1979 Blondie: Heart Of Glass

But of course, if I'm going to go on about disco bandwagon jumpers then there are no more glaring hoppers on than Blondie. Prior to 1979, as far as the UK was concerned, Blondie were post CBGB/New Wave skinny tie also-rans distinguished chiefly by being fronted by one of the most photogenic women in the history of popular music. Indeed, 'Heart Of Glass' wasn't consciously born as a disco song at all. In it's early incarnation as 'Once I Had A Love' it was a cod-reggae led shuffle in keeping with much of their early output and responsibility for it's disco re-wiring can be laid solely at the foot of producer Mike Chapman, a veteran of the UK's seventies Glam Rock scene and every bit a bandwagon jumper as the band.

'Heart Of Glass' stands alone in Blondie's output. Though the whole of the parent 'Parallel Lines' album had Chapman cleaning up Blondie's fifties trash sound into something more mainstream orientated, nothing else on there sounds as blatantly slick and danceable as 'Heart Of Glass' (the band took to referring to it as 'the disco song); it's where Chapman really went to town and it's as much 'his' song as that of Debbie Harry and Chris Stein who ostensibly 'wrote' it. Driven on a slinky low key guitar riff and high hat rhythm, 'Heart Of Glass' is one of the sparest sounding songs Blondie ever put their name to with their usual dense pop clutter of guitars, hole plugging keyboard stabs and Clem Burke's rolling flat kit drum fills exorcised in favour of a more organic 'I Feel Love' pulse.

Yet whereas Summer's orgasmic cooing got the more conservative listeners hot under the collar, the detachment of Harry's 'couldn't give a toss really' "Ooh ooh ooh whoa's" and complete absence of trademark vocal snarls delivery exudes an icy coolness of mocking indifference that always remind me (ever since I saw the film anyway) of the indifferent icy cool, 'couldn't give a toss-ness' of Marlene Dietrich performing 'Falling In Love Again' in Sternberg's 'Der Blaue Engel'. It's clear that her Lola is not capable of true love, but she presents a persona seductive enough to reduce Emil Jannings' 'Professor Rath' to destitution in his fruitless pursuit to win it. "Once I had a love and it was a gas, soon turned out to be a pain in the ass"; it's easy come, easy go for Ms Harry too, but her indifference is just as attractive.

And on that front, whilst it's true that Ms Harry would look good in a face pack and potato sack, the promo videos for previous Blondie singles were still pushing the punky, urchin, not trying too hard look but there's no doubt her scrubbed up, made over visage in the 'Heart Of Glass' video helped seal the deal with a generation of adolescent Professor Jannnings howling at the moon in their bedrooms (I wasn't going to revert to a lazy remembrance of how much I fancied our Debbie back then but I seem to have arrived there anyway - ok, I was one of them. I fancied Debbie Harry big time in 1979. And 1980. And 1981. And 1982........). And who wouldn't be howling with those 'come to me' smiles framed by glistening red lips that spark with friction off those cold 'now piss off' eye rolls - "Love is so confusing, there's no peace of mind" - don't look to Debbie for an easy ride.

By embracing the mainstream they originally purported to be kicking against, 'Heart Of Glass' wound up many long standing fans and purists who were quick to cry 'sell out' (filming that promo video in Studio 54 when previously they were part of CBGB's only wound the same folk up a further notch). And fair enough, 'Heart Of Glass' may well be an unusual Blondie song, but even if it was a sell-out of sorts, the most ardent naysayers couldn't deny that it was a damn fine one. Damn fine.