Rank all of Debbie Harry's 5 solo studio albums from best to worst.

My opinion

1. Koo Koo

2. Def, Dumb & Blonde

3. Debravation

4. Rockbird

5. Necessary Evil

I ❤️ Debbie Harry but I cant think of ONE song she did as a solo.

KooKoo, Def Dumb and Blonde, Rockbird, Debravation, Necessary Evil

R2, a shame

R2 Leave this house!

Outside of Blondie, I liked Harry’s one-off tracks and guest appearances on discs and collections. Her version of “Liar, Liar” was one of the best tracks on the great old soundtrack to Married to the Mob. She performed two amazing tracks on a disc of music from Italian Cinema, and a fun version of “Well Did You Ever” with Iggy Pop.

I remember a song she sang with Shirley Manson that sounded good, too. I think it was called “Bounce Along”.

She is a very cool broad, and she sang all types of music. She’s great.

5. Koo Koo

5. Def, Dumb & Blonde

5. Debravation

5. Rockbird

5. Necessary Evil

I was a massive Blondie and Debbie Harry fan but made the mistake of seeing her at the Lovebox festival and she was shit.

Couldn't remember the words to her biggest hits and looked smacked off her face.

R6, what do you think of the studio solo albums?

Her song Maria is a favorite of mine - can get enough of it.

Maria is a Blondie song that was written by Jimmy Destri, whom Chris and Debbie kicked out of the band years ago.

Debbie stopped giving a shit after Koo Koo, which was abominable and justly failed.

Unbelievable that two seeming powerhouses like Chic and Debbie, who just a year earlier had done "Upside Down" and the #1 song of 1980, "Call Me," collaborated on this album.

They must have spent 90% of their time together doing heroin, because nothing even remotely approaches greatness. The singles — both written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards — are not even that good.

Love her, but her only good solo song was Two Times Blue

All of Debbie's solo albums after Koo Koo were very "I don't give a shit."

Very little effort or commitment, very little attempt to establish a point of view, sometimes not even moderate quality control much less aiming for excellence.

Singles by B-, C-, and D-list outside writers. Post-peak Arthur Baker, way-post-peak Thompson Twins, Chuck "pre Two and a Half Men" Lorre.

Contrast that to Chrissie Hynde, whose Pretenders has essentially been a solo act since 1983 and she's written hooky, meaningful tunes into her 70s.

I don't understand how you can be inspired to influence and move the pop market for seven years and then just give up and coast after that — and expect people to pay for it.

R9 I wanted so much to enjoy them, but they were too uneven in quality. I was a kid and not very sophisticated, but felt that solo content was no where near the content co-created by Blondie. I thought No Exit was a great album, and I loved The Curse of Blondie, too. Their reemergence was pretty inspiring at that time.

R11 That’s true. I don’t know all the sordid details of Blondie’s separation from Jimmy Destri, but it felt so shitty.

There are some more recent tracks that I did admire, but these are Blondie songs (Sugar on the Side, My Monster performed live, Fun)

OP expects a lot of work with her ranking and vote and shit.

What a tool.

R13 That’s true. Two Times Blue was the only song I enjoyed on that Necessary Evil disc of 17 songs, all over the place. I remember the phrase “you break it, you buy it!”

R8 when was that festival?

I like "Koo Koo" because I love Chic even though it was uneven. It had great moments.

I love this song!

R19, Now I Know You Know was clearly a song Chic wrote for Diana Ross's album the previous year, and she turned it down.

But Debbie was like, I'll do it, check that box, let's do more drugs.

Which version of Debravation is the best out of the 2 ?

None. Other than Blondie's Eat to the Beat, I ignore her.

R23, why ignore?

She could never top Shayla.

R20 - I Want That Man was a only a top 20 hit in the UK but made it on to a lot of 80s compilation albums and still gets a lot of radio play in the UK on the 80s stations. And very deserved it is. A great pop song.

[quote] She could never top Shayla.

She stole Charlotte’s baby name?

You bitch. Come on let’s go.

R10 You goddamn philistine. That's a Blondie song.

Koo Koo is my favorite Deborah Harry experience, being her fan since 1979.

“Now I Know You Know” is my favorite (love the video!), followed by “Oasis”, Military Rap,” “Jump Jump,” “Inner City Spillover,” oh, and all the rest are equally amazing!

Criminally underrated.

I know I’m in the minority but I always loved Rockbird. I’ve been a lifelong Blondie fan even as a child (I’m in my 50s now) and was in college when it came out. I guess I played it so much in my car it just grew on me! It also reminds me a lot of 1987. But I agree with everyone’s assessment of that album being weak. It’s a very weird record. I just enjoy it.

Technically, I would say it’s a toss-up for Koo Koo and DD&B as being the best ones.

And, yes, EAT TO THE BEAT is by far Blondie’s BEST album. Nothing else comes close.

Chrome from Koo Koo was written as a Blondie song and they covered it as a band a few years later on The Hunter Tour.

Why wasn't her solo career more successful?

Terrible albums after KOO KOO is why.

R35, they were all great

R34 A combination of aging, personal problems, and being unable to recreate the magical hitmaking formula.

Deborah hated the music business she returned to after her sabbatical of 1982 to 1985. The rise of MTV happened exclusively during this time. She wasn't asked to participate in the USA for Africa We Are the World charity single, which I think hurt her personally.

Rockbird was great although it sounded dated. It would have been a perfect sound for 1984, which was before she was shuffled from being an A artist on her label to B.

I think Koo Koo has its moments, but I agree with R12. It doesn't approach Nile's work with Diana Ross, Bowie or Madonna during this period, which had such an energetic, driving quality. Songs like Backfired and Surrender are very stilted with clumsy, awkward rhythms. I don't think the HR Giger imagery worked either with the music.

A shame that Nile didn't produce something like he did for Carly Simon with "Why". Debbie could have nailed that song, it was right up her alley.

The Stock, Aitken & Waterman track " Mind Over Matter" was a missed opportunity for her to get somewhere back in the US charts. Certainly, this would have given her another top-ten UK solo hit.

Not everything went wrong for her during this period, Deborah had her "A team" collaboration of Warhol/Sprouse/Scavullo to do all the Rockbird artwork which I'm sure was thrilling for her, and she scored her most famous acting role in the movie Hairspray.

In Deborah's book, she said the NASA Challenger disaster happened on their first day in the studio and she felt it cursed the Rockbird project.

In Chris Stein's recently released autobiography, he paints an even darker picture of their personal and business lives during the late '80s. He was broke and living in a dingy basement apartment near the World Trade Centre. Deborah was doing better, but still battling heroin addiction and had massive legal problems to deal with.

I don't remember where I read this, but one critic nailed why KooKoo failed creatively: Both Nile Rodgers and Debbie (with Chris Stein) were trying to be the other.

Nile Rodgers was running away from disco's wreckage, loved art rock, and wanted to produce a white artist. Debbie loved R&B and rap and wanted to escape from her Blondie image — which included hit dance-rock.

But both ended up just doing awkward secondhand versions of their less successful stuff.

If they had both leaned into dance-rock, it could have worked. But the anti-disco thing was so loud in 1981, it seemed unwise.

Disco was reborn with Madonna in 1982 and the New Romantics who ushered in danceable synth-pop. Nile and Debbie didn't have the vision. It didn't help that Debbie went out of her way to look as scary/weird as possible on the album cover and in videos.

Debravation is a personal favourite, totally underrated. I can see clearly now is a great, propulsive lead track and strike me pink moody and dramatic. Smo had the banned video where Debbie watches someone drown. Spooky.

Chic experimented much more successfully with the garage band sound later on. Nile with rock band INXS, and Edwards with Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". Along with Bowie's 1983 album "Let's Dance", the transition from Koo Koo's mechanicalness was seamless.

Debbie just stopped giving a shit.

The original Debravation was atrocious. Really lousy material, almost amateur hour.

It's crazy that Debbie and Chris Stein turned this in and expected it to be released. It was rejected by the record company.

Everything that was moderately commercial or interesting about the version of Debravation that was eventually released ("I Can See Clearly," "Strike Me Pink," and the track with REM) was grafted on by Seymour Stein at Sire. Who dropped her after the album flopped.

[Quote]She wasn't asked to participate in the USA for Africa We Are the World charity single, which I think hurt her personally.

I seriously doubt it r37. The USA for Africa session consisted mostly of artists that attended the Grammy awards ceremony that night.

I enjoyed the remixes for In Love With Love from Rockbird.

I also was a huge fan of I Want That Man from Def, Dumb & Blonde

Blondie…sigh….all that talent and creativity and sex appeal. So much of it squandered on naïveté, ego and bitchcraft. They turned on themselves and gave away so much stature and recognition. Harry was right when she called the band smart and cool, but “the same old fuckups”.

What would you change about the KooKoo album if you could?

Def Dumb & Blonde has some great songs. I love the wistful Maybe For Sure.

Chrysalis must have expected KooKoo to be a huge hit because that album haunted record store cutout bins for years after it flopped. Such a striking cover but the music never did anything for me. Glad I only paid 99¢ for my copy

I liked R20's pick the best too - I didn't know that song was written by the Thompson Twins. Although you can kind of hear it if you listen closely.

I only know "french Kissing In The USA" for her solo output but Blondie was brilliant. I saw Blondie with Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols on bass last May at the Cruel World Festival and it was glorious. She was gorgeous. I love her.

All of her albums are really bad.

R53, why?

The gold medal winner off the Rockbird album =

The very danceable silver medal =

the Bronze =

Def, Dumb & Blonde is definitely not a bad album. They got Mike Chapman back on board, and the result is their cleanest and tightest-sounding record since Parallel Lines. Deborah set out to make an album of new material that sounded like a "best of" compilation and they delivered. The Thompson Twins' songs "I Want That Man" and "Kiss It Better", and the jazzy pop given the Stock, Aitken, Waterman treatment "Sweet and Low" are other highlights.

R53 They all sucked. Just look at how well they performed. No one liked them. Just not good music.

Necessary Evil has several guilty pleasure tracks such as Whiteout, What is Love, and School for Scandal.

I didn't even know she had a 5th solo album out until this thread.

She should fire her publicist.

Koo Koo, Rockbird and Def, Dumb and Blonde had decent financial backing, but the songwriting was still sub par. The rest suffered from discount production, little promo and embarrassing music. I think Debbie might have funded much of Necessary Evil on her own. Fun Fact: Debbie told me (in the 80s) that Rockbird was her way to name the album Hard Dick.

r62 That doesn't make sense

Thinks around here must be painfully slow and dull for this thread to be so active OR there are only a few DLers posting threads (likely reason).

r64 Glad you bumped this

[Quote] Just look at how well they performed.

R59 Sales does not equate with quality content

^ Agreed.

1. Def, Dumb & Blonde

2. Rockbird

3. Necessary Evil

4. Debravation

5. KooKoo

R66 It wasn’t quality content either.

Giorgio Moroder should have written and produced an album for her after “Rush Rush”. That probably would have been her only decent solo album.

R70, I've always wondered why she didn't work with Moroder more often.

I still can't believe French Kissin' was written by the same dude that went on to create a million TV shows, including Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men.

Deborah Harry's solo sales were only a small fraction of Blondie's. She sold about 1.5 million solo units in total compared to 50m Blondie.

Having said that, she may have actually made easier money solo, as Harry/Stein never got the biggest slice of Blondie profits.

I remember during an interview Chris said that at their absolute zenith of '81/'82 they were only with about half a million as a couple, and that was "mostly jeans money" from doing the Vanderbilt commercials.

R73 worth

Mike Chapman wrote in the internal slip of The Hunter re-release from 2001 that Debbie just wasn't the same bold and creative person she had been before stepping into the solo career. She recorded The Hunter under duress.

PART 2:

I never could get into her solo output, but may have to give it another try.

I do like this song (not so much the video) she did with Moby.

I just finished listening to her '93 cd. It had some hits for the dance floor & the pop charts (for the the time) out of the 14 songs on the disc.

Lip Service for the gold medal =

Stability for the silver medal =

Mood Ring for the bronze medal =

Which version out of the 2 different Debravations is the best?

You could argue that every Blondie record since 'Panic of Girls' is actually Debbie solo (with Clem Burke as a guest drummer), that is how they run Blondie these days.

Debbie should include some solo material in their next live setlist. Also, upload remastered and upscaled versions of Debbie's videos like they did with Blondie's (they have HD versions Backfired and Now I Know You Know). The video for IWTM is beautiful. There is an example of a nice quality fan upscale in the link.

Is it true that a certain someone told the director Mary Lambert who directed the I Want That Man video to make Debbie look bad?

Well, I bet it's safe to say that this "certain someone" won't be rocking as the face of Gucci anytime soon. Keep it up Debs, you are doing great!

R85 She’s a bit like our generation’s Carmen Dell'Orefice, but she looks good. These images are very carefully styled and very flattering, but that’s the point. That delicious, crazy Fay Dunaway filmed an ad for Gucci a few years ago, but she looked way more fragile than Harry does here.

Rockbird is a terrible name for an album.

R87 she originally wanted to call the album Hard Cock but Geffen Records said “No”.

Who was her biggest female music influence?

Great Debbie documentary

Op go to bed and stop perpetuating your own fucking thread you big loser!

I own her first two album. I think they are quite different but equally pretty good. Her albums 3-5 are okay but not necessarily need to be in your collection.

R89 I'm not sure who that is, but Debbie waited on Janis Joplin after she was in Wind In the Willows and said Janis was as sweet as could be!

Go outside and take some deep breaths of fresh air!!

R93 Debbie did waitress at Max's Kansas City in NYC late 1960s/early 1970s, so it's very believable.

The below photo is of Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin and Tim Buckley at a table at Max's.

R85 reading the comments on that blog, the readers aren’t very kind in their perceptions. I know people online are emboldened by their anonymity, but these comments are rougher, snarkier than I’d imagine for a presence like Harry. I must have a softer heart than these readers. I think she looks good. That giant face has always photographed beautifully. It still does.

I admire her fondness for dogs, but these particular breeds, wouldn’t appeal to me. I think dogs with tiny, cramped mouths tend to need expensive dental work.

Debbie had a really tiny dog for about 16 years.

Deb had an album cut called "Rain" out around the time her copycat Madonna did. I think i like Deb's version better.

Is no one going to mention her extended stint with The Jazz Passengers?

Here she is with The Jazz Passengers live in 1995. Appearance-wise she’s really giving large body-era Belinda Carlisle.

You have to admire her on some level for this move. She just didn’t give a fuck anymore, and was like “Why not?” Or maybe she felt she had nothing to loose. She did an album with them, it’s good! If you’re into that sort of thing.

For those who want a balanced list of her '93 cd here is my set order =

Side 1 = Standing In My Way, Dancing Down The Moon, Rain, Strike Me Pink, Mood Ring, Tear Drops, Keep On Going, My Last Date With You.

Side 2 = Lip Service, I Can See Clearly, Stability, The Fugitive, Dog Star Girl, Communion.

If you have not heard it yet, at the end of audio version of Chris Stein's autobiography Under a Rock, there is a new Blondie song from their upcoming unreleased album that sounds very 'classic Blondie'.

Hidden gem on Def Dumb and Blonde

Angela Trimble

R75 very interesting, thanks for sharing. I love The Hunter btw