The album had an immediate cross-generational impact and was associated with numerous touchstones of the era’s youth culture, such as fashion, drugs, mysticism,
and a sense of optimism and empowerment.
It topped nearly all album charts around the world.
Robert Smith: “It’s like an end to what we’ve been doing for the last 10 years.
This one is taking bits from everything we’ve done, all the bits that I’ve liked. But
there’s a single album’s worth of that and a single album’s worth of stuff we’ve
never really attempted before.”
No. 6 in the UK. No. 4 in Germany and Austria. No. 35 in the US.
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes…
BLONDIE hit the top spot of the UK Singles Charts on 26 May 1979,
today 46 years ago with pop pearl Sunday Girl. It was part of their
splendid Parallel Lines LP.
The song was written by Chris Stein, inspired by Debbie Harry‘s cat, who was named Sunday Man. The cat had recently run away, inspiring the song’s “plaintive” nature.
It topped the UK Singles Chart 45 years ago today, Sunday.
Incredible fact: the record label didn’t bother to release this
solid gold cracker as a single in America. OMG.
Artist: XUP Who: XUP is the musical act of Lane. It was conceived in the sunny haze of
an All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Minehead, UK. After playing bass for several bands in Manchester and London from 2000-2007, Lane began writing, recording and performing as XUP, stepping up to the mic for the first time, and taking on full artistic duties. In doing so, her own influences began to come through front and centre, and there are hints of Hole, Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Bad Seeds, The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees in her seven-album-strong back catalogue. Check her Spotify account.
Lane: Spit & Lipstick is an album about the making of an album! My starting point was
to cover the studio in mood boards and story boards and the Spit & Lipstick album is the
colour of the sunset, seen through an old 70s TV set, spitting static!
The album is a love letter to The Peer Hat bar in Manchester, where I spent much of my downtime in between recording, propping up the bar and watching the songs come to life.
The daily anecdotes and notes about the writing process seeped into the songs. But the songs are also interwoven with a nostalgic retrospective about coming of age by the sea, with a gnarly post-punk, cherry-pop twist! And in capturing that, the album title itself is a nod to the band Hole, one of my big influences growing up.”
TUTV: Let the bass roll. The 4-string guitar is the heroine throughout this 8-track record next to Lane‘s expressive voice. All pieces are sonically related, with their darksome punky funky resonance. Songs about a broken relationship, introspection, depression, loneliness, twins, hope and The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol electrified with indie dynamics and pithy post-rock turbulence with Goth echoes here and there.
My mind and ears tell me that Spit & Lipstick could be the bone-chilling soundtrack for
a sinister film-noir with Lane as the femme fatale operating in an enigmatic world. No,
this is not an ecstatic record, rather one with sharp edges, one about the dark side of Lane‘s moon. A compelling and arresting record.
Artist: XUP Who: The alter ego of Manchester’s songstress Lane who plays a Mustang bass,
drums and sings. She began writing, recording and performing as XUP in 2008,
releasing seven albums while based in London and Manchester. Check out her Bandcamp account.
Lane: “Sunday Girl is a post-punk pop song about the wash, rinse, repeat cycle of sitting
at a bar procrastinating to avoid having to finish an album! No bartenders were harmed
in the making of this! We just shared ice cream and listened to shoegaze!”
TUTV: This could easily be a previously unreleased Siouxsie and The Banshees track from
one of their early 80s albums, remixed by Killing Joke‘s Jaz Coleman. The ongoing uncanny vocals, the menacing bass droning, and the monotone drum beat combine for that vintage sonic post-punk shadiness of the 80s. The Sunday girl creeps in your head slowly but surely, and once she’s there I can’t promise you that you’ll be safe. Intoxicating jam.
Going back in sonic history looking for memorable albums…
22 September 2018
Band: BLONDIE
Album: PARALLEL LINES – third LP
Released: 23 September 1978 – 40 years ago
BBC MUSIC review: “The most perfect example of Blondie’s grafting of sixties power pop
with new wave, Parallel Lines was one of the biggest hits of 1978/9. Supremely assured, the group was unafraid to go disco, go art, or just play fine, fine pop. After years in the business, Debbie Harry was street-wise, confident, completely in control. Thousands of teenagers were enraptured – boys wanted to be with her, girls wanted to be her. With her musical partner Chris Stein, they created intelligent pop that referenced all of their 60s favourites, while embracing the CBGBs punk scene in New York that the group had grown out of.” Full review here.
TURN UP THE VOLUME! says: With ‘Parallel Lines‘ Blondie had the guts and the incredible talent to reinvent pop music in a most thrilling way and say goodbye to punk which became a fashion brand by then. Respect! Sing along, folks, loud!
THREE TOP TRACKS (hard choice): Sunday Girl / Picture This / Heart Of Glass
