Blondie Music Videos

American new wave band · 1974–1982, 1997–present

The most commercially successful band to come out of the CBGB scene, and the one least interested in staying in it. Formed in New York City in 1974 by Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, Blondie spent two albums as a downtown punk act American radio would not touch, while Denis made them stars in Britain first. Parallel Lines broke them worldwide in 1978, with Heart of Glass carrying disco out of the same clubs as the Ramones and Talking Heads and Sunday Girl following it to UK No.1. Eat to the Beat, home to Dreaming and Union City Blue, became the first video album released by a major act. Autoamerican brought in reggae with The Tide Is High and rap with Rapture, and the band stopped after The Hunter in 1982.

Call Me, written with Giorgio Moroder for American Gigolo, was one of four singles that reached No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1979 and 1981, and Rapture became the first to take rap vocals to the top of an American chart. Harry reached the UK Top 10 on her own in 1986 with French Kissin' in the USA. The band reformed in 1997 and returned to UK No.1 with "Maria" in 1999, twenty years after Heart of Glass got there first. Blondie entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, have sold more than 40 million records, and saw Parallel Lines added to the National Recording Registry in 2024. Drummer Clem Burke, who joined in 1975, died in April 2025; High Noon, the twelfth album and his final recordings, is due on February 26, 2027.