![]() For the record, “Funkytown” is the work of lead singer Cynthia Johnson. “Call Me” stayed at number-1 for six weeks until one of my dad’s favorites, “Funkytown” by Lipps, Inc., took the top spot on May 31, 1980. Ms Harry was a waitress and even a Playboy bunny/server in the 1960s and early 1970s before her music career. But Chris Stein, the guitarist for Blondie, along with Clem Burke (drummer), were the architects of Blondie, and don’t really get the credit they deserve. I didn’t realize until way later (like in my 20s) that Debbie Harry was only two years younger than my dad.įunny how I, and perhaps many others, thought “Blondie” was Debbie Harry’s name back then. But I really liked Debbie Harry and the “Call Me” video on MTV and Night Tracks. I had absolutely no idea what was going on in “American Gigolo” when I first saw it in 1983. But I can still hear myself singing along with “Call Me” on said tapes. ![]() The cassette tapes (when I recorded the song from the radio) are barely audible anymore. She was also in an episode of The Muppet Show that year. I discovered Blondie on Apwhen I was 5 years old thanks to Casey Kasem. “We don’t need no education…Hey, TEACHERS, leave those kids alone.” Great song on all levels then and now. Blondie overtook Pink Floyd and “ Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2),” which had been number-1 for four-straight weeks. “Call Me” first reached number-1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 19, 1980. But “Call Me” was oft-played in our household because mom, dad and their friends had little get-togethers at our house after all of them finished their meat packing plant and other assembly line jobs. My first recollection of the song is from the late 1980s. I don’t remember “Heart of Glass” as a young child. It also hit number-1 in at least nine other countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, and the U.K. But “Call Me” needed “American Gigolo” (1980) to reach its historical heights.īlondie was already an international success, with the band’s 1979 smash hit “Heart of Glass.” That song reached number-1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 28, 1979. Granted, “Up Where We Belong” by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes would have likely been a hit without the 1982 movie “An Officer and a Gentleman,” starring Gere. Funny how this is the second time in six months that a Richard Gere movie soundtrack is featured on this website. That said, Blondie was part of that “new wave” music genre of the 1980s after disco. But it was nowhere near the most talented decade for artists. ![]() The 80s, by far, is my favorite decade of music. Synthesizers came along in the 1980s and trivialized pure music talent, meaning people who played actual instruments. I talked about Disco Demolition Night in another blog post and in a 2006 podcast I created while a student at Arizona State University.ĭisco (circa 1972-1980) was the grooviest eras in music history and the last truly creative genre of Black American music. Those years transitioned from one era to the next. The year 1980 is to the oldest of Generation X, as 1990 is to the youngest of Generation X (i.e.
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