Sometimes the moment where everything clicks perfectly comes in the guise of a sellout. Parallel Lines is still the biggest hit record to ever come from a band rooted in CBGB’s, and at the time its multi-platinum status and disco hit single were easy to frame as some kind of betrayal. But that kind of accusation, especially in hindsight, falls apart after a surface examination. Not only is that big dance club smash “Heart Of Glass” just one of the band’s countless genre exercises, an extension of Harry and Stein’s infatuation with classic pop tropes from girl-group R&B onwards, it’s more nervy and strange and perfect than anything else in the litany of circa ’78-’79 rock-goes-disco singles flooding the market at the time. A song originally written in ’74 to a mutated reggae rhythm, given a dance-step-sabotaging bridge, and hinging on bitter love-lost lyrics that didn’t include the titular phrase in early drafts because they went with “pain in the ass” instead? Not exactly a hitmaker formula, but here we are.

Singles-wise, that smash was preceded by two canny covers that did the crucial New Wave service of reuniting the then-estranged worlds of rock and pop. The jittery Buddy Holly rave-up “I’m Gonna Love You Too” was the unlikely lead single, while their giddy, anxious take on “Hanging On The Telephone” — originally cut two years earlier on the opposite coast by the short-lived L.A. power-pop catalysts the Nerves — bolstered their chart presence in the UK and across Europe. And their charting originals saw Harry at her sly postmodern best whether she was twisting stalker monomania into an initially coy, increasingly unhinged sneer (“One Way Or Another”) or wrapping silky melodies around upbeat Jan & Dean joy (“Sunday Girl,” which sounds even better in French).

Best of all, Parallel Lines ducks the singles-plus-filler rep most bands who sell a ton of Greatest Hits compilations wind up with. A guest appearance on guitar by Robert Fripp pairs up with Harry’s voice to haunting, wistful effect on “Fade Away And Radiate.” The torn-up panic of “11:59″ and its doomsday romance boast Jimmy Destri’s needling keyboards and Clem Burke’s avalanche drums as some of the most breathtaking work either musician had laid down to that point. And “Will Anything Happen” is as frantic and insistent and indelibly catchy as anything the Ramones were doing in ’78, from its feedback intro to to Burke’s punching-bag beat to a chorus that proves the only thing more breathtaking than a full-bore Debbie Harry is a multitracked Debbie Harry. By the time “Heart Of Glass” even comes up on the album, you’ve already heard nine songs before it which proved disco was just one of the things Blondie could turn into dizzying pop art.