10 album in the US and the single was also in the top 30, so I'm sure a lot of Americans had heard of them.

 

Nope. They peaked with Parallel Lines. Eat to the Beat was a major step backwards. The remainder of their albums, despite having some big selling singles, were spotty. Deborah Harry's solo album flopped, but did lead to Nile Rodgers's production work gaining attention from Bowie.

Yeah, they were influences on Pat Benatar (same label/same producer, so it's no wonder) and early Madonna. Late 80's, they were hardly ever discussed. The career had lost all momentum. Also don't recall them doing nationwide tours in stadiums or hockey arenas. If they set the pace for the 80's, then the popularity would've translated into more than just a handful of hit singles.

It fortunate for them that they were able to at least have a sustainable comeback though. We've seen so many examples of acts, who were off the scene for several years, attempt to re-enter without a lot of success. The Fixx and Cranberries are a couple of examples.

 

I think it's a good song.....everything except the rap.

 

I'm usually not an apples to oranges kinda guy but I gotta say Prince wipes the floor with Blondie.

 

All of which were influenced by 70's icons Roxy Music and David Bowie.

 

Saying that Blondie set the pace for the 80s is something of an overstatement. By the time the 8os as we know them (the MTV era) was underway, Blondie was already history. However, songs such as "Dreaming" and "Atomic" had some elements that would later be utilized quite heavily in the 8os such as the huge drum sound.

 

There's good and bad in every decade about equal IMHO. A lot of folks hate the early 80's as the drum sound changed (the gated drum sound became way too popular after XTC, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins used it), over use of synthesizers and style over content with many sythe bands.

 

It was funny, which I think helped it get across-- This after all was the first rap song a lot of people ever heard. Blondie approached rap with the same tongue-in-cheek quality they brought to disco, and it worked. The one I'd say is wrong with "Rapture" is the tremendously un-funky sax work by Tom Scott.

 

I grew up listening to the radio and NEVER heard of them until "Tour de France". "Autobhan" the single didn't even crack the top 20. The one album did relatively well in the US - in 1974 - but was picked up by a very limited audience.

The question wasn't "were they the biggest act of the entire decade?" The question was "did they set the pace for the '80s?". If by setting the pace you mean provide the first fully-realized template of what '80s pop was gonna look like, hell yeah they set the pace.

And I think Lauryn Hill wipes the floor with Britney Spears, but while Hill was influential it was definitely Britney who set the pace for pop in the 2000's.

I love the Tom Scott sax work in that song - vaguely Steely Dan-esque, ultra-sleek and I thought evocative of Manhattan (even if Scott is a LA jazz cat and the album was recorded there). I think the whole intention was to set something that sleek against something very urban.

 

I think Blondie was influential in that it took new wave and made it more acceptable to radio. Their sound became radio friendly and helped push people's attention to what was going on at CBGB's.

 

yea, the guitar at the end was great. The tongue in cheek lyrics made it easier for white suburbia to learn to recite the lyrics by heart.

 

That goes without saying. Although you don't necessarily have to be the greatest artist to be hugely influential.

Btw, on the question of "Rapture," I think it's flat-out a great song.

 

Don't seem to recall addressing that question in my post, which you cherry-picked, then twisted my words around to suit the narrative. Seriously, if they were so incredibly influential, they'd have spawned outright soundalikes. To my recollections, there weren't any. Madonna, who has cited Debbie Harry as an influence, inspired a few of them.

You're free to continue exaggerating their relative importance in the grand scheme. Of course, you're also free to act as if you're captain of the debate team and quote posts that don't credit Blondie with single-handedly causing the sun to rise in the east.

 

I think they did, a lot more than they get credit for. They are a hugely influential American band.