Blondie Against The Odds 1974 - 1982

When they emerged in 1974 from an embryonic incarnation called the Stilettos/Stillettoes (the spelling fluctuated), Blondie were initially dismissed by New York punk scenesters. They were too kitsch, too pop, and Debbie Harry too much of a heart-stopping bombshell; their aesthetic of camp glamour didn’t chime with the art punk of downtown Manhattan.

In the Flesh, from their self-titled 1976 debut album, encapsulates everything that irritated the early punks: on one level, it’s a swooning tribute to early-60s girl groups, with an opiated chorus that instantly embeds itself in the memory; on another, it was a shop window for Debbie Harry’s “Blondie” character – a cool, knowing siren whose deadpan vocals promised heartbreak for anyone who fell for her.

Harry was a fan of groups like the Shangri-Las and the Ronettes – hood girls whose toughness concealed their vulnerability – and adapted elements of their image into her Blondie persona. Fittingly, In the Flesh was a homage to them – a velvety slowie, steeped in girl-group harmonies, that could be taken as a daydreamy love song, or as something more base.

It starts with Harry mooning over a boy she spots when she’s out walking on the Lower East Side (this was a reference to the neighbourhood where the band shared an apartment, across from the punk club CBGB), and having a confrontation with his girlfriend, who hisses: “Hands off this one, sweetie – this boy is mine.” Undeterred by that passive-aggressive “sweetie”, Harry spends the rest of the song yearning to be “warm and soft, hot and close … in the flesh”.

She’s magnificent here, going several lustful steps further than the early girl groups would have dared, but simultaneously radiating sweetness. This became Blondie’s first hit – in Australia, anyway, where it reached No 2.

www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/16/blondie-10-of-the-best