Blondie -- Rapture

 

I can't quite remember how records and tapes by the big artists were being distributed back in my teenage years, and the reason I'm starting out this way is that the first time that I'd heard Blondie's "Rapture" was actually through one of those K-Tel compilation records in which there was one quick cut of the music video where Debbie Harry was holding her head while she purred the title. Now, I would think by that point, the song had long been released as a single and as part of an album, and so I was wondering why I hadn't heard of this one before. Blondie was already big in the world so I should have heard this one already on the radio or television.

Well, in any case, I eventually did hear the totality of the song and caught the video after it had been released in January 1981. "Rapture" was basically the first time that I ever heard rap in any form. Harry was talking in some rhythmic pattern about eating Cadillacs and entire bars which struck me as being some sort of weird New Wave-y thing. I think the only time that I heard anything similar to that was when I was watching a segment on "Sesame Street" featuring a cartoon bear pattering the first five numbers to a beatnik jazz beat.

In any case, Harry apparently had two parts to the song: the first part had her singing in those fluffy light vocals which reminded me of "Heart of Glass" and then the rap part in the latter half had her utilizing those richer and lower tones from "The Tide is High". Looking back at the song after so many years, "Rapture" certainly doesn't strike me as the usual rap tune with the tubular bells and the disco rhythms in there. Plus, I'm sure when the video was first shown, maybe there had been a disclaimer stating that one shouldn't be under the influence while watching it. Aside from Harry, the one other character that I still remember is the so-called "Man from Mars" in his white suit and top hat.

"Rapture" hit No. 1 in the United States while it reached No. 3 in Canada. I also recently found out through the YouTube comments for the song that it had become part of the lore in "The Boys" with Soldier Boy doing a cover on "Solid Gold". Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Captain America trying it out himself.

Anyways, right on the day that "Rapture" was released, these three songs were at the top of the Oricon chart.

1. Masahiko Kondo -- Sneaker Blues (スニーカーぶるーす）

2. Harumi Miyako -- Osaka Shigure （大阪しぐれ）

3. Mayumi Itsuwa -- Koibito yo （恋人よ）

Blondie -- The Tide is High

 

Welcome to another Thursday edition of Reminiscings of Youth. What I remember from the music video for Blondie's October 1980 hit "The Tide is High" are two things. First, there was the close-up of Debbie Harry's pretty face singing the song in a lower register compared to the high and floaty vocals she demonstrated with the band's first big breakthrough "Heart of Glass" in 1979. Second, I recall seeing a rocket ship on the pad ready for launch. Looking over the video again for the first time in a long time, I was reminded of what I'd thought was the Dark Lord of the Sith admiring the singer through some video effects. 

"The Tide is High" is quite the different animal from "Heart of Glass". Both have been categorized as New Wave but with the former, there are a few more genres that have been thrown at it: reggae, calypso, rocksteady and pop. And as for me, contrasting with those reggae and calypso labels, I couldn't help getting some of those mariachi vibes from Mexico because of the horns and strings. 

"I'm going to be your No. 1"? Wow, no better prediction could have been made. Blondie's take on "The Tide is High" actually got to be No. 1 in Canada, America, New Zealand and the UK. The song is also available on the band's 2nd album from November 1980, "Autoamerican".

As with many 1980s hits, "The Tide is High" by Blondie is actually a cover of the original 1967 song by the Jamaican group The Paragons and is known as a rocksteady song. According to the Wikipedia article regarding the genre, rocksteady seems to have been a transitional type of music between its precursor ska and then its successor reggae.

So what also got to be our No. 1...No. 2 and No. 3 on Oricon just a few days before Blondie's "The Tide is High" was released on Halloween 1980? Let's take a look.

1. Seiko Matsuda -- Kaze wa Aki Iro （風は秋色）

2. Toshihiko Tahara -- Hatto Shite! Good （ハッとして!Good）

3. Junko Yagami -- Purpletown (パープルタウン）You Oughta Know By Now

Blondie -- Heart of Glass

 

On this week's regular Reminiscings of Youth, I have this memory of a song that could have been the transition between the old disco and the New Wave.

This is going to sound so weird but whenever I hear Blondie's "Heart of Glass", my memories go back to a fishing trip that consisted of my brother, myself and a friend of mine from junior high school on Centre Island which was a five or ten-minute ferry ride away from Toronto's harbour over Lake Ontario. "Heart of Glass" was playing all over the park speakers and I thought it was an odd musical accompaniment to the attempts of getting successful at the trout pond. So, it hasn't been the fragrance of cologne and tobacco at Studio 54 but the smell of fish and lake water that has been my sense memory of this hit song from January 1979. 

Still, I'm never going to confuse rainbow trout with the beautiful visage of Deborah Harry who was the vocalist behind "Heart of Glass", a song that I think mixed the disco and New Wave and has become one of my early music touchstones. It was the first time that I had heard of Blondie so I was surprised that "Heart of Glass" wasn't the debut single but something like the 10th single by the band according to their Wikipedia discography although it was first heard on their third album "Parallel Lines" from September 1978. That album cover, by the way, with Harry looking rather stern in front of her smiling band is pretty darn iconic to me.

"Heart of Glass" hit No. 1 in several countries including Canada and the United States and has even made it onto Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. 

So, according to Showa Pops, what was also coming out in January 1979 in Japan?

Hiroshi Madoka -- Musoubana （夢想花）(released in Nov. 1978 according to J-Wiki)

Mariko Takahashi -- Anata no Sora wo Tobitai　(あなたの空を翔びたい）(released in Nov. 1978 according to J-Wiki)

Alice -- Champion （チャンピオン）(released in Dec. 1978, according to J-Wiki)