Blondie - Eat to the Beat

At the end of the 1980s, Rolling Stone famously awarded the Clash's London Calling with the accolade of best album of the decade, ignoring the fact that it was released in 1979. If Rolling Stone were looking for a blueprint to pop music and culture in the 1980s then they could have picked another record released in 1979, Eat to the Beat by Blondie.

Parallel Lines is generally heralded as the essential Blondie purchase. However, this rather ignores the aural delights of its follow up, Eat to the Beat.

Whereas early Blondie releases such as their self titled debut and Plastic Letters often harked back to US 50s nostalgia, Eat to the Beat brings with it a sheer diversity of styles underlining how far popular music had come, and where it could go in the future.

From the pop reggae of Die Young Stay Pretty, the dramatic punk fusion of Victor and the title track, the theatrical lullaby of Sound-a-Sleep and the Motown influenced Slow Motion, Eat to the Beat sets the tone for the collision of styles that made the 1980s what it was.

Eat to the Beat's melting pot of ideas also advances the pure pop template that might be used to describe Parallel Lines greatest moments.

Blondie's dystopian disco anthem Atomic is Eat to the Beat's most well known song yet the albums more tender pop moments like the ethereal Shayla and the twin mini epics of Dreaming and Union City Blue are where the record really shows its heart.

Eat to the Beat is really the first time that the concept of the art of the music video was fully consumed by a major recording artist. A separate Eat to the Beat video album was released by the group which included promotional films for all 12 songs on the album.

The promotional videos produced for the Bowie-esque The Hardest Part and the aforementioned Atomic are amongst the most iconic of the era. Despite being performance led and with production values that would be seen as limited by today's standards, both conjure up convincing nightmare visions as the world moved closer to the Orwellian prophecies of 1984.

The use of cameos by band associates such as hip hop guru Fab Five Freddy and the first bona fide supermodel Gia Carangi in a lot of their promotional material also opens out the sense of Blondie being part of something much wider. For this brief moment in time they were the biggest band on the planet, with an entourage of hipsters who they were able to make famous too. It seems somewhat apt that The Hardest Part uses David Bowie's Fashion as a musical template.

Eat to the Beat is yet further proof of Rolling Stones accidental assumption that the 1980s, despite being the most futuristic and forward looking of times, started before the decade had even begun.