How big were Blondie in the late 70's, you ask?
So big that, next to the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive", there was no bigger crossover disco hit in the country than "Heart Of Glass".
Thankfully, "One Way Or Another" proved that Blondie was no one-trick pony and then, blammo, Eat To The Beat dropped like an "Atomic" bomb. Though the band's fourth album lacked a singular breakout hit in the U.S., a la "Heart Of Glass", the consistency of the material made it easily one of the band's finest recorded moments, but how does it match up against Parallel Lines?
That's what we're here to find out as we pit Blondie against Blondie in our latest installment of Cage Match!
After the release of Plastic Letters and a switch to major label Chrysalis Records, commercial expectations for the band were suddenly higher than ever before. The main different now, however, was that by being on a major label, they could now afford the best recording studios and producers that money could buy.
One such producer was Mike Chapman, who, through the mid-70's, had already amassed enough UK hits for two careers with former partner Nicky Chinn, but had since split with his longtime partner and moved to the States.
What neither Chapman nor the band knew when they entered the studio together in the summer of 1978 was that things were about to get very interesting for all concerned. For Blondie, their first charting American single, "Heart Of Glass", would go all the way to #1 while Chapman would also produce landmark albums for The Knack and Pat Benatar in rapid-fire succession.
Listening to Parallel Lines is a tad voyeuristic, in hindsight, because the band had no idea the wave of success that was about to hit them. On one hand, as much as purists may want to hate them for "going disco", but, if you'd written "Heart Of Glass", you'd have gone disco too.
Being that it was so out of character for the band, the risk of being typecast forever based on one iconic song was high. Amazingly, "One Way or Another" showed a spunkier side of the band and created the necessary "rock diversion".
Disco tag gone.
Remove those two songs from the track listing and the album you're left with is a brash, proto-pop masterpiece that is now led by "Hanging On The Telephone", which Chrysalis should have kept releasing until it became a hit. Its impressive Top 5 showing on the UK charts should have been the rule instead of the exception.
At a time when commercial expectations were at their highest, the band had the guts to put songs on the album like the evocative "Fade Away And Radiate" and "I Know But I Don't Know" (a song that predated the arrival of the Replacements by three years).
Also, in what universe is "Sunday Girl" not a career-defining smash hit?
To borrow a baseball term, the team's bullpen was "DEEP!"
So deep that "Heart Of Glass" was relegated to Side Two!
The band that went into the studio to record Eat To The Beat was just starting to see the first rewards of their hard work. Between the time rehearsals began and recording sessions were complete, expectations for the album had grown in direct proportion to the increasingly massive success of "Heart Of Glass".
One can only imagine the hushed whispers in the halls of Chrysalis Records when the completed masters for Eat To The Beat were delivered to the label. The question on everybody's lips was "Is there a 'Heart of Glass' on there?"
Admittedly, there wasn't, yet the album still manages to hold its own. "Dreaming" remains one of rock's all-time greatest opening salvos, giving this writer chills every time he hears it in the frozen foods aisle these days, yet it somehow missed the Top 20.
Listen closely enough to Eat To The Beat and it suddenly clicks: This wasn't just a great album, it predicted the future:
The title cut = the B-52's
"Shayla"= shoegaze
"Living In The Real World" = Garbage
"Sound-A-Sleep" = that retro-ethereal David Lynch vibe made famous by Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti. Had it been deemed worthy of release as a single, one imagines this song having the potential to take the band's career in a completely different direction.
Because it was part of an insanely deep album that saw the band also attempting a reggae song with surprisingly stellar results ("Die Young Stay Pretty"), "Sound-A-Sleep" barely warrants a mention.
Psst, Miley Cyrus! Next time you want to cover a cool '80s tune...
In the end, as foretelling as it was, Eat To The Beat is one "Heart of Glass" short of greatness.
Winner: Parallel Lines