Blondie – Heart of Glass

First Hit #1: April 28, 1979

One of the flaws of focusing solely on the top song of any one time is that you’re going to ignore a lot of the growing and important music scenes bubbling up under the radar. Let’s be honest, there hasn’t been much of a punk influence on the charts thus far, for example. While the ’70s saw the birth of the genre, the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 was either disco or easy listening, and neither of which were particularly simpatico with the punk ethos. Then we have the growing New Wave scene, which actually has a group spring up the charts, by making a disco song.

Let’s leave the group’s enduring legacy behind for a moment and focus on this specific track. To a casual listener, this isn’t going to sound that much different from a regular disco track. A good disco song, sure, one that tries to play a little bit within the genre, but it’s definitely coloring within the lines of the genre. Perhaps the plan is to trojan horse some New Wave into the unsuspecting homes of disco fans, but it’s just as likely Blondie just likes it – something which has evidence to support it, since Debbie Harry is quoted in interviews as being a disco fan and they covered Donna Summer. If this is your first encounter with Blondie, however, you’re not going to suspect something different is going on, it just seems to be part of the current musical trend. There’s all sorts of stuff bubbling up under the radar of the number one single, but even with a new wave band popping up the top position itself remains largely oblivious.

Also, since my mom’s taste hasn’t been mentioned in a while, she cannot stand Blondie.

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