Blondie - Heart Of Glass. Was it their finest moment?

Blondie and band riding the disco wave spring summer 1979. Great tune great times.

 

Their greatest amongst a host of great tunes.

 

"Accidents Never happen" got a good bit of Philly FM airplay in the day, and is also a favorite of mine...

 

Clem Burke is the only modern drummer I can watch play his instrument and be mesmerized just to watch him work- usually I can only say that for guitarists. Not to dismiss drummers, but Clem is a wonder and one of the secret ingredients to Blondie's success. Assume his talent his really known by music fans. It's not just "Dreaming" which is a marvel on every level.

 

No, That would be Attack of the giant ants.

 

The only US band to have a UK number one in the 70's 80's and 90's.

 

What? I like both of those songs better than Heart Of Glass.

 

Plastic Letters has always been my favorite with Parallel Lines and Eat To The Beat close behind. They lost me at Autoamerican.

 

It's my second fav after One Way Or Another

 

Tie between Heart and Parallel.

 

Topped by fade away and radiate also

 

As a whole I look at Parallel Lines as their finest work. Really enjoy Eat to the Beat and Autoamerican too. Was so happy when No Exit came out. The singles from that album are 5/5 Blondie.

 

Great single.
I think it can be viewed as their peak/high water mark popularity wise...certainly in the UK.
If you think about they had 3 big years....78, 79 & 80.
The middle one was their biggest.

 

It's OK. They did lots of other better songs.

 

His work with the Eurythmics was outstanding as well.

Best Wishes,
David

 

I loved Heart of Glass from the day I first heard saw them perform it on television (lip-synched of course). But its brilliance is mostly due to production values.



Not saying the band didn't contribute a lot to it, of course the songwriting, instruments playing and singing was all theirs, as the documentary says. It's a new wave rock/disco crossover, but I have to admit the part I like about it is the disco and especially the electronics part, not so much the rock part. In some circles liking disco was "politically incorrect" in those days, crossover songs like that allowed you to liking disco without admitting to it . These days I admit I liked disco and still do, and do not like rock. By consequence I do not actually like Blondie's pure rock stuff which some of you say is the "real" Blondie, for example Denis Denis wasn't really for me. But I do like their dance oriented singles such as Rapture and obviously Atomic. Atomic is very similar to Heart of Glass production whise, and I agree it's even the better of the two.

 

As a Brit of a certain age I remember Blondie as being huge, a new single from them was a big thing in a time when singles were important, Heart of Glass was a big deal, I think it still sounds pretty fresh.

 

[QUOTE=" Debbie Harry was never a good vocalist, imo. It worked for their earlier albums, but just got more processed and annoying.

Still, each to their own.[/QUOTE]

I'm not usually given to responding on matters of opinion but I'm surprised by this one. Having listened to some live stuff I reckon she's a great singer.

 

This is probably sacrilege, but I never really liked Blondie that much. The only song of theirs I really like is 'Hanging on the Telephone'.

 

"Heart of Glass" is a great song, but it isn't even the best song on Parallel Lines. "Attack Of The Giants Ants" gets my vote for Blondie's best song, and "Fade Away And Radiate", "Hanging On The Telephone", "One Way Or Another" and "Will Anything Happen?" are better tracks on Parallel Lines.
Actually as great as their singles are I think most of their album tracks were better. If I was to select my 10 favourite Blondie songs, I'd probably only name one single (Atomic) in that list.

 

Very interesting video particularly about the sound of the drum machine mixed with real drums and synthetizers.

The double tracked vocals is a Phil Spector's trick, soon to be used on hits by Brian Wilson and their contemporary act ABBA. The use is not new here and maybe should have been said by the movie maker, not so revolutionnary as the time.

 

The single edit is available on a 2 CD set called "The Platinum Collection" (1994) - includes all of the original A & B sides released as singles (up to that point in time) - pretty dang cheap, too
https://www.amazon.com/Blondie-Plat...2&sr=1-1&keywords=blondie+platinum+collection

 

Dreaming is probably the top spot, then Union City Blue and then I'd go to Heart of Glass.

 

It's a good thing it was a disco song. If they did this arrangement she did a Carnegie Hall a few weeks ago, the single would've flopped.

 

Actually, the B side is better imo. That's what I played all the time when I bought that single - Rifle Range. As others have said, Plastic Letters is a great album, my favourite anyway.