I’ve had this post planned for a long, long time, but had to hold off in the knowledge that Blondie would have the glorious, belated coda to their chart-topping career that was ‘Maria’. Now that their 6th and final number one has been and gone, I can rank the new-wave icons’ eleven other UK Top 40 hits. Hurrah!

Restricting myself to Top 40 hits means that we can’t include that run of glorious early singles – ‘X Offender’, ‘In the Flesh’, ‘Rip Her to Shreds’ – all of which would have come close to topping this list, but which never made the hit parade. It also excludes ‘One Way or Another’, which was never a single and only charted at #98 after One Direction covered it in 2013. On with the countdown!

11. ‘Nothing Is Real But the Girl’ – #26 in 1999

A much more down-to-earth follow-up to the heavenly ‘Maria’. It’s got a good driving beat, Harry on top vocal form, and some quality drum fills. Blondie 101. Plus, as others have pointed out, it shares a bassline with ‘Suzy and Jeffrey’, the great B-side to ‘The Tide Is High’. Still, somehow it doesn’t equal the sum of its parts, and leaves me fairly cold.

10. ‘Island of Lost Souls’ – #11 in 1982

It’s surprising just how quickly Blondie’s chart form fell off a cliff. A year and a half after their ‘final’ number one, the lead single from 6th album ‘The Hunter’ failed to make the Top 10. ‘Island of Lost Souls’ is a more extreme version of ‘The Tide Is High’s reggae leanings, going full-on calypso. I don’t think it’s a particularly bad song, I’m just not sure why Blondie felt the need to record it and/or release it as a single. Still, the line Hey buccaneer, Can you help me get my truck in gear? is enough to prevent this from ranking last.

9. ‘Rapture’ – #5 in 1981

On the one hand, I respect what ‘Rapture’ (RAP-ture, get it?) does. It’s brave, it’s boundary pushing, it’s disco, new wave and hip hop all in one. Plus, it contains lines about men from Mars shooting you dead and eating your head, before ending with a cool guitar-slash-saxophone solo. It was also the first US #1 to feature rapped lyrics. And yet… I’ve never particularly liked it. Sorry.

8. ‘War Child’ – #39 in 1982

‘The Hunter’ is a pretty poor album, from a band that just a few years earlier were churning out classic LPs by the year. But it has two good songs – the Bond-theme that never was, ‘For Your Eyes Only’ – and this, the second single (Blondie’s last for seventeen years). It’s a counterfeit ‘Call Me’, with a propulsive electro beat, some wild saxophoning, and lyrics about Cambodian child soldiers. It deserved better than a #39 peak.

7. ‘(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear’ – #10 in 1978

This bit of power-pop showed a softer side to the band’s earlier output, and earned them their second UK Top 10. It could almost be classed as a novelty, in the way it describes being in love with a mind reader, and pokes fun at psychic frequencies and outer entities, though Harry delivers it all in an cooly earnest deadpan. At the very least, someone was taking the piss when placing those brackets in the title…

6. ‘Good Boys’ – #12 in 2003

I’ve seen ‘Good Boys’ described as the great, lost Blondie single. Which feels strange to me, as it’s been one of my favourites for years. But then maybe it was a case of right place right time, as I was at the height of one of my chart-watching phases, and seem to be one of the few who noticed it making #12 in August 2003. A bit poppier, and funkier, than ‘Maria’ a few years earlier, Harry had another crack at rapping on this one, and the band had to acknowledge Queen in the credits after borrowing heavily from ‘We Will Rock You’.

5. ‘Union City Blue’ – #13 in 1979

It’s not up for debate that Blondie were a pretty freakin’ cool band, but have they ever looked cooler than in the video to ‘Union City Blue’, all suited and booted (orange jump suit-booted in Debbie H’s case) on a dry dock? They do their best to spoil all this in the second half of the video, cutting some goofy shapes once night has fallen, but let’s pretend that never happens. This song just sounds so epic, from the cascading intro, to Clem Burke’s majestic drumming, to that revving bass in the break before the final verse.

4. ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ – #5 in 1978

Blondie had a knack for covering the right songs, songs that hadn’t been big hits in the first place and that people would assume were Blondie songs all along… (see the next song in this list for another great example). ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ had been recorded by the Nerves in 1976, and Blondie’s cover is pretty faithful, just a bit tighter, a bit sharper, and a bit better. I can even pinpoint the very moment that this transcends its original version: the extra throaty woahwoahwoah that Harry adds right at the end. It’s also another fine example of what I’ll call Blondie’s knack for stalker-chic – see also ‘X Offender’ and the song at #2 in this list – songs with creepy lyrics that they get away with because Debbie Harry was such a doll.

3. ‘Denis’ – #2 in 1978

Speaking of having a knack for covering the right songs… Though Blondie didn’t so much as cover ‘Denis’ as kidnap it, brainwash it, and convince it that it was their song all along. The original, ‘Denise’, by the excellently named Randy & the Rainbows, was an average slice of mid-tempo doo-wop. In Blondie’s hands it became both a razor-sharp pop tune, and a post-punk classic with just enough cooly detached irony. As well as their first big hit.

2. ‘Picture This’ – #12 in 1978

Blondie seemed to lose some momentum with the release of the lead single from their third album, ‘Parallel Lines’. Of course, that album would go on to do alright for itself, and the subsequent hits would overshadow this brilliant new-wave single. As mentioned, Blondie did a good line in oldies covers, but they also did a great line in making new songs with all the hallmarks of the classics. ‘Picture This’ has hooks galore, and could have been a sixties girl-group hit. Though not many sixties girl-groups would have gotten away with lines like: I will give you my finest hour, The one I spent watching you shower…

1. ‘Dreaming’ – #2 in 1979

Blondie are not a band poorly served by their number one singles. They released some outright, all-time classics, and most of them got to the top of the charts. But if there was one single of theirs that deserved to join the ranks of ‘Heart of Glass’, ‘Atomic’, or ‘Call Me’, then it’s ‘Dreaming’. Like ‘Picture This’, it takes some classic pop group hooks, and melodies, (it’s apparently based on ‘Dancing Queen’, though I don’t hear it myself), and beefs them up into something wonderful. Clem Burke’s drumming is a stand out on this record, though he claims he was over-egging his drum fills, assuming that producer Mike Chapman wouldn’t use that take.

I’ve noticed that I quoted quite a few of the lyrics from the past ten songs, not realising just how epic, and often hilarious, Blondie’s lyrics were. To the ‘hilarious’ pile I’ll add Harry’s opening couplet: When I met you in the restaurant, You could tell I was no debutante… And to the ‘epic’ pile I’ll nominate a sentiment we can all agree with: Dreaming, Dreaming is free…

Thanks for reading, and do let me know if you agree with my ranking in the comments.

Before going, I must mention that over the weekend I wrote a guest blog post for Keith AKA the Nostalgic Italian, all about our memories of the toys that we grew up with. I managed to stay on-brand and tied my post into a number one single. Check it out here!