Parallel lines

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Parallel lines
Studio album by Blondie

Publication
(s)

September 23, 1978

admission

June 1978 - July 1978

Label (s) Chrysalis Records

Format (s)

LP , CD , MC

Genre (s)

New wave , pop-rock , power pop

Title (number)

12

running time

38:11

occupation
  • Nigel Harrison - bass

production

Mike Chapman

Studio (s)

The Record Plant , New York City

chronology
Plastic Letters
(1977) 		Parallel lines Eat to the Beat
(1979)

Parallel Lines is the third studio album by the American rock band Blondie and was released in September 1978. The album is considered a classic of the New Wave .

history

The album Parallel Lines was the band's third album and the first album to be produced by successful British producer Mike Chapman . It became the most successful album in the band's history and topped the UK album charts. No less than six tracks from the album were released as a single.

The most successful was the single Heart of Glass , which was number one in the US and British singles charts in the spring of 1979. The song was also the super hit of 1979 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and reached first place in the single charts in all three countries.

Singer Deborah Harry had written a text for Parallel Lines with the same title. The lyrics were never set to music, but gave the album its title. The song Heart of Glass was originally only 3:34 long (according to the original album LP label). The disco version of the maxi single is 5:50. Due to the worldwide success of the disco version, the old version was replaced by the disco version in newer editions of the album.

reception

source rating
Allmusic
Rolling Stone
Laut.de
Music Express

The album ranks 140th of the 500 best albums of all time by the music magazine Rolling Stone . The song Heart of Glass reached number 259, One Way or Another number 305 of the 500 best songs of all time . The New Musical Express selected Parallel Lines at number 45 of the 500 best albums of all time and at number 16 of the 100 best albums of the 1970s, Heart of Glass is at number 19 of the 500 best songs of all time. The website Pitchfork ranks the album 76th of the 100 best albums and Heart of Glass rank 18 of the 200 best songs of the decade. It ranked 58th in Uncut's 200 best albums of all time selection.Heart of Glass was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016 . Parallel Lines is one of the 1001 albums You Must Hear Before You Die .

Track list

page 1
1. Hanging on the Telephone ( Jack Lee ) - 2:17
2. One Way or Another ( Nigel Harrison , Deborah Harry) - 3:31
3. Picture This ( Jimmy Destri , Deborah Harry, Chris Stein ) - 2:53
4. Fade Away and Radiate (Chris Stein) - 3:57
5. Pretty Baby (Deborah Harry, Chris Stein) - 3:16
6. I Know but I Don't Know ( Frank Infante ) - 3:53
Page 2
7. 11:59 (Jimmy Destri) - 3:19
8. Will Anything Happen (Jack Lee) - 2:55
9. Sunday Girl (Chris Stein) - 3:01
10. Heart of Glass (Deborah Harry, Chris Stein) - 3:34 (later: Disco Mix - 5:50)
11. I'm Gonna Love You Too ( Joe B. Mauldin , Norman Petty , Niki Sullivan ) - 2:03
12. Just Go Away (Deborah Harry) - 3:21
CD bonus tracks (2001)
  1. Once I Had a Love (aka The Disco Song) (1978 Demo Version) (Deborah Harry, Chris Stein) - 3:18
  2. Bang a Gong (Get It On) (Recorded Live 11/4/78 at The Paradise in Boston, MA) ( Marc Bolan ) - 5:30
  3. I Know but I Don't Know (Recorded Live 11/6/78 at the Walnut Theater in Philadelphia, PA) (Frank Infante) - 4:35
  4. Hanging on the Telephone (Recorded Live 1980 in Dallas, TX) (Jack Lee) - 2:21

Songs

Hanging on the telephone

Hanging on the Telephone is a cover version of a song by The Nerves . The American band The Nerves released the song in 1976 on their only album. For Blondie it was the second single from the album, and the song reached the 5th place in the UK singles chart. In 2006 the British girl band Girls Aloud recorded the song and released it on a limited special edition of the album The Sound of Girls Aloud . In the same year a cover version of the hard rock band Def Leppard appeared on their album Yeah! .

One way or another

One Way or Another was released as a single only in the US. As the successor to Heart of Glass , the song reached number 24 on the Billboard charts . In Canada and the United States, it was also included in the 1981 album The Best of Blondie . One Way or Another is one of the band's most popular songs.

Picture This

Picture This is considered to be the band's first song to be produced by Mike Chapman . The song was the album's first single in Great Britain and reached number 12 on the charts. Photographer Mick Rock published a book in 2004 called Picture This - The Many Faces of Blondie .

Sunday girl

Sunday Girl was released as the follow-up single to Heart of Glass in the UK and topped the charts. In Germany, the song also reached sixth place in the charts as the successor to Heart of Glass . From Sunday Girl published Blondie also a version in French . In Britain, the French version was released as a B-side of the maxi-single of Sunday Girl .

Heart of Glass

Heart of Glass was the band's biggest hit. The song reached the first position in the singles charts in numerous countries, including Germany, Great Britain and the USA. It became a worldwide hit and became a classic of the New Wave.

I'm gonna love you too

I'm Gonna Love You Too is a cover version of a song from Buddy Holly's repertoire . It first appeared on Holly's second album in 1958 and was also released as a single. Due to the high level of popularity of the song in the USA, the producers decided to release this song as the first single in the USA. This calculation failed, however, and the single did not make it onto the charts.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review by William Ruhlmann on Allmusic (accessed September 2, 2018)
  2. ↑ Review by Arion Berger on Rolling Stone (archived) (accessed September 2, 2018)
  3. ↑ Review by Franz Tanner on Laut.de (accessed on September 2, 2018)
  4. ↑ Review by Gabriele Meierding, in: Musikexpress 10/1978, edition 273, p. 52.
  5. ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time on Rolling Stone (accessed September 2, 2018)
  6. ↑ 500 Greatest Songs of All Time on Rolling Stone (accessed November 9, 2019)
  7. ↑ 500 Greatest Songs of All Time on Rolling Stone (accessed November 9, 2019)
  8. ↑ The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time on New Musical Express (accessed September 2, 2018)
  9. ↑ The NME Greatest Albums of The 70's on Rate Your Music , in: NME 09/1993 (accessed September 2, 2018)
  10. ↑ The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time on New Musical Express (accessed November 9, 2019)
  11. ↑ The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s on Pitchfork (accessed September 2, 2018)
  12. ↑ The 200 Best Songs of the 1970s on Pitchfork (accessed November 9, 2019)
  13. ↑ Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums Of All Time on Rate Your Music , from Uncut 02/2016 (accessed September 2, 2018)
  14. ↑ GRAMMY Hall of Fame on Grammy .com (accessed November 9, 2019)

Web links