How Olivia Newton-John and Molly Meldrum were key to Blondie’s global success
Two of our most loved music legends played starring roles in Blondie’s rise to global fame, as Debbie Harry reveals ahead of her return to the Australian stage.
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She’s a global pop culture phenomenon, but without the influence of two of Australia’s most-loved music icons, it might have been a different story for Debbie Harry and her band Blondie.
As Blondie prepare to return to Australia for its first shows since 2017, Harry says Molly Meldrum and Olivia Newton-John had a big influence on her rise to stardom here, which then drove the punk new wave upstarts to worldwide success.
“Oh, it was Olivia Newton-John’s fault,” she says from her home in Middletown, New Jersey.
“She got the ball rolling, she was so cute and she had those great songs and everything like that. So when, you know, I came along, a little punkier perhaps, I think it was a given.
“And of course there was the cock-up on Molly’s show.”
That show was Countdown, the ’70s and ’80s music series that made Meldrum a household name in Australia but also around the globe in the pop industry, thanks to his superpower for picking the next big things and indefatigable passion for backing them until they became pop stars.
Countdown was a global lightning rod for new talent. While artists from ABBA to Madonna struggled to get off the ground in the US, Meldrum’s endorsement by playing their videos and talking them up in his excitable mumbling, bumbling fashion would propel them on to the Australian radio airwaves and up the charts. That chart action then put them on the map of the American and British music industry gatekeepers.
Meldrum first met Blondie in the US in 1977 when the band was touring with Iggy Pop and were regarded as an underground band in America. He asked Harry and bandmates Chris Stein and Clem Burke if they had any videos he could play on Countdown.
They offered the clips of Blondie’s new wave debut single X Offender in 1976, which had failed to launch the band on to any chart, and its B-side, the Phil Spector-channelling pop ballad In The Flesh.
Meldrum was supposed to play X Offender on Countdown but aired In The Flesh instead.
“Yeah, he played the wrong side, but I think it was a good mistake,” Harry says, laughing.
Meldrum has always claimed it was an accident. But Blondie co-founder Stein suspected the music guru backed his gut instinct on which was the better song for the Australian audience.
“In retrospect, I always think that Molly Meldrum just had a better idea of what the market would bear here, and he played the B-side,” Stein told NCA during an Australian tour several years ago. “I don’t think the A-side of that song would have been successful. It was a long time ago, that kind of aggressive sound wasn’t in the area yet, whereas the B-side was a prettier ballad-type thing.”
Harry and Stein have quizzed Meldrum over the years as to whether playing In The Flesh was indeed an accident. The singer says the Aussie television legend once gave her a “wink, wink” in reply.
“When it happened, you go through all different turns of emotion but I can’t complain. They liked the song, they liked In The Flesh and it worked for us, it worked for the audience, simple,” Harry says.
Meldrum’s gut was right. The song went to No.1 in Australia and, by the end of 1978, the band was a hit worldwide with its third album Parallel Lines, produced by Australian hitmaker Mike Chapman.
Five decades later, Blondie are Rock and Roll Hall of Famers with an enviable catalogue of classics – spanning genres from punk pop to hip hop – from Heart of Glass and Call Me to Rapture and Atomic.
There was a flurry of six records before the band first broke up in 1982 and Harry launched her solo career after taking time out to care for Stein as he battled a life-threatening auto-immune disease.
Blondie would reunite in 1997 as its pop culture presence enjoyed a boost not only from Harry’s continuing solo career and touring, but being namechecked as an influence by the new wave of female-fronted rock bands including Garbage and No Doubt. Garbage’s frontwoman Shirley Manson would give the speech that inducted the band to the Rock Hall of Fame in 2006.
The 78-year-old Harry remains a revered muse across music and fashion, always seated in the front row of New York Fashion Week shows of her favourite designers.
A video posted by Australian actor Naomi Watts, as the pair danced together at the Feud: Capote vs. the Swans premiere after-party at New York’s famed Plaza Hotel in January, captured exactly the adoration every fan has for this pop pioneer.
As Watts busts a move, she gazes at Harry like she is having the ultimate pinch-me fangirl moment.
“There’s ‘meeting your heroes’ and then there’s DANCING WITH THEM! Love you @blondieofficial,” Watts posted.
Harry shares the love.
“She’s so wonderful; what a great talent,” Harry says when asked about their fun encounter at the party. “You know, we’ve known each other for a while, and we’re great fans of each other and I can say she’s a great actor.
“So even if she hates me, she can make it seem like love because she’s so fluent with her feelings and the way that she expresses everything. I think she’s one of the greats, really.”
Unlike some of her pop peers, there is no “It’s Debbie, Bitch” about Harry. She is acutely aware of her legacy and the impact of her presence on mere mortals but possesses none of the ego or entitlement of her status.
She says she thinks about how other pop stars navigate into walking into a room knowing all eyes are on them and everyone wants their meet and greet moment. And inevitably a selfie for social media bragging rights.
“It’s funny that you’re saying this because I think of that, of how does somebody like Paul McCartney or J-Lo or Beyonce or any of these mega, mega people, how do they deal with that?” Harry says. “I mean, I don’t feel like I’m on quite on that level. I’m very recognisable physically. But I don’t think that I’m everyone’s cup of tea, you know, where those guys have just gone beyond. They are like a moonshot.”
But she does love it when she happens to pass someone on the street wearing a Blondie T-shirt and they do a double-take as it dawns on them they are in the presence of the woman on the front of their shirt.
On stage, the music feels timeless and Harry appears to be ageless as she struts and sings. While it is a staple of most pre-tour interviews for the American or British artist to complain about the long flight to Australia and the rigours of travel, Harry and her bandmates, a mixture of old hands and new blood, are willing road warriors.
“I guess I’m sort of a gypsy but we all get into it,” she says. “I know some people that really were very panicky about it and therefore they stopped doing it. And that’s fair. Dragging myself through airports is not my favourite sport.
“So I try to get some exercise before getting on the plane and, all in all, I look forward to it. “Touring has been a great discovery for me, and I never honestly expected it to happen in my life. I was totally unprepared for it, but very interested in seeing other places.”
Band co-founder Stein no longer tours but is believed to have been involved with the new record. He will publish his memoir Under A Rock in June.
When we spoke last month, Harry had recently collaborated with her former lover, recording a section of the audiobook version of his memoir.
“I haven’t read the whole thing yet. I did the first 50 pages and I was exhausted, thinking, ‘Oh, how did we do all that?’,” she says. “I can’t really explain (our bond). I have a terrific feeling and affection for Chris, and I know that he feels the same way about me. It was a great meeting of the minds.
“I mean, we had our arguments. But not so much now. But when we were younger, you know, we were so fired up and we were basically brats.
“But we were smart enough to be flexible and I think that made us have not only a lot of passion but respect for one another. I think when that develops in a relationship, it’s something you can really hold on to. He’s easy to love. And we’ve made a lot of really good jokes over the years.”
Blondie will perform with the Pandemonium Rocks tour later this month, including Caribbean Gardens on April 20, with all dates and ticket details via https://www.pandemonium.rocks/
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Originally published as How Olivia Newton-John and Molly Meldrum were key to Blondie’s global success
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