New York Underground - we've been here before

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Q.� There's a lot of talk about the new New York Underground Scene, is it all as revolutionary as everyone says < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A.� Not really, but pop music has always been cyclical, and it always will be.

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Q.� How does that work

A.� From its earliest beginnings, pop music has looked backwards to see where it has been, and that has always provided a direct influence on where it is going. Musicians are influenced by the music they hear, and it affects what they write, and the way they write it. Add to that the practice of checking out the musicians who influenced their influences, and the trail goes further back. In this way, pop music rarely changes, it just adapts pieces of its history and serves them up to a new generation, who may investigate its roots, and they usually do, eventually.

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Q.� Some examples

A.� OK, take heavy metal as an example. Look at any modern metal band, and trace its sound back, and you'll end up with the originals�- Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Go back from there, you'll arrive at the blues. Go forward and you'll find Metallica, and so the train continues. Pop goes back to The Beatles, and back to Buddy Holly, forward to Oasis and so on. To address your specific question regarding the New York Underground, the likes of The Strokes and similar lo-fi bands are directly influenced by bands like Blondie.

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Q.� Yes, Debbie Harry, Blondie herself.

A.� Actually no, Blondie is the name of the band, not their singer�- a common error, but an error none the less.

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The band joined the explosion of New York outfits playing the legendary CBGB's club�- including Television, Talking Heads, and others. The unashamed pop attitude of the band was seen as a nod towards The Shangri-las, and there's evidence for that in the musical pop hooks and visual style of Harry and the band. The evidence of pop's reliance on its history is increased by Blondie's first choice of hit single�- Randy And The Rainbows' hit Denise which they re-jigged as Denis, using its sixties pop hooks and simple girl-meets-boy storyline to score a hit single and shift Blondie from underground wannabes into a pop hit machine which helped to define the sound and look of the 1970's and 1980's. Applying the rule above�- forwards from the female icon of Debbie Harry you arrive at�Janet Jackson and Madonna.

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Q.� So Blondie took the pop path and never looked back

A.� They did, but the talents of British producer Mike Chapman, a legend of British pop writing and production assisted them in no small measure. With partner Nicky Chinn, Chapman�had steered Mud, The Sweet and Suzi Quatro into glam super-stardom. Chapman turned his particular talents towards Blondie's Parallel Lines album, and the resultant success catapulted the band into superstardom. The groundbreaking release from the album, Heart Of Glass, paved the way for bands to cross the rock / dance / disco divide in a fashion unknown previously, but the norm for pop today.

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Q.� Was Blondie groundbreaking in any other styles

A.� They were�- recording John Holt's reggae chestnut The Tide Is High gave them another hit and ushered in a welter of reggae-influenced copyists to rival the current Celtic-flavoured pop that followed Celine Dion's Titanic-based offerings today. Their Rapture hit from the Autoamerican album was the first time a white woman had dared an attempt at rap on record, again, groundbreaking then, almost compulsory now.

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Q.� Didn't Blondie sort of disappear in the 1980’s

A.� They did, partly as a result of diminishing returns on their recorded works�- they never repeated the twenty million plus sales of Parallel Lines, and the illness of Harry's partner, guitarist Chris Stein saw the end of the band.

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Q.� What actually happened

A.� Stein contracted pemphigus, a debilitating genetic disorder that almost killed him, and meant he was unable to work for several years while recovering. Debbie Harry abandoned her solo career to nurse him, and Blondie slipped quietly into pop's backwater.

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Q.� But they came back

A.� They did. In 1988, the long-standing Blondie line-up reconvened and recorded the No Exit album returning to the British charts with the single Maria. It says much about the timelessness of the Blondie sound, and their undoubted influence on modern pop that their back catalogue fits seamlessly with their latest material, and they could command a live audience reaching through the twenty-plus years of their career.

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And their influence lives on

Very much so.�The guitar bands coming out of New York and exciting a new audience and being tipped as the 'future of rock and roll' are virtual carbon copies of Blondie, in terms of sound and approach. As is the way with pop fans, younger fans want their own version of the sound�- not the ones their parents listened to. Julian Casablancas from The Strokes is barely into his twenties, Debbie Harry will be 57 in July, but perfect pop is ageless, and that's what really matters.

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Andy Hughes