Spinner

Bad Songs by Good Bands: No. 20

If a performer sticks around long enough, even the truly great ones can't help but crank out a serious clunker, leaving fans in despair. What follows is the musical moments those otherwise capable artists should have kept to themselves, for our sake.

'Rapture'
--Blondie (1980)

For shame that it took a statuesque blonde to break rap music into the American mainstream. Whatever the hell Debbie Harry was "rapping" about -- a man from Mars, eating cars, don't strain your brain -- by rights her rhyming dictionaries should've been confiscated. 'Rapture' was doubly cursed when it reappeared in a 2005 mash-up with the Doors' bloated 'Riders on the Storm.'

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ihasch

And just one added point. If exploring different forms of music across some arbitrary boundary is so forbidden, then what do you say to something like Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock, which he has always said was deeply influenced by Kraftwerk? By the logic of this article Bambaataa should be criticized. How is a hip/hop performer importing rock or electronic influences and ideas different than a rock performer importing hip/hop influences and ideas? Yes, how dare a (dyed) blonde haired girl help to break rap into the mainstream. For shame! (lol).

July 21 2011 at 10:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ihasch

Please. This was one of the best songs of the 1980s. And it's a milestone in music history. The rap part is fun and inventive and the music is brilliant. It's just fashionable to knock this song for non-musical reasons. Yes, everyone should just do the music they are "supposed" to do, and the music that you are "supposed" to do is apparently defined by the color of your skin.( You might as well have added that rock should also have no funk or reggae influences too). Thank god Blondie and other crossover acts (The Clash, The Talking Heads, etc.) saw things differently. Blondie were an intrinsic part of the NYC downtown scene (think the Mudd Club) and they were open to new ideas. They went to rap events before Rapper's Delight was even on the radio. This song reflects a complete lack of pretension. They had no idea that rap would blow up. They didn't even know the song would be successful. They never got the memo about musical segregation that Spinner apparently endorses. Neither did their peers. The crossover elements of late 70s/early 80s music is what made it so vital.

July 21 2011 at 9:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ralph

its about time that BLONDIE gets credit for bringing RAP MUSIC to the mainstream......ironic, huh? a white chick brought it to the forefront..................

February 06 2010 at 9:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dan

Incredible... if this is a bad song, you have not understood anything! and then go read the biography before writing bad things about Debbie Harry.

January 23 2010 at 5:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dspccowb

I happen to like Deborah Harry very much. I don't know her personally and I'm sure like all us people she's done some thing or other we hate. But she stood by her husband when he was very ill with Lupus. And probably kept him from dying. It was years before he recovered.
I even understood it when her husband complained to Howard Stern, on his radio show, the next day after a live Blondie concert that she had taken off with the sound man after the concert and hadn't been heard from since. And I'm sure her husband also understood it as she returned later and went on to finish the tour.
All of you who have never been in a successful rock band and get all judgmental, I think you should try to be a bit more understanding. We are not you.

January 17 2010 at 10:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
al h.

Boooo...even worse than the song is the reviewers going for the cheapo-wrote-it-in-my-sleep adjective. Statuesque? What is like 3' 9" the new cutoff for "statuesque"????

October 21 2009 at 10:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
turzovka

Are you kidding? Rapture is an extordinarily pretty melody. Great song in many ways. Maybe the words in the rap portion are kind of clunky, but the music is beautiful. The critics are too full of themselves, as usual.

October 13 2009 at 11:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ycav4424

There was a lot of drugs going around when that came out. So it fit in with the times.

October 12 2009 at 6:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
vampirebillybob

rapture isd a bad song?WTF?riders on thde storm;bloated?ofcourse,classic?absolutely

September 04 2009 at 2:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Russ

She's responsible for breaking rap into the mainstream? Another reason to kill the no-talent bitch.

September 04 2009 at 7:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply