Debbie Harry

You can hear it in the way Harry lets melodrama and toughness sit in the same breath — that Shangri-Las trick of a girl-group harmony wrapped around a switchblade attitude. Chris Stein was reportedly obsessed with the group when Blondie was taking shape, and the band even demoed a Shangri-Las cover early on, so this wasn't a vague, in-the-air influence — it was a direct fascination.

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1964

Leader of the PackThe Shangri-Las

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1976

In the FleshDebbie Harry

listen forCue up "Leader of the Pack" and listen to the spoken-word breakdown, the teen-tragedy theatrics, and the wall-of-sound harmonies — then put on Blondie's "In the Flesh" and notice the same doo-wop swoon and monologue-like delivery. It's a lineage you can hear rather than just read about.

By decade's end Blondie was chasing the same uptown sheen Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards perfected — clipped funk guitar, glossy basslines, a dancefloor's worth of cool. The connection became explicit rather than implied: Rodgers and Edwards produced Harry's 1981 solo album Koo Koo, and Blondie has openly called "Rapture" a tribute to Chic's sound.

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1979

Good TimesChic

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1980

RaptureDebbie Harry

listen forDrop the needle on Chic's "Good Times," from 1979, and lock into that elastic bassline and cool, unbothered groove — then play Blondie's "Rapture" and hear that same strut reimagined with Harry's rap-sung delivery riding on top. The rhythmic DNA is the same; Blondie just poured new wave and hip-hop over it.

Smith and Harry were the two women who cracked open CBGB's boys' club at nearly the same moment, and Smith's fusion of Beat poetry with raw rock and roll on Horses helped set the template for what "punk with a woman up front" could sound like. The relationship between them is better documented as scene-defining peers than a direct musical borrowing, so take this one as shared attitude and shared stage more than a traceable lick.

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1975

GloriaPatti Smith

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1976

X OffenderDebbie Harry

listen forListen to Patti Smith's "Gloria," from 1975's Horses, for that confrontational, talky-sung swagger draped over garage-rock chords — then play Blondie's early single "X Offender" from 1976 and notice the same CBGB-bred nerve and deadpan cool, even as Harry pushes it toward pop hooks rather than poetry.