My Favorite Female Vocalists: 12. Debbie Harry
The Blondie front woman bridged the gap between rock and pop like nobody before or since.
Disclaimer: this countdown isn’t meant to be an all-time definitive list. These are simply my favorites.
The music of the ‘70s gets a bad rap in some circles, but that decade featured some of the most varied sounds of any era. After all this is the decade that gave us outlaw country, the birth of hip-hop. soft rock (and its companion yacht rock), disco, and punk, which, of course, gave birth to new wave.
One of the bands to emerge from that New York City punk/new wave scene to both transcend the genre and give it exposure was Blondie. The band was a tremendous coterie of musicians, but the driving force behind the band was arguably Debbie Harry.
Harry didn’t mind using her sex appeal, but she also didn’t mind experimenting with various musical styles (alongside her longtime boyfriend and the band’s guitarist Chris Stein).
For example, witness the evolution of the band’s first mega-hit, “Heart of Glass,” as the band incorporated disco and electronic music into a song Harry and Stein has been working on for years.
Harry and Stein enhanced the band’s sound with early hip-hop and reggae and threw back to the ‘50s and early ‘60s. Even bringing such disparate styles together, Blondie still had a consistent sound. That’s testimony to the innovative musicianship of the band and Harry’s powerhouse vocals.
She knew how to be tough and vulnerable, often at the same time. And she set the standard for so many brilliant women of rock and pop. Nobody bridged the gap between rock and pop like Debbie Harry has done.
If you’re interested in following along with what I’ve written so far, here are the “honorable mentions” for this countdown:
Photo: Private Stock Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons