Research Catalog

Title

Parallel lines / Kembrew McLeod.

Author

McLeod, Kembrew, 1970-

Publication

• New York : Bloomsbury, 2016.
• ©2016

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

x, 154 pages; 17 cm.

Summary

Blondie's Parallel Lines mixed punk, disco and radio-friendly FM rock with nostalgic influences from 1960s pop and girl group hits. This 1978 album kept one foot planted firmly in the past while remaining quite forward-looking, an impulse that can be heard in its electronic dance music hit "Heart of Glass." Bubblegum music maven Mike Chapman produced Parallel Lines, which was the first massive hit by a group from the CBGB punk underworld. By embracing the diversity of New York City's varied music scenes, Blondie embodied many of the tensions that played out at the time between fans of disco, punk, pop and mainstream rock. Debbie Harry's campy glamor and sassy snarl shook up the rock'n'roll boy's club during a growing backlash against the women's and gay liberation movements, which helped fuel the "disco sucks" battle cry in the late 1970s. Despite disco's roots in a queer, black and Latino underground scene that began in downtown New York, punk is usually celebrated by critics and scholars as the quintessential subculture. This book challenges the conventional wisdom that dismissed disco as fluffy prefab schlock while also recuperating punk's unhip pop influences, revealing how these two genres were more closely connected than most people assume. Even Blondie's album title, Parallel Lines, evokes the parallel development of punk and disco-along with their eventual crossover into the mainstream.

Series Statement

33 1/3

Uniform Title

33 1/3

Subject

• Blondie (Musical group)
• 1971-1980
• Rock music > New York > 1971-1980 > History and criticism

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-150).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction -- Downtown New York in the 1960s and 1970s -- Blondie's arty antecedents -- Parallel scenes -- From the Bowery to Blondiemania -- "Disco sucks", "Chicks can't rock", Blah Blah Blah -- Conclusion: The downtown pop underground.

ISBN

• 9781501302374
• 150130237X

LCCN

^^2015030970

OCLC

• 919001467
• SCSB-10173520

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library