The Blondie Discography in Order, Album by Album
The Blondie discography runs from the 1976 debut to Pollinator in 2017, and I logged it album by album from the sleeve credits rather than lifting a list from a database. On the map each album is a station and each credited musician is a line running between the records they played on, with branch lines for the one-off contributors.
The print
The studio albums as stations and the credited musicians as named lines, deeply researched and drawn by me.
Studio records only. That is the editorial rule I hold to across the whole catalogue, so there are no live albums, compilations or soundtracks on this one.
Blondie Albums in Order, 1976 to 2017
The band records in two bursts with a seventeen year gap in the middle. Six albums between 1976 and 1982, then nothing until No Exit in 1999.
| Year | Album | Credited band line-up |
|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Blondie | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Gary Valentine, Jimmy Destri |
| 1977 | Plastic Letters | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Frank Infante |
| 1978 | Parallel Lines | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Nigel Harrison, Frank Infante |
| 1979 | Eat to the Beat | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Nigel Harrison, Frank Infante |
| 1980 | Autoamerican | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Nigel Harrison, Frank Infante |
| 1982 | The Hunter | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Nigel Harrison, Frank Infante |
| 1999 | No Exit | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Leigh Foxx, Paul Carbonara |
| 2003 | The Curse of Blondie | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Leigh Foxx, Kevin Topping |
| 2011 | Panic of Girls | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Leigh Foxx, Matt Katz-Bohen |
| 2014 | Ghosts of Download | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Leigh Foxx, Tommy Kessler, Matt Katz-Bohen |
| 2017 | Pollinator | Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Leigh Foxx, Matt Katz-Bohen, Tommy Kessler |
Debbie Harry's Five Solo Records Sit in the Same Sequence
Most Blondie lists leave these out, or file them separately. On the map they are interleaved by release date, which is the only way the shape of the thing becomes readable.
| Year | Album | Credited names on my sheet | Names that stand out in the credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | KooKoo | 18 | Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, Tony Thompson, Chris Stein |
| 1986 | Rockbird | 25 | Seth Justman |
| 1989 | Def, Dumb and Blonde | 24 | Chris Stein, Mike Chapman, Gary Valentine, Leigh Foxx |
| 1993 | Debravation | 40 | Chris Stein, Anne Dudley |
| 2007 | Necessary Evil | 9 | Barb Morrison, Charles Nieland |
Debravation is the busiest station on the whole print at 40 credited names, which is more than the first four Blondie albums put together. Those four run 8, 6, 7 and 13, so 34 between them. The sparsest station is The Curse of Blondie in 2003, at 5, straight after No Exit's 22.
Chris Stein Is on Every Station, Including the Ones With Only Her Name on the Sleeve
This is the finding that changed how I drew the map. Debbie Harry and Chris Stein are the two lines that run the entire length without a break, across the band records and the solo records alike.
Clem Burke is the cleanest test case on the whole sheet. He is credited on all eleven Blondie albums and on none of the five Debbie Harry solo records, so his line maps the band exactly. Jimmy Destri does the same for eight stations, dropping out at every solo album and stopping for good after The Curse of Blondie in 2003.
So the solo albums are not really solo. They are the same two people with a different set of players around them. Stein's credit wording is the other half of that story: guitar and bass on the 1976 debut, bass and drum programming by Rockbird in 1986, and simply all instruments on Necessary Evil in 2007.
Robert Fripp Calls at Two Stations, One of Them a Bonus Track
Parallel Lines is the album everyone owns, and it carries one of the shortest branch lines on the early half of the map. My sheet credits Robert Fripp with guitar on track four, and then once more on Eat to the Beat in 1979, where the credit reads guitar on a "Heroes" bonus live track rather than on the album proper.
Two stations, one of them a bonus track, is the kind of credit I go looking for when I research a discography. A name that big, calling twice and then never again, tells you more about a record than a sales figure does.
Autoamerican in 1980 goes the other way and pulls in a full session cast, including Jimmie Haskell's string and horn arrangements and three separate percussionists credited on The Tide Is High alone: Alex Acuna, Emil Richards and Ollie E. Brown. Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman of the Turtles sing on T-Birds.
The Debut Carries Three Backing Vocalists and One Brill Building Songwriter
The 1976 debut is an eight name station, and three of those eight are backing vocalists credited on the same two tracks, In the Flesh and Man Overboard: Ellie Greenwich, Micki Harris and Hilda Harris.
Greenwich is the one worth stopping on. She co-wrote Be My Baby and River Deep, Mountain High, and here she is singing backing vocals on a first album by a band nobody had heard of yet. She comes back once more, on Eat to the Beat, on Dreaming and Atomic.
Gary Valentine Leaves in 1977 and Returns Thirteen Years Later
Valentine plays bass guitar on the debut, and guitar on X Offender. He is gone from the next record. Then he reappears in 1989 on Def, Dumb and Blonde, credited for backing vocals rather than bass, which is a different instrument and a different decade on the same line.
My sheet files him as Gary Valentine, with Lachman alongside it in the roster row, because the credits use both. Two stations, thirteen years apart, is exactly the kind of branch a chronological list hides and a map cannot.
KooKoo Is Effectively a Chic Record With a Dog on It
The 1981 solo debut has Nile Rodgers on guitar and vocals, Bernard Edwards on bass and Tony Thompson on drums. Three quarters of Chic, on a Debbie Harry album, in the year after Rapture.
Two members of Devo are credited as Pud and Spud. Chuck Martin is credited for a dog bark. I plotted that one too, because the credit exists and the rule is that credited musicians get a line.
The Later Albums Are Where the Guest Spurs Get Strange
Coolio raps on No Exit in 1999. Elliot Easton of The Cars and Zach Condon of Beirut both turn up on Panic of Girls in 2011.
Pollinator in 2017 closes the sequence and brings in Joan Jett, Johnny Marr and Nick Valensi of The Strokes. Because Marr is on that record, the Blondie map and the Johnny Marr map share a name, which is the sort of crossing I only find by working through the credits myself.
Three Lines End Together at The Hunter in 1982
Frank Infante runs five stations, from Plastic Letters in 1977 to The Hunter in 1982. Nigel Harrison runs four, from Parallel Lines in 1978 to the same album. Both lines stop there and neither comes back, and Jimmy Destri's pauses at the same station for seventeen years.
That is the 1982 break-up drawn as geometry rather than described in a paragraph. When the band returns on No Exit in 1999, Destri is back and the other two are not.
Choosing It as a Gift for a Blondie Fan
The people this suits are the ones who already own the records. There is nothing on the map they can learn from the sleeves alone, but there is a great deal they have never seen laid out in one sequence.
A2 works on a shelf or in a hallway. A1 is the one to pick if they will stand and read it, which most people do, because the guest spurs reward a closer look. A3 is the cheapest way in.
| Size | Dimensions |
|---|---|
| A3 | 420 x 297 mm |
| A2 | 594 x 420 mm |
| A1 | 841 x 594 mm |
Three inch formats sit alongside those as separate sizes rather than conversions: 16 x 12 in, 24 x 18 in and 36 x 24 in. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival and acid-free. Unframed, or supplied in a black wood frame ready to hang.
Blondie Discography Tube Map Art Print
All 16 studio albums in order, 1976 to 2017, with every credited musician drawn as their own line. A3, A2 and A1, framed or unframed.
Blondie Albums in Order: The Questions I Get Asked
How many studio albums did Blondie make?
Eleven under the Blondie name, from the 1976 debut to Pollinator in 2017. The map runs to 16 stations because Debbie Harry's five solo studio albums are interleaved in release order alongside them.
What is not on the map?
Live albums, compilations and soundtracks. I map studio records only, right across the catalogue, so releases like the live and greatest hits titles are left off by editorial rule rather than by oversight. Anything released after Pollinator in 2017 postdates the map.
Why are the solo albums mixed in with the band albums?
Because Chris Stein plays on all of them. Separating them would hide the single most interesting thing in the credits, which is that the two central lines never break while everything around them changes.
Which album has the most credited musicians?
Debravation, Debbie Harry's 1993 solo record, at 40 credited names on my sheet. That is more than the first four Blondie albums put together, which run to 34 between them. The solo records are consistently the busier stations: Rockbird carries 25 and Def, Dumb and Blonde 24, against six to thirteen names on each of the 1970s band records.
Who played on the most Blondie albums?
Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, on all 16 stations. Clem Burke follows on 11, every one of them a Blondie record rather than a solo one, then Jimmy Destri on 8.
Do producers get a line on the map?
Only if they are also credited playing something. Mike Chapman produced the run of albums that made the band famous, and appears where he has a playing credit rather than as a producer alone.
Related Music Maps
Because Johnny Marr plays on Pollinator, the Johnny Marr Discography Map Art Print is the natural companion piece. For the same New York scene and era, the Ramones Discography Map Art Print sits alongside it well.
The full range sits in the Punk and Post-Punk collection and the wider Music Wall Art Prints collection.
All 16 studio albums, one map
1976 to 2017, every credited musician as their own line, deeply researched and plotted in CAD by me in East Sussex.
See the Blondie Discography Map Art Print, or if you are not sure which map they would want, a gift card for music fans lets them choose.
