This remarkable genre diplomacy was made possible by the band's sophisticated use of parody and winking exaggeration especially the bitingly blasi lyrics to "Heart of Glass" and by Debbie Harry's indomitable coolness -- a glamour that, at 53, still seems to burn as intensely as it did two decades ago.
When Blondie announced that they were reuniting, 17 years after their less-than-mediocre final album, "The Hunter," and subsequent rancorous breakup two ex-members have recently filed a lawsuit against the band , even loyal fans might have groaned a bit, picturing the pathetic recent Sex Pistols tour or the geriatric, increasingly self-parodic Rolling Stones.
Once again, though, Blondie amazes, producing what may be the most triumphant comeback record ever. Unlike the desultory greatest-hits packages of Blondie's past-their-prime peers, "No Exit" has all the manic energy and confectionery gloss of classic albums like "Parallel Lines" and "Plastic Letters. We didn't want to do this retro trip. We felt it was really important that we do something fresh," says Harry.
Says drummer Clem Burke, "I'm friends with Glen [Matlock, the Sex Pistols' bassist] and Steve [Jones, the Sex Pistols' guitarist], and they both seem to have regretted that they weren't able to make new music during their reunion. We didn't want to do this as a business venture, like 'Let's go out on tour and make a whole bunch of money. That's the difference between a Blondie reunion and a Sex Pistols reunion or a Kiss reunion. Those were more nostalgic, and they disappointed fans because they didn't make any new music.
We all feel very credible now that we've made the new record. The reception of the new album has been almost uniformly ecstatic. Doing this feels right. There was no death after Blondie for me, but I felt incomplete, even with a family and everything. Now I feel very much at home, like ahhh yeah, where did we leave off?
If anything, "No Exit" is the most ambitious Blondie record ever, tighter and more wildly eclectic than anything the band has done before. There's a whiskey-rough country tune on "No Exit," "The Dream is Lost on Me," as well as a noirish ska song, "Screaming Skin," and the title track, a Gothic rap featuring a furious cameo by Coolio. It all works, probably because it's the kind of experimental fare Blondie have tackled from the beginning. And while "No Exit" is in no way a retrospective, there is a sense that Blondie are consolidating their influences, making a statement about their own inventive legacy.
Hearing them pull off ska, rap, pop, country, jazz and old-fashioned torch songs on the same album gives a contemporary listener a new appreciation how visionary Blondie were in fusing hip-hop, punk and disco, three genres that appeared eons apart in the late '70s and early '80s.
There is an acceptance of Blondie [in hip-hop], and people recognize Debbie as being, in a way, the first female rapper. Coolio got involved with "No Exit" after Harry sent him a tape of the song -- he responded by recording his own rap to go along with it. He liked the song and he did his thing and sent it to us.
I might be the only person in town doing that trifecta. BarCode wrote: Imma go out on a limb here and say that the first rapper was NOT a white woman fronting a skinny-tie new wave band. The first hip hop MC was Kool Herc or someone in his posse. You can't really have a hip hop MC predating the actual art form of hip hop, after all.
But, that's a good question - one can rap without the music being considred hip hop. Is Blondie hip hop? But she rapped. If we want to call rap "the vocal style that characterizes hip hop" that still doen't preclude us from saying that GSH was rapping. Nobody thinks she was. However, she was the first "rapper" to get to no.
Dr Gitlin wrote: BarCode wrote: Imma go out on a limb here and say that the first rapper was NOT a white woman fronting a skinny-tie new wave band. Yeah, but I didn't say 'hip hop MC', I said 'rapper' which is a different thing. GSH was doing spoken-word rhyming poetry using urban slang over contemporary urban sometimes funk music. As such, while you couldn't call GSH hip-hop, you could call him the first rapper. MHH has numerous musical signifiers, notably the prominence of the beat but also loops, samples, and turntablism.
No, Gil Scott Heron was a beat poet. Look, the people who actually invented the art form have said up front where it came from.
In the same way that capoiera did not spark b-boying even though there are similar elements , Gil Scott Heron wasn't the first rapper. It started in the South Bronx in the late s.
Given Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash's Jamaican links, it's more credible to say strains of toasting were an influence, as were the dozens, as Myk says, but rapping evolved from one of Herc's crew who would make announcements over his mixing.
When you have the actual people who started all of this going on record in documentaries and books, I don't see why it's controversial. Rap is not simply talking over music. It has a specific cultural source and specific cultural influences.
Gil Scott-Heron, while he certainly influenced some artists in the rap world, was not himself a rapper. But that runs squarely against the Ars trope of crying " Y ripped off X " when there is similarity or when one is inspired by the other. He is the first rap I remember being exposed to, when my older brother suddenly started laying down cardboard boxes on the back porch and breakdancing somewhere in the early 80's.
We were white, lived behind a corn field literally , some 50 miles from the nearest actual city. Myk wrote: hux wrote: Dr Gitlin wrote: Clint wrote: It all started with dance hall reggae. The first rapper is Ars Legatus Legionis et Subscriptor. Last edited by mudboy on Wed Jun 06, pm.
Moderator et Subscriptor. Die fast. Vince-RA wrote:. Pocky Is God. It all started with dance hall reggae. Dr Gitlin. Frennzy wrote:. Clint wrote:. Debbie Harry performing with Blondie in Toronto, Despite their rise to fame as a pop sensation, however, the band members never forgot their punk roots, and were constantly seeking ways to innovate and push boundaries within their music.
Sable Starr and Blondie singer Debbie Harry. Most notably, it included an extended rap section, performed by Harry, and was thus the first rap song ever to chart at number one in the United States.
Blondie in According to the BBC, Blondie was born in the underground music scene of s New York, and it was here that Harry and Stein encountered many of the early pioneers of American rap and hip hop. However, by introducing an extended rap as part of an original pop song, Blondie brought this new musical genre more into the mainstream, rendering it accessible to a whole new audience.
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