![\"BTC-Issue-No29\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/BTC-Issue-No29.jpg\")
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WRITTEN BY: <\/b>Debbie Harry, Chris Stein<\/p>\n
RECORDED: <\/b>RECORD PLANT, NEW YORK<\/p>\n
PRODUCED BY: <\/b>MIKE CHAPMAN<\/p>\n
DEBBIE HARRY: <\/b>VOCALS<\/p>\n
NIGEL HARRISON: <\/b>BASS<\/p>\n
CLEM BURKE: <\/b>DRUMS, DRUM MACHINE<\/p>\n
CHRIS STEIN:<\/b> ELECTRIC GUITAR<\/p>\n
JIMMY DESTRI: <\/b>KEYBOARDS<\/p>\n
FRANK INFANTE: <\/b>GUITAR<\/p>\n
FROM THE ALBUM:<\/b> PARALLEL LINES (1978)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone was like, \u2018Blondie\u2019s gone disco!\u2019\u201d drummer Clem Burke recalled of the group\u2019s first No. 1 hit.<\/p>\n
It was spring 1979, when the rallying cry among rockers everywhere was \u201cDisco sucks!\u201d Even new wave and punk bands joined the growing united front against what they heard as mechanized, soulless music. In one infamous incident, thousands of hard-line rock fans burned piles of dance records at Chicago\u2019s Comiskey Park in a \u201cDisco Demolition Night.\u201d<\/p>\n
So for Blondie, whose previous hits had been mod-flavored rockers like \u201cHanging on the Telephone,\u201d to suddenly be in league with the Brothers Gibb was seen as high treason. But then the quintet was never fully embraced by the doctrinaire crowd at CBGB\u2014ground zero for America\u2019s punk movement. Too poppy and too pretty, they carved out their own niche, mashing Carnaby Street, Phil Spector, burlesque and art-school cool into a sexy package.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeart of Glass\u201d\u2014originally entitled \u201cOnce I Had a Love (The Disco Song)\u201d\u2014had been lurking in their set for five years. And the band\u2019s affection for disco music was no big secret. Burke recalled, \u201cWe all used to hang out at Club 82 in New York, which was essentially a gay disco. And in the early days, we used to cover songs like \u2018Lady Marmalade\u2019 and \u2018I Feel Love.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Bent on establishing a rougher-edged identity on their first two albums, Blondie kept \u201cThe Disco Song\u201d in reserve for a future session. In early 1978, as they entered the Record Plant for album number three, the time was right. \u201cEveryone has a different theory about \u2018Heart of Glass,\u2019\u201d Burke said. \u201cIf you talk to our producer Mike Chapman, he\u2019ll say he revamped the song. I know two of the big influences behind revamping the song were Kraftwerk, and for me, \u2018Stayin\u2019 Alive.\u2019 I was trying to get that groove that J.R. Robinson did for the Bee Gees.\u201d Burke shared the drumming duties with the Roland CompuRhythm CR-78. \u201cIt was one of the early drum machines, and it took forever to program it,\u201d Debbie Harry said. \u201cWe had to practically record each beat by hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, a little punk attitude seeped through to subvert the dance rhythm. \u201cThe instrumental bridge skips a beat,\u201d said Burke. \u201cThat\u2019s the anti-disco<\/i> part\u2014to screw people up when they\u2019re on the dance floor. Burke also added some decidedly un-disco fills in the fadeout.\u201d Though the band thought \u201cHeart of Glass\u201d was catchy, Chapman convinced them to place it deep in the running order of the album, Parallel Lines<\/i>. Said Chapman, \u201cI didn\u2019t want their fans to hear it too early on the record and think, \u2018Oh, Jesus, they\u2019ve become a disco band.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Chrysalis Records hated \u201cHeart of Glass,\u201d along with all of Parallel Lines<\/i>, delivering the old deathblow line: \u201cWe don\u2019t hear a single.\u201d There turned out to be four global hits, including the smash \u201cOne Way or Another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though MTV was still two years away, the video for \u201cHeart of Glass,\u201d with its jump-cut editing and enraptured close-ups of Harry\u2019s kewpie-doll face, helped propel the song up the charts. When it went No. 1 in March 1979, Andy Warhol threw a party for the band at famed Studio 54. There was a Blondie backlash in the music press, and among some former CBGB compadres. Even Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison sheepishly called the song \u201ca compromise with commerciality.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Harry saw it differently. \u201c\u2018Heart of Glass\u2019 wasn\u2019t really a disco song anyway. It had disco elements, and I think that was repulsive to some. But we always wanted to experiment and try different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013Bill DeMain<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WRITTEN BY: Debbie Harry, Chris Stein RECORDED: RECORD PLANT, NEW YORK PRODUCED BY: MIKE CHAPMAN DEBBIE HARRY: VOCALS NIGEL HARRISON: BASS CLEM BURKE: DRUMS, DRUM MACHINE CHRIS STEIN: ELECTRIC GUITAR JIMMY DESTRI: KEYBOARDS FRANK INFANTE: GUITAR FROM THE ALBUM: PARALLEL LINES (1978) \u201cHeart of Glass\u201d \u00a0 BLONDIE\u00a0 \u201cEveryone was like, \u2018Blondie\u2019s gone disco!\u2019\u201d drummer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5264],"tags":[5654,7207,7211,7206,7213,7209,7093,7212,7210,7208],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10969"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10975,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969\/revisions\/10975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}