(Credits: Far Out / Chrysalis)
Wed 8 October 2025 5:00, UK
Some might say it was a tragedy when ‘Heart of Glass’ by Blondie was knocked off the number one spot, but it turns out that this was also true in a surprisingly literal sense.
There’s no denying that the song is one of the ultimate cornerstones of the Blondie dynasty, bridging the gap between rock and the incoming new wave of the late 1970s and doing it with aplomb, thus making it one of the most defining and distinctive tracks ever to be written. The numbers do the talking in this sense, with its sales of 1.32 million copies making it one of the most successful singles of all time, and the ninth best-selling of the 1970s.
Because of this, it may raise a few eyebrows when you realise that ‘Heart of Glass’ only stayed at the top spot of the UK charts for four weeks, before being unceremoniously knocked off its prime by the Bee Gees and ‘Tragedy’. There’s a devastating poetry to be found in that state of affairs. Of course, a month at the top is hardly a shabby run, but it just seems slightly mediocre in the grand scheme of all that the song came to represent.
Yet by the virtue of the end of the 1970s having as stacked a sonic line-up as they did, it’s hardly shocking in today’s context that the chart battles of the time took place between such seismic tunes that went on to shape society in massive ways beyond their initial commercial success. The duel between ‘Heart of Glass’ and ‘Tragedy’ is the prime example – because if you can find two iconic tracks in such close order, it speaks volumes about what the rest of the decade had to offer.
What made the Bee Gees knock ‘Heart of Glass’ off the top?
But as far as innovative sounds of the ‘70s go, Blondie were hardly alone with the pioneering spirit of ‘Heart of Glass’. The Bee Gees were hot on their tails with ‘Tragedy’, representing the true pinnacle of what the craze of dance rock and disco would come to be remembered and regaled by. Even though the song itself didn’t feature in Saturday Night Fever from two years earlier, it was essentially the last hurrah of the era before the world moved into the synth surf of the 1980s.
Of course, the standout moment of the track came with the explosion which lands at its conclusion, almost like the firework that shot it out of the cannon to rocket to the top spot of the charts. According to the song’s producer Karl Richardson, there were some very advanced techniques that went into creating this, involving “holding the notes on the bottom end of a piano across multiple keys—maybe as many keys as you could mash down on a grand piano—and then Barry [Gibb]’s voice going ‘pbbhhhh!’ into a dynamic microphone, blowing air through the diaphragm to distort it.”
Admittedly, it may be a rudimentary example of song production, but it was evidently enough to blow the minds of the world back in 1979, and subsequently sent Blondie’s rule with ‘Heart of Glass’ into shattered ruin. It goes without saying that neither song emerged bruised from the battle in the long run, but it certainly proved what calibre the ‘70s held if a bona fide anthem could be knocked off course by another mammoth.
Related Topics