Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone

What this video is

Released in October 1978 as the second single from Blondie's breakthrough third album Parallel Lines, 'Hanging on the Telephone' is a cover of a 1976 Jack Lee composition first recorded by The Nerves. Blondie's version exemplifies the band's position at the nexus of the New York CBGB underground and the British new wave commercial market — the single failed to chart in the US but reached #5 in the UK in November…

Why it matters

A canonical example of late-1970s New Wave power pop, the Blondie cover of 'Hanging on the Telephone' helped establish the template for the genre: compressed song duration (~2:15), high-tempo delivery, female fronted punk-pop energy, and a promotional clip driven by pure performance. The video is…

The director

David Victor Mark Mallet (born 17 December 1945, West Horsley, Surrey, England) is a British director of music videos and concert films. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s co-founding the production enterprise MGMM with Scott Millaney, Brian Grant, and…