Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Platinum Blondie

Like jazz and hip-hop, rock and roll started out as a populist type of music. The establishment hated it, but the people loved it so much no one could keep it down. Throughout the 50s and 60s, the most popular artists tended to make a lot of the best rock.

Then, as often happens, the music grows larger and more sophisticated, and some of it is loved by smaller and smaller niches. The Velvet Underground was one of the greatest rock bands of all, but had almost no commercial success. Unfortunately, this made some think that to sell well also meant to sell out.

Punk music was born out of a "do-it-yourself" ethos. That was part of its charm. But because little of it hit big in America, there became a feeling among some in the punk world that failing commercially was a badge of honor. How dumb.

Blondie was just inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Bully for them. Unfortunately, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein still has a bit of the feeling that widespread popularity is bad. He's quoted in the LA Times as saying "contrary to popular belief, we didn't have any mainstream success. I always considered us just a very successful cult band."

This is just silly. Blondie, in its heyday, had a gold album and three consecutive platinum albums. They also had four #1 hits, "Heart Of Glass," "Call Me," "The Tide Is High" and "Rapture." And that's just in America--if anything, they were more popular overseas.

Sorry, Chris, but if that isn't mainstream commerical success, there's no such thing.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't failing commercially was necessarily a badge of honor or if so, only in a "sour grapes" kind of way. I think those punk bands who did were perfectly happy to succeed commercially and rationalized it fine (Who talked about getting "cash from chaos" anyway?)

"Commercial" in the rock world is a state of mind like "cool" "def" "Hip" Old school" etc... except its a bad one- a way to differentiate "new music" in the late 70s from "corporate rock" bands like REO Speedwagon and Journey.
There are plenty of successfully acts that succeed commercially that I wouldn't call "commercial" and while I don't necessarily agree with Chris Stein that Blondie was one of them, I don't blame him for trying. (They got a little too polished after "Parallel Lines" & "Eat To The Beat" ) The Sex Pistols who were the most interesting inductees to the RR HOF definitely do not look commercial but Johnny Rotten's nasty note will probably have far more commercial (and inspirational) effect than Chris Stein's comments.

Rock celebrates rebellion and needs to wear that badge (at least certain kinds of rock) to be successful.
Its like the executive in Sprint commercial who wants to "put it to the man" even though he is the man. Or Bill O'Reilly calling himself an outsider, or the Yankees, Patriots (pick any other dynasty type sports team) claiming to be the underdog.

Rockers need to be different from investment bankers even if its only perception.

12:46 PM, March 14, 2006  
Blogger LAGuy said...

Thanks for you comments. The irony of rock is it's the music of rebellion but also the music of the establishment. The Sex Pistols weren't the first to note the very idea of a rock and roll hall of fame makes no sense.

At least at the ceremony half the members of Blondie were angry enough to be suing the other half.

1:33 PM, March 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's Blondie's slickness, along with their ability to rock, that made them great. They have nothing to apologize for and shouldn't feel they have.

8:29 AM, March 15, 2006  

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