80's Music Junkies: New Wave

Blondie is an American rock band that first gained fame in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The band was a pioneer in the early American punk rock and New Wave scenes. Its first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, and although successful in Australia and the United Kingdom, Blondie was regarded as an underground band in the United States until the release of a third album in 1978. Over the next three years, the band achieved several hit singles and was noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles incorporating elements of disco, pop and reggae, while retaining a basic style as a New Wave band.

Lead singer Deborah Harry achieved a level of celebrity that eclipsed other band members leading to tension within the group. Following a poorly received album, and with core member Chris Stein diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, the group disbanded in 1982. As members pursued other projects, Blondie's reputation grew over the following decade and the group reformed in 1998, achieving renewed success and a number one single in the United Kingdom the following year. The group toured and performed throughout the world over the following years, and was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the RockWalk of Fame in 2006.

Their album Autoamerican was released 1980 and contained two more worldwide hits, the reggae-styled "The Tide Is High" and the rap-flavoured "Rapture", each hitting number one in both the U.S. and UK. "Rapture" was the first song containing elements of rap music vocals to reach number one in the U.S. and helped introduce the then underground rap genre to a larger audience. "Rapture" would be their only single to do better on the U.S. charts than in the UK, where it peaked at number five.
Following their success of 1978-80, Blondie took a brief break in 1981. That year, Debbie Harry and Jimmy Destri both released solo albums; Stein helped out with Harry's album, and Burke with Destri's. Also in 1981, Blondie was offered the chance to record the theme to the new James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, but declined the opportunity.

The band reconvened in 1982 to record and issue The Hunter. In contrast to their earlier commercial and critical successes, The Hunter generally received lukewarm-to-negative reviews, and failed to hit the top 20 in the US top charts. The album did spin off two fairly minor hit singles: "Island of Lost Souls" (#11 UK, #37 US), and "War Child" (#39 UK).

With tensions within the band on the rise due to the commercial decline and the constant press focus on Harry to the exclusion of other band members, events reached a breaking point when Stein was diagnosed with a serious, life-threatening illness. In mid-1982, Blondie announced their break-up.

Stein and Harry (a couple) stayed together, and retreated from the public spotlight for a few years. After Stein recovered from his illness, Harry resumed her solo career in 1985, with active participation from Stein in all her recordings. Meanwhile, Burke became a much-in-demand session drummer (and played for a time with Eurythmics), and Destri also maintained an active career as a producer/session musician.

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Spandau Ballet were a popular English band in the 1980s. Initially inspired by a mixture of funk and synthpop, the genre-defining New Romantic group eventually mellowed into a mainstream pop act. As with their rivals Duran Duran they 'broke America', albeit briefly.

Guitarist and songwriter Gary Kemp and his younger brother, bassist Martin Kemp, formed the band in 1979 with drummer John Keeble, lead vocalist Tony Hadley and Steve Norman, who initially played guitar but later switched to saxophone when the band changed musical direction. Some consider the band's manager, Steve Dagger, to have been an integral part of the band's initial and continuing success.

The band was initially called 'The Makers', but changed their name after a visit to Spandau (a borough of Berlin and home to a since-demolished prison for war criminals which at one time housed a sole inmate, Rudolf Hess, the inspiration being from graffiti one of their friends, BBC London 94.9 DJ Robert Elms, saw there. The band began performing and generating positive buzz around London at various unannounced parties and as the house band at the Blitz nightclub, which became regarded as the birthplace of a new 1980s music and fashion phenomenon called New Romanticism.

The band was involved in a major bidding war. They eventually signed to Chrysalis Records and released "To Cut a Long Story Short", produced by the cutting-edge electronic musician Richard James Burgess. Released just ten days after the band emerged from the studio in order to meet the huge demand created by the buzz the band had established, "To Cut a Long Story Short" was an instant British top 5 hit in 1980. This was followed by hits with "The Freeze", "Musclebound" and the well-received and genre-defining Gold certified album Journeys to Glory (February 1981). The sound of "Journeys to Glory" set the sound for the nascent New Romantic movement with chanted vocals, club/dance bottom end, splashy snare drum sound, lack of guitar solos and strongly rhythmic guitar parts.

Parade (June 1984), was critically drubbed for failing to move the band's sound forward. Nevertheless, the album and its singles were again big successes in the European charts, Australia and Canada, and the opening song "Only When You Leave" became their last American hit. At the end of 1984, the band performed on the Band Aid charity single, with Hadley taking a prominent lead vocal role; and in 1985, they performed at the Wembley Stadium end of Live Aid.

The "Other" New Romantic Group's Extended Mixes Are Essential for Any Fan of the Band and Quintessential for Any 80's Aficionado. Includes the Extended Version of the USA Top Ten Pop Hit "True" as Well as their European Hits "Chant No. 1", "Musclebound", "Gold", "Lifeline", "Communication", "to Cut a Long Story Short" and More.

By the time Spandau Ballet's fifth album appeared in 1986, the sun had set on the synth poppers of the second British Invasion and guitars were all the rage once again. Never ones to miss a trend, the former new romantics, who'd signed with a new label, Epic, and were determined to make a big splash stateside, declared their admiration for bands like Bon Jovi and made an album that likely surprised their diminishing fan base with its AOR aspirations. Rocking up Spandau Ballet's smooth white-boy soul, Through the Barricades manages to avoid utter disaster via the tuneful creations of songwriter/guitarist Gary Kemp. Some would argue Kemp had finally evolved into a first-class hack, but while his songs never avoid a cliché if it can be helped (and occasionally offer much worse; see "Virgin"), he does a credible job of supplying his bandmates with arena-ready material like "How Many Lies." Unsurprisingly, melodramatic vocalist Tony Hadley digs in with real gusto, but the production and mix prove the undoing of this effort. Most of the tunes demand guitar and drum bombast; instead, the riff-rocking "Cross the Line" and "Fight for Ourselves," in particular, are undercut by the polite-sounding rhythm section. Given that weakness, which affects much of the album, it's unsurprising that the best song by far is the title track, a Bic-flicking acoustic ballad that became a deserved hit.

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