Maybe there was something to that whole Y2K panic after all.
There were warnings our wired world would crash the moment we flipped from 1999 to 2000. “It didn’t happen at the stroke of midnight, as the Y2K alarmists feared,” Alan Murray noted in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. But soon after “the millennium turned, reality set in,” he said.
The market plunged when the Internet bubble burst in early 2000, and this ended up being the worst decade ever for U.S. stocks. In 2001, there was 9/11, followed by two wars, recession, corruption, scandal, natural and man-made disasters, political polarization and the proliferation of reality TV. As Michael Hirschorn portrayed it in “The 00’s Issue” of New York Magazine, this was a decade in which it seemed no one was in charge — when the bottom fell out of just about everything. Or, as the cover of Time magazine described it: The Decade From Hell.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll quantified the general sense of gloom about the ’00s. Nearly 6 in 10 people surveyed said the decade was either “awful” or “not so good.” Only 12 percent rated it “good” or “great.” The rest picked “fair.”
Three-quarters said economic prosperity declined, and two-thirds said America lost ground on moral values during the decade.
A Pew Research poll came up with similar results — and didn’t find a whole lot of nostalgia for recent decades, either.
There were a few bright spots in the NBC/WSJ survey. Nearly half of those polled said we’ve made advances in science and technology. Take the Internet, for example. In 2000, high-speed access was a rarity. Now, it’s the norm. AOL itself went through revolutionary changes. Sphere is the next generation of AOL News, debuting just in time for the end of the decade.
But is this really the end? After a decade marked by discord, people can’t even agree on when it’s over. One camp says it’s the end of this year. The other insists it’s not until Dec. 31, 2010. If that’s true, it could mean another year like the ones we’ve just lived through. (Not to mention another round of wacky “decade lists.”)
Judging from the poll results, most of us can do without one more year of the ’00s.
Artist Info
Band: Blondie
Origin: New York, NY
Top Songs: In the Flesh, Heart of Glass, One Way or Another, Call Me, Rapture
Genre: New Wave, Pop Rock, Punk Rock, Disco Music
Years Active: 1976–1982, 1997–present
Current Members: Deborah Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Leigh Foxx, Paul Carbonara, Matt Katz-Bohen, Jimmy Destri
Website: http://www.blondie.net/index.php
Band Bio:
Blondie was the most commercially successful band to emerge from the much-vaunted punk/new wave movement of the late ’70s. The group was formed in New York City in August 1974 by singer Deborah Harry (b. July 1, 1945, Miami), formerly of Wind in the Willows, and guitarist Chris Stein (b. January 5, 1950, Brooklyn) out of the remnants of Harry’s previous group, the Stilettos. The lineup fluctuated over the next year. Drummer Clement Burke (b. November 24, 1955, New York) joined in May 1975. Bassist Gary Valentine joined in August. In October, keyboard player James Destri (b. April 13, 1954) joined, to complete the initial permanent lineup. They released their first album, Blondie, on Private Stock Records in December 1976. In July 1977, Valentine was replaced by Frank Infante.
In August, Chrysalis Records bought their contract from Private Stock and in October reissued Blondie and released the second album, Plastic Letters. Blondie expanded to a sextet in November with the addition of bassist Nigel Harrison (born in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, England), as Infante switched to guitar. Blondie broke commercially in the U.K. in March 1978, when their cover of Randy and the Rainbows’ 1963 hit “Denise,” renamed “Denis,” became a Top Ten hit, as did Plastic Letters, followed by a second U.K. Top Ten, “(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear.” Blondie turned to U.K. producer/songwriter Mike Chapman for their third album, Parallel Lines, which was released in September 1978 and eventually broke them worldwide. “Picture This” became a U.K. Top 40 hit, and “Hanging on the Telephone” made the U.K. Top Ten, but it was the album’s third single, the disco-influenced “Heart of Glass,” that took Blondie to number one in both the U.K. and the U.S. “Sunday Girl” hit number one in the U.K. in May, and “One Way or Another” hit the U.S. Top 40 in August. Blondie followed with their fourth album, Eat to the Beat, in October. Its first single, “Dreaming,” went Top Ten in the U.K., Top 40 in the U.S. The second U.K. single, “Union City Blue,” went Top 40. In March 1980, the third U.K. single from Eat to the Beat, “Atomic,” became the group’s third British number one. (It later made the U.S. Top 40.)
Meanwhile, Harry was collaborating with German disco producer Giorgio Moroder on “Call Me,” the theme from the movie American Gigolo. It became Blondie’s second transatlantic chart-topper. Blondie’s fifth album, Autoamerican, was released in November 1980, and its first single was the reggae-ish tune “The Tide Is High,” which went to number one in the U.S. and U.K. The second single was the rap-oriented “Rapture,” which topped the U.S. pop charts and went Top Ten in the U.K. But the band’s eclectic style reflected a diminished participation by its members — Infante sued, charging that he wasn’t being used on the records, though he settled and stayed in the lineup. But in 1981, the members of Blondie worked on individual projects, notably Harry’s gold-selling solo album, KooKoo. The Best of Blondie was released in the fall of the year. The Hunter, Blondie’s sixth album, was released in May 1982, preceded by the single “Island of Lost Souls,” a Top 40 hit in the U.S. and U.K. “War Child” also became a Top 40 hit in the U.K., but The Hunter was a commercial disappointment.
At the same time, Stein became seriously ill with the genetic disease pemphigus. As a result, Blondie broke up in October 1982, with Deborah Harry launching a part-time solo career while caring for Stein, who eventually recovered. In 1998, the original lineup of Harry, Stein, Destri, and Burke reunited to tour Europe, their first series of dates in 16 years; a new LP, No Exit, followed early the next year. After more touring, this was followed by another studio set, The Curse of Blondie, in 2003, and a DVD of the Live by Request program from A&E was released in 2004. In 2006, Blondie celebrated their 30th anniversary with induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the release of Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision, a best-of collection that contained all their classic videos as well. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
