OH, YOUR POLL IS BEAUTIFUL - ILM Artist Poll #83 - BLONDIE - RESULTS THREAD

Kick off the songs quickly before bed.

http://i.imgur.com/NrCsET1.jpg

40. Look Good in Blue [3 votes | 0 #1 votes | 47 points]
Blondie, Dec 1976

http://i.imgur.com/VJslhlE.jpg

39. Live It Up [3 votes | 0 #1 votes | 50 points]
Autoamerican, Nov 1980

i made a collaborated playlist, please update during the countdown as i won't be able to until night.

Spotify: ILM Blondie

great job, so far, Nate. absolutely love the title.

Autoamerican is also one of the first albums i ever owned. it came out in Nov 1980? and i think i got it that Christmas.

Clem Burke is a monster.

so i'm very curious, who left Parallel Lines off their ballot? was it intentional or a mistake? their only perfect album.

happy to see Eat To The Beat at #1 even though I think I caved at the last minute. IMO the "lows" aren't quite as "low" as Parallel Lines.

I was the LP poll rigger, Bee OK (I did a top 1, rather than a top 5). Astonished that it worked tbh :)

lol, well that makes sense. thanks for playing along.

Images off to a great start. Looking forward to the rest of the rollout.

http://i.imgur.com/M3Ep7tr.jpg

38. Detroit 442 [3 votes | 0 #1 votes | 54 points]
Plastic Letters, Feb 1978

http://i.imgur.com/RYtsm3x.jpg

37. Under the Gun [2 votes | 0 #1 votes | 54 points]
No Exit, Feb 1999

Burke and Harry are fabulous on "Under the Gun." She puts twenty year's of craft into pronouncing "California."

Beautiful song. And *high five* to Alfred for (I'm assuming) being the other voter.

Woo!

http://i.imgur.com/68kUXA3.jpg

36. I'm Gonna Love You Too [3 votes | 0 #1 votes | 60 points]
Parallel Lines, Sep 1978

I didn't vote for this but not unhappy to see it. At first I was thinking I would only vote for Blondie-penned originals and not any covers, but then I realized leaving "Hanging On The Telephone" off would be complete madness.

http://i.imgur.com/aRHBCfm.jpg

35. Contact in Red Square [4 votes | 0 #1 votes | 64 points]
Plastic Letters, Feb 1978

contact in red square is so much fun...how many distinct musical hooks can they cram into a campy 2 minutes?

instrumental, rather than musical

http://i.imgur.com/spUdQf0.png

34. Living in the Real World [3 votes | 0 #1 votes | 68 points]
Eat to the Beat, Oct 1979

Interesting to see which minor cuts are making the bottom ranks. I didn't vote for any of these so far, but I love the rushing, Russian (see what I did there?) feel of "Contact in Red Square."

great album closer

iirc

http://i.imgur.com/lJW0QNm.png

33. Victor [4 votes | 0 #1 votes | 69 points]
Eat to the Beat, Oct 1979

Really? My least favorite song on EttB.

http://i.imgur.com/jdGzK2F.png

32. Eat to the Beat [5 votes | 0 #1 votes | 75 points]
Eat to the Beat, Oct 1979

yeah victor is usually a skip for me

eat to the beat is classic tho, clem burke is a goddamn hero

Really? My least favorite song on EttB.

― smug dinner-jazz atrocity (Dan Peterson), Thursday, July 13, 2017

Mine too.

http://i.imgur.com/ClBNOcN.jpg

31. Maria [4 votes | 0 #1 votes | 89 points]
No Exit, Feb 1999

I was delighted when this song was a (British) hit and no pox on their earlier work.

The first one from my ballot to make it, a really nice return to action for Blondie. I always wondered about Destri quoting his own lyrics from "Walk Like Me," was it like "hey, remember this band?"

In retrospect I thought much too highly of it. The chimes in the chorus bother me, and the song goes on for a minute or minute and a half longer than necessary; it wobbles. A 7/10, and still on my ballot.

http://i.imgur.com/QGPIR2M.png

30. The Hardest Part [6 votes | 0 #1 votes | 100 points]
Eat to the Beat, Oct 1979

man do I love this song. Most random intrusion of a sequencer in a rock song.

Sometime in 1996 when I discovered this album I called to request "The Hardest Part" on my college station's retro lunch hour. The deejay, braced to hear a rube request "Heart of Glass," practically jumped on my lap.

Is it weird that the only two songs to place from my ballot so far are both No Exit tracks?

(I did briefly consider "I'm Gonna Love You Too," but when I went to go listen to it again, I found myself wanting to hear the Buddy Holly version instead.)

there is no way i could vote on this as i just don't have the knowledge.
but.
one of my first experiences of cool music was the eat to the beat betamax album.
my parents had just bought a betamax machine, and we had nothing to watch on it.
then a pub regular walked in and handed my parents a copy of this blondie betamax album.
over the next few weeks while it stayed with us, i fell hard for that audio visual escape option.
many years later, the album was reissued with a dvd version of the visual album and amazingly i was on the promo list (thank you guy hands)
it's still one of the best things i ever got in all the years of promo gubbins.

didn't vote for the hardest part, but that's a great video

I think this is the first song from my ballot that's made it so far. Feel like songs like these were the vanguard of the US equivalent of New Romanticism.

http://i.imgur.com/xb1NjdY.jpg

29. I Didn't Have the Nerve to Say No [7 votes | 0 #1 votes | 112 points]
Plastic Letters, Feb 1978

http://i.imgur.com/M2zK6WL.jpg

28. Angels on the Balcony [5 votes | 0 #1 votes | 113 points]
Autoamerican, Nov 1980

http://i.imgur.com/Y1YTgIl.jpg

27. In the Sun [6 votes | 0 #1 votes | 124 points]
Blondie, Dec 1976

http://i.imgur.com/cEqv38F.jpg

26. The Tide Is High [6 votes | 0 #1 votes | 125 points]
Autoamerican, Nov 1980

http://i.imgur.com/ImPotnl.png

25. Accidents Never Happen [7 votes | 0 #1 votes | 135 points]
Eat to the Beat, Oct 1979

http://i.imgur.com/NGKGuNr.jpg

24. Fan Mail [6 votes | 1 #1 vote | 137 points]
Plastic Letters, Feb 1978

http://i.imgur.com/op7KwAh.png

23. Call Me [6 votes | 0 #1 votes | 138 points]
American Gigolo (soundtrack), Apr 1980

hmph

KUNG FU GIRLS WAS ROBBED

Think I regret missing this poll more than any other. Bermuda Triangle Blues (Flight 45) popped up on random the other day – hadn't heard it in so long and god, is there another song with an intro that makes me swoon like this one? I don't think so. Also discovered Orchid Club recently, which is just phenomenally exciting.

As is The Hardest Part. So much great stuff beyond the singles. Made a quick playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VM30vv3svgKZksMMV5CZB?si=6086b7d774a74f7a

NITRO
AND ACETYLENE

"The Hardest Part" was a single - I own the 45! (It went to #84 in Billboard, #72 in Cashbox).

Lotsa good stuff on that playlist. For me "Fade Away and Radiate" is the one that most sounds like it should've been an a-side (it was a b). Too many singles from that album I guess.

"Poet's Problem" was a revelation to me when I first heard it on a 12" b-side. It's from the Plastic Letters period but wasn't on the original vinyl release. Also could've been an a-side.

Ah, right - missed that The Hardest Part was a single in the US. My idea of what a single was is very much governed by the Best of Blondie I grew up with! Wasn't a UK single, which seems crazy. Neither was One Way or Another, though as you say, bit spoiled for choice with Parallel Lines.

In the US "I'm Gonna Love You Too" was a single that should NOT have been one (amazingly released as the first single from Parallel Lines).

God yeah, it’s fine but bottom 3 on the album for me.

Sorry I joined far too late to get in on this. My love for this band, and for Debbie, knows no bounds. Parallel Lines came out when I was 13 years old, and it changed my life.

This was a beautiful poll, pun intended. One thing this poll taught me was I needed to see them live. I fulfilled that dream and was able to catch them live before everything shut down.

I want to see them at the Opry this year. It'll be worth the trip.

guys this is embarrassing but I never really knew this band beyond the big singles and I just went down a very very deep rabbit hole (thank you YouTube) and... i don't really know what to say, I'm stunned.

What keeps jumping out at me is that Debbie Harry LOOKS like she doesn't know how to sing. I don't just mean her beauty, though maybe it's that too, or the glamorous way she styles herself or something.. but it's more the funny awkward way she twists her mouth around, like she's chewing the words up before they come out, and maybe her herky jerky way of dancing. There's an eternal gawkiness to her that kind of humanizes the beauty, makes her seem vulnerable. And you just can't quite believe that voice is going to come out but it really does.

And the lyrics are usually a kind of perfectly pitched meeting of particular detail and swooping emotion, leaving big expanses open for interpretation - what rock is best at, lyrically, when it's really good imo. And of course the band, I won't go into that because everybody knows, I mean everybody knows all this stuff apparently except for me!