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

on my way to see Blondie tonight along with Elvis Costello should be a fun night!

August 4, 2019
at FivePoint Amphitheatre, Irvine, CA

Setlist

1. One Way or Another
2. Hanging on the Telephone
3. Fun
4. Call Me
5. Sunday Girl
6. Too Much
7. Rapture
8. Old Town Road (Lil Nas X cover)
9. Wipe Off My Sweat
10. Fade Away and Radiate
11. The Tide Is High
12. Orchid Club
13. Atomic
14. Heart of Glass (with I Feel Love by Donna Summer)

Encore:
15. From Russia With Love (Matt Monro cover)
16. Dreaming

i had a blast last night watching Blondie. i was even more impressed when i read today that Debbie Harry is now 74 years old. i had never seen Blondie before and they had great energy and the crowd was into it. i didn't recognize some of the songs but overall they played almost everything i would want them to play. i was going to bump an Elvis Costello thread but will write about it here. he is a very talented person but the show was boring as hell. i'm not really a fan but know most of what he played last night. there was just no energy or enthusiasm and just ended up being boring to watch. i don't think i would have had a different opinion if i was a mega fan, it was just a flat night for him i think.

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!