Blondie and Joan Jett have joined forces for a video for Doom Or Destiny, one of the highlight’s from Blondie’s well-received Pollinator album. The video is a highly-charged, political affair in which Deborah Harry and Jett sit behind a news desk as images of gilded gas masks, swastikas and a sock-puppet Donald Trump appear on the screen.
“[It’s] the most openly political video Blondie has ever done,” says Harry. “We wanted to comment on the bizarre state of media and news in the current political ‘idiocracy’ we are watching play out in real time and create our own news channel that dealt with current issues such as the environmental collapse, fossil fuels, bee population decline, global warming, sexism, patriarchy, Trump and Russia, feminism, consumerism, the marketing of war and more.”
“The current landscape of music videos has so little to do with true protest or some kind of social message,” adds Blondie’s Chris Stein. “It can be truthful, but irreverent, fun and funny. The punk style protest is somewhat removed from today’s modern music.”
The video was made by longtime Blondie collaborator Rob Roth,. who began working with the band at the time of the No Exit album in 1999.
“I wanted to represent a spectrum of female fierceness in this video,” says Roth. “We wanted Debbie and Joan to have fun with the idea of taking over a news channel - reprogramming the daily ticker with what we want to see. It’s a ‘fuck you’ to what’s going on in the world and a call to arms for women everywhere.
“I see advertising, news, politics and entertainment have fused together in a haze, like a Frankenstein monster, all sewn together, we need to look harder, work harder to know what is truth and not be afraid to call out bullshit when we see it. Especially for people who don’t necessarily have a platform or a voice.”
“Blondie — Debbie, Chris, Clem and everybody have been my friends for more decades than I care to admit,” says Jett. “They have their own style and were pioneers of the modern age of punk and rock. I am so proud to have been invited to contribute to ‘Doom or Destiny’, I love the music and I love the message.”
