1978: Blondie - Parallel Lines

1978, the year I was born, and a classic album cover. What a tremendous concept Blondie was, a punk band, a pop band, a rock band, a disco band, hip-hop pioneers, slick and shiny, grimy and druggy, as a notion they're one of the greatest bands ever. They probably didn't make enough great music to actually be one of the greatest bands ever, but this is an iconic band in the truest sense of the word.

Parallel Lines is considered their one great album, apart from Greatest Hits, obviously, and it's a virtual Greatest Hits in itself.

Like the Clash, Blondie broke down the barriers in the music of the time - it didn't have to be punk versus disco, pop versus rock, style versus success. Rather as I once mentioned with Martha Reeves vs Diana Ross, there's a megastardom Blondie didn't hold on to which means they might play tents at festivals in Suffolk and Madonna never drops below stadium level.

Deborah Harry was/is a star, but always an odd, cult, slightly dangerous one. She's the same age as my mum, already in her mid-30s by the time mega-success came. She dominates the band, embodies the band, of course, but they were always at pains to say they were an actual band. Perhaps they shouldn't have called themselves Blondie then ...

Does one see Deborah Harry in today's female stars? Well, no, not that much, nobody really has that coolness - you just see the grim version of blonde ambition which Madonna co-opted. Both did a fair bit of acting too - Deborah Harry was better but then, again, that's not saying much.

In indie music, there have been a fair few of those female-fronted, male instrumentalist bands - and then, perhaps Gwen Stefani is Blondie's most direct and obvious successor. Not a notion that fills me with great joy.

This is a great album - my favourite track, in fact my favourite Blondie song, is Sunday Girl. No real secret to why, it's just a cool tune. I loved the random French as well, I suppose. Then there's Heart of Glass, their disco pop sensation, which was probably the first Blondie song I heard, on a TV advert for the Best of Blondie. Shortly afterwards, on a school holiday, in dormitories, we listened to an awful lot of that album. Bizarrely, I remember the compliment of the time and place was "raj", and I remember the phrase "Debbie Harry is raj" ... being used. Odd.

It was also rather marvellous that, starting from 1998, they had a whole new career with new material and everything. Maria was a great comeback single and deserves its place amongst their biggest hits.

With Blondie, you can't look too far beyond the singles, I think. This would be my Blondie compilation

Atomic
Rip Her to Shreds
Dreaming
Sunday Girl
Maria
Heart of Glass
Rapture
One Way or Another
Fade Away and Radiate
Call Me
Denis
Hanging on the Telephone
Picture This
Dreaming

Basically, a greatest hits, sorry. With no Tide is High. Because Atomic Kitten ruined it for me.