Editing Parallel Lines (section)

== Music and lyrics ==
According to music journalist [[Robert Christgau]], ''Parallel Lines'' was a [[pop rock]] album in which Blondie achieved their "synthesis of [[the Dixie Cups]] and [[the Electric Prunes]]".<ref name="Christgau"/> Its style of "state-of-the-art [[Pop music|pop]]/rock circa 1978", as [[AllMusic]]'s William Ruhlmann described it, showed Blondie deviating from new wave and emerging as "a pure pop band".<ref name="Ruhlmann"/> [[Ken Tucker]] believed the band had eschewed the "brooding artiness" of their previous albums for more [[Hook (music)|hooks]] and pop-oriented songs.<ref name="Tucker">{{cite magazine|last=Tucker|first=Ken|author-link=Ken Tucker|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/parallel-lines-19821103|title=Parallel Lines|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|location=New York|date=November 3, 1982|access-date=July 9, 2012}}</ref> Chapman later said, "I didn't make a punk album or a New Wave album with Blondie. I made a pop album."{{sfn|Bangs|1980|p=62}} The album's eleven pop songs have refined [[melodics]], and its sole [[disco]] song, "Heart of Glass", features jittery keyboards, rustling [[cymbal]]s by drummer Clem Burke, and a circular rhythm.<ref name="RS2000">{{cite magazine|last=Berger|first=Arion|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/blondie/albums/album/178491/review/6068366/parallel_lines|title=Blondie: Parallel Lines|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|location=New York|date=June 8, 2000|access-date=July 25, 2016|page=129|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070401183001/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/blondie/albums/album/178491/review/6068366/parallel_lines|archive-date=April 1, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> Burke credited [[Kraftwerk]] and the [[Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack)|soundtrack]] to the 1977 film ''[[Saturday Night Fever]]'' as influences for the song and said that he was "trying to get that [[groove (music)|groove]] that [[Dennis Bryon|the drummer]] for the [[Bee Gees]] had".<ref name="RS500">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/parallel-lines-blondie-19691231|title=500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Parallel Lines – Blondie|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|location=New York|date=November 18, 2003|access-date=June 30, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101220131921/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/parallel-lines-blondie-19691231|archive-date=December 20, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Lyrically, ''Parallel Lines'' abandoned what ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine's Arion Berger called the "cartoonish [[postmodernist]] referencing" of Blondie's previous new wave songs in favor of a "romantic fatalism" that was new for the band.<ref name="RS2000"/> "Sunday Girl" deals with the theme of teen loneliness. Music critic [[Rob Sheffield]] said that the lyric "dusty frames that still arrive / die in 1955", in "Fade Away and Radiate", is the "best lyric in any [[Rock and roll|rock'n'roll]] song, ever, and it's still the ultimate statement of a band that always found some pleasure worth exploiting in the flashy and the temporary."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Sheffield|first=Rob|author-link=Rob Sheffield|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qr8zLwlIOpwC&pg=PA72|title=The Go-Go's: Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's / Blondie: The Platinum Collection|magazine=[[Spin (magazine)|Spin]]|location=New York|volume=10|issue=10|date=January 1995|pages=72–74|issn=0886-3032|via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>