Top 100 Albums of the 1970s - #76 - Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)

Blondie is that most unlikely paradox, a polished punk band. Emerging out of the New York punk/new wave scene, the band started out raw enough, blending aggressive modernism with sweet girl group-inspired melodies. But with their third album under producer Mike Chapman, they reached a level of professionalism equal to their energy and creativity.

Reportedly, relations between Chapman and the band were not especially friendly. He demanded perfection from a group that was used to knocking out sessions in a couple of loose takes. The resulting friction resulting in Chapman having instruments occasionally thrown at him by exasperated band members, but you can't argue with the results. Every note on Parallel Lines is as good as it could have been, with zero tolerance for sloppiness in any area.

The squeaky clean production highlights the essentially quality of the songwriting, and brings out the best in both the band and in Deborah Harry herself, whose instantly recognizable voice constantly rides the line between tender and tough. As her scowl on the cover photo suggests, she is not just another honey-voiced pop singer.

No one has a voice like Harry, and she uses it very adeptly. One Way or Another, about a stalking experience, would have the potential to be very repetitive, but she sings the chorus a different way every time. She growls and coos with equally potent effect.

What makes Blondie stand out among their peers is that, while the anarchic energy of fellow New York punk acts is present, they can't seem to help writing irresistible pop hooks. Picture This and Sunday Girl have killer ones, and Just Go Away is built around not one, but three hooks that other bands would give their bassist for.

Elsewhere, the band gets playful, transforming a Buddy Holly love song into a bratty punk anthem, complete with the obligatory rock and roll scream, and experimenting with disco on the album's most famous song, Heart of Glass.

Blondie is neither as hard as most punk bands nor as poppy as many New Wave acts, but their strength lies in combining the best parts of both genres into a tight and polished whole, that balances every sarcastic snarl with a shy smile. Parallel Lines represents the band at the height of their powers, both as songwriters and as musicians capable of delivering a professional product, even as they continue to have raucous fun.

Top 100 Albums of the 1970s - #89 - Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)

David Bowie described them as "the band of the future," and it's not hard to see why. As the bloated and pompous progressive rock of the early seventies gave way to the stripped down futurism of the latter half of the decade, and romanticism was replaced by cynicism, Devo was a band on the cutting edge.

More than even the Ramones, Devo embraced stupidity as an aesthetic on their debut album, a hymn to the "devolution" of modern man that straddles the line between social commentary and meaningless absurdism. In this sense, this album is as "punk" as anything else on this list, helped along by the fact that the band can barely play their instruments.

Of particular note is the fact that Brian Eno agreed to produce this album. It bears little resemblance to his own work, and while his influence on Talking Heads albums at around the same time can be heard in subtle audio manipulations that give the music a rich and unique texture, here his involvement seems to have been limited to leaving the band alone and letting them do what they wanted. This is apparently more due to Devo's unwillingness to accept his ideas than any conscious effort on his part, though.

Devo is at their best when they are able to apply their blunt sound and yelped vocals to a catchy pop hook. Unfortunately, that only happens in a few places here. Space Junk, with it's high, chiming guitars is radio gold. Mongoloid is equally good, in its mundane treatment of a rather controversial topic.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album struggles to find good melodies. Jocko Homo features the iconic "Are we not men? We are Devo!" chant, but is otherwise fairly uninteresting. Gut Feeling in exciting only in that it features some clearly Eno-influenced synth parts, and the cover of the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction highlights the dumb and primitive nature of the original, but it's not as fun to listen to.

In a lot of ways, Devo embodied the New Wave movement at the end of the seventies as much as any other band. Transforming punk from antisocial caterwauling to subversiveness that was radio-friendly , complete with angular melodies, high-pitched amelodic vocals, and generally futurist mindset.

But while Devo were certainly pioneers, they were neither as catchy nor as inventive as their contemporaries and those who would come later. Ironically, the genre would continue to evolve for the better, even as the band championed devolution.

Top 100 Albums of the 1970s - #96 - Iggy Pop - The Idiot (1977)

Iggy Pop goes New Wave! Five years after the furious onslaught of The Stooges, Iggy Pop returned to music in surprisingly humble, experimental way. Whereas his goal with The Stooges frequently seemed to be making as much noise as possible, here we find Pop at his most introspective, which is a welcome change.

In fairness, a large part of the album's sound is due to producer and co-writer David Bowie. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to call this a Bowie album in everything but name, for the songs here are remarkably similar to the early Berlin-period work that the Thin White Duke was exploring at the time, and two of the tracks, China Girl and Sister Midnight, would later resurface on Bowie albums, albeit in substantially altered forms.

Still, Pop is responsible for most of the lyrics on the album, as well as the vocal interpretation, and that's saying something. While not as accomplished a singer as Bowie, Pop's voice lends the tracks a vulnerability we haven't often heard before.

There's a theme I intend to come back to several times during this series: Fatigue with the rock and roll lifestyle. As the wild and raucous rock stars of the 1960s get a little older and a little more mature, it seems that an almost universal sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction descended upon them in a body. Lou Reed may have been the first one to make endless partying sound exhausting and depressing, but he was certainly not the last, and it's my theory that this feeling is a large part of what drove the energy of punk so quickly into the dark, cold world of post-punk.

Nightclubbing, written by Pop to describe what it was like hanging out with Bowie, encapsulates this kind of burnt out weariness perfectly. Nightclubs are supposed to be fun, but here they are painted with the mechanical rhythms of Kraftwerk and a droning, emotionless vocal. One gets the sense that everyone is tired and wants to go home, only no one wants to be the first one to say so. Similarly, Funtime doesn't sound as fun as its title would suggest.

For me, the high point of the album is China Girl, closing out Side One. While Bowie's more familiar version is more polished and well-produced, I prefer Pop's apocalyptic take, with the crushing descending bass line. In Bowie's hands, it sounds like a charming little love song. Pop makes it sound like the world is coming to an end.

Starting with its title and not letting up until the last track, The Idiot is a study in indecision, doubt, and regret. Coming from someone with Iggy Pop's bravado, it's a refreshing and engaging listen.

Klaus Nomi (1982)

Meet Klaus Nomi, an eccentric, flamboyant German opera singer who got his big break touring with David Bowie and decided to put out a record of New Wave music. Not weird enough? I should mention that he was a countertenor, meaning that he could sing at an extremely high pitch, and that the highlights of the album are bizarre covers of sixties girl-group pop songs.

This is one of those records that makes everyone who hears it scratch their head in confusion and when played for friends will inevitably elicit the response "what is this?" It's not an easy question to answer. As you can see from the image above, Nomi is not helping the stereotype that Germans are weird with his outlandish costumes and makeup job that looks like it came straight out of an F. W. Murnau film.

The instrumentation baking up Nomi's heavily accented voice is rather thin, consisting of angular guitars, some eighties synths, a little piano and the occasional smattering of backing vocals to evoke the sixties atmosphere of some of the covers. These include "Lightning Strikes," "You Don't Own Me" and "The Twist" all sung with the over the top melodrama only a campy opera singer can pull off (although whether he does, in fact, pull it off is purely a matter of opinion.

There are also some original compositions, which are decent and just as zany, but lack some of the surreal fun of lines like "You don't own me, don't say I can't play with other boys!" The album ends bizarrely with an excerpt of a legitimate operatic aria, which is fine but totally out of place.

Klaus Nomi went on to record one more studio album (featuring a cover of "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead!" How great is that?) and a live record before sadly dying of AIDS in 1983. His debut is a fun listen for fans of novelty albums and general musical oddities.