We Bet You've Never Heard These Underrated Blondie Songs

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Blondie generated so many hits across so many subgenres of rock and pop that a great number of its songs couldn't help but get overlooked, undervalued, or otherwise lost in the shuffle. Blondie — which refers to the name of the entire rock band, not just yellow-tressed lead singer Debbie Harry, as was commonly believed at the time — was refreshingly and audaciously adept at many kinds of music, and the public responded well to its shifts and experiments. These include the hit "One Way or Another," which reflected the punk origins of Blondie and was inspired by a stalker, while "Dreaming" was a definitive new wave track and a rock song from 1979 that sounds even cooler today.

In its initial, golden era, Blondie recorded six albums between 1976 and 1982, and they're loaded with gems that didn't get as much exposure as they deserved on the radio or MTV. From a rejected Bond movie theme song to a melancholy ballad about a factory worker, here are five terrific Blondie tunes you might never have heard, but should.

Only the third Blondie single to make an impression in the U.K. — it reached No. 12 in 1978 — "Picture This" was the first time that casual listeners would've found out that the band can really rock it out after the previous two pop singles "Denis" and "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear." From Blondie's 1978 album "Parallel Lines" (and not a hit in the U.S.), "Picture This" contains just a little bit of radio-friendly ambition, but that's a Trojan horse to lure in unsuspecting listeners to what becomes a noisy few minutes. "Picture This" might be considered a punk song if Blondie's members didn't play their instruments with such precision, poise, and restraint.

"Picture This" is jittery and a little funky. There are few Blondie songs not driven by tightly constructed guitar parts, but here, that instrument and the bass get to dance around a little to create a groove. Blondie employs that fun trick of dropping out the music suddenly and briefly, only for a playful riff to start things back up again. Those play like a direct response to Debbie Harry's performance, coming from the point of view of a heartsick individual yearning to see and enjoy her beloved, or at least a photograph of them. That frustration in the lyrics takes over the music, as the controlled noise becomes a cacophony. Throughout, "Picture This" veers between moony-eyed romance and romantic agony.

Two of Blondie's most disparate and best-known Top 40 hits reside on its 1979 album "Eat to the Beat" — the shimmering "Dreaming" and the disco-adjacent "Atomic." Blondie tries so many things on the LP that the showy experiments and smashes overpower the simpler pleasures, such as "Shayla."

It's an interesting song in that it's very drum-forward, with lots of crashing and smashing. It somehow meshes well with an emotive bass guitar line and one of lead singer Debbie Harry's most earnest and affecting vocal performances. Harry seems to be haunted by the character of Shayla as she sings both about her and as her, ruminating on the curse of anonymity and the desire to escape modern life if only it weren't for the terror of it all. When all those pieces come together, the result is a lovely and melancholy tune, a ballad that's uptempo and propulsive yet also demands that the listener slow down and pay attention.

Debbie Harry's charisma and star appeal were undeniable, and early in Blondie's story, Hollywood came calling. Harry took a role as the romantic lead in the 1980 New Jersey-set drama "Union City," which inspired "Union City Blue," a song that appeared on Blondie's 1979 album "Eat to the Beat" before the film saw wide release. A Top 20 hit in Britain but not immediately issued as a single in the U.S., "Union City Blue" is a mini-epic of classic rock 'n' roll, bursting with romance, optimism, and joy.

On "Union City Blue," Blondie takes its cue from famous New Jerseyan Bruce Springsteen; it's epic, grandiose, and bombastic, with traces of simple rock 'n' roll and Americana way down in there. Harry's voice carries over and dominates the entire track, matching the anthemic ringing of the guitars and keyboards. "Union City Blue" exudes strength, and it's an inspiring song. It's also a short song — no frills or filler here, just a straightforward presentation of a couple of dreamy verses and choruses consisting of largely inscrutable lyrics — and Blondie is in and out.

Compared to many of Blondie's other hits, "War Child" pretty much failed as a single, barely making the Top 40 in the U.K. and missing the Hot 100 entirely in the U.S. It was also released during a particularly tragic chapter of Blondie's story, when a few months later in 1982, the band broke up in part because guitarist Chris Stein was diagnosed with pemphigus, a painful autoimmune disease. Stein recovered enough to participate in the launch of Blondie's second era in 1998, but for a time it seemed like the 1982 album "The Hunter" would be the group's last. It flopped, selling worse than Blondie's previous five albums and making any potentially great album cuts virtually invisible to history.

However, "War Child" is startling in its approach because it doesn't sound much like previous Blondie songs. As the group liked to play around with its sound, it was probably inevitable that Blondie would fully embrace the electronically driven synth-pop storming the charts in the early 1980s. The track explodes with robotic, skittering, and insistent keyboard riffs, and then come the artificial horn blasts. The signature Blondie guitar crunch is there, but it's buried in the mix. 

There's a lot going on in "War Child," as it's a wall of noise that Debbie Harry has to virtually yell over to be heard. Theatrical, messy, and invigorating, "War Child" is delightfully unpredictable. The song changes direction frequently and offers so many big flourishes and retreating quiet moments to boot.

In 1981, a new James Bond movie was in the works and in need of a theme song, so it was a logical choice for its producers to turn to one of the world's biggest bands of the early '80s. However, the production was really only after Debbie Harry, and to sing a track written by someone else. Instead, Blondie wrote an original song, recorded it, and sent it in for consideration. The movie people declined Blondie's titular James Bond movie theme song, "For Your Eyes Only," in favor of a tune by the same name performed by Sheena Easton.

Had Blondie's track been chosen, it would've been given major exposure, both as a promotional tool and as a single. Instead, it was buried on the last studio album of Blondie's first era, 1982's "The Hunter." Blondie understood the assignment, producing an unabashedly dramatic, mysterious, and very James Bond kind of song — like "Goldfinger" or "Live and Let Die" — especially when the cryptic, sensual, and spy-game lyrics are considered: "We both have our orders / And a trick up the sleeve." But "For Your Eyes Only" also bears the crucial elements of a Blondie song, with crisp drums and searing, ringing guitars that compete for attention with the keyboards.