
1 minute read
Special International Award
from The Ivors 2023
Debbie Harry & Chris Stein
Blondie, as the badges used to remind us, is a band.
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But much of the vision for that band – one of the greatest of all time, lest we forget – came from the unique songwriting partnership between Debbie Harry and Chris Stein.
Harry and Stein met and fell in love on New York’s punk rock underground, but would go on to write some of the most glorious pop music ever heard. Those songs would rule the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and prove particularly popular in Britain, which became almost a second home for the band.
The pair know their way around melody like no one else of their era, but part of their songs’ enduring charm is their ability to absorb contemporary influences without ever losing their own infallible sensibilities.
So, from the spiky punk attitude of Rip Her To Shreds to the breezy pop charm of Dreaming, or from the bubbling electronica of Heart Of Glass to the hip-hopinfluenced Rapture (the first ever song with a rap to hit Number One in the US, would you believe?), Blondie have always shaped the way pop music sounds.
And they’re still doing it now. While their individual achievements are legion, there remains something very special about the Stein-Harry axis that has influenced generation after generation of musicians.
No wonder that, since reforming in the late ‘90s, Blondie have enjoyed one of the most successful reunions of all time – in both artistic and commercial terms. And, while the Harry-Stein romantic partnership was dissolved decades ago, their songwriting alliance remains gloriously intact, as evidenced by the brilliant Doom Or Destiny (featuring Joan Jett) and Love Level (featuring John Roberts) from the most recent Blondie album, 2017’s Pollinator
So, against the odds, Blondie is still a band. But with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein at its heart, it’s also so much more.