Welcome
to another edition of the Tuesday Timeline!
I
certainly hope that most of you like music, because today's featured entry is
all about music. In fact, I suppose you
could call it a signature hit of sorts for a particular New Wave band. Not bad, given that the song had a disco
flavour to it.
That's
your one and only clue for now. In the
meantime, have a look at some of the other events that took place on April 28
throughout history. There's certainly
quite a lot that has happened.
1788 - Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the
Constitution of the United States
1792 - The French Revolutionary War begins with the
invasion of Austrian Netherlands by France
1881 - Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County
Jail in New Mexico
1910 - Louis Paulhan wins the 1910 London to Manchester
Air Race
1916 - Ferruccio Lamborghini (d. 1993) - the founder of
Automobil Lamborghini - is born in Italy
1920 - Azerbaijan becomes a part of the Soviet Union
1930 - In Independence, Kansas, the first night baseball
game is played
1932 - A medical breakthrough is discovered when a
vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans
1945 - Benito Mussolini and his mistress are executed by
firing squad
1948 - Igor Stravinsky conducted the premiere of his
American ballet, "Orpheus", in New York City
1949 - Tragedy strikes the Philippines as the former
First Lady - Aurora Quezon - is assassinated along with her daughter and ten
others en route to a hospital dedication in honour of her late husband
1969 - Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France
1970 - President Richard Nixon authorizes American combat
troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia
1986 - The nuclear accident in Chernobyl that took place
two days earlier is publicly announced following the discovery of high
radiation in some parts of Sweden
1987 - American engineer Ben Linder is killed in an
ambush by American funded Contras in Nicaragua
1988 - Passengers aboard Aloha Airlines Flight 243 have a
scary experience when the fuselage of the plane breaks open mid-flight, killing
flight attendant C.B. Lansing
1996 - A gunman opens fire at a cafe in Port Arthur,
Tasmania, killing thirty-five people
2001 - Dennis Tito becomes the world's first space
tourist
And,
let's have a look at the number of famous faces celebrating a birthday
today. Birthday wishes go out to Harper Lee, Lois Duncan, Ann-Margret, Alice Waters, Ginette Reno, Paul Guilfoyle, Jay Leno, Chuck Leavell, Mary McDonnell, Kim Gordon, Jimmy Barnes, Nancy Lee Grahn, Steven Blum, Lloyd Eisler, Kari Wuhrer, Jorge Garcia, Elisabeth Rohm, Penelope Cruz, Vernon Kay, Lauren Laverne, Jessica Alba, and Nikki Grahame.
Now
we get to the real meat of the matter.
Today's Tuesday Timeline date.
And,
well...I hope you all like the 1970s, because we're visiting the tail end of
that decade.
It
was April 28, 1979, and disco was three months away from being
murdered. As most of us know, July 12,
1979 was the official day that disco officially "died", which saw the
detonation of disco records in the middle of a baseball game between the
Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox.
The event caused thousands of fans to rush onto the field and the game
was forfeited by Chicago because of the damage caused.
So,
what does this have to do with the Tuesday Timeline date? Well, you have to understand that disco
music dominated the charts in 1979.
Almost every single number one hit of 1979 was disco themed from Donna
Summer and the Bee Gees to Michael Jackson and even Rod Stewart!
And
given that by 1979, many people were getting tired of the disco scene, they saw
any artist who released a disco single as a sell-out or someone who lacked
creativity.
And
that included a rock band out of New York City. A band that formed in 1974 with the goal of making music that
didn't sound like anything else at the time.
A
band that scored their very first number one single with this hit thirty-six
years ago today.
ARTIST: Blondie
SONG: Heart of Glass
ALBUM: Parallel Lines
DATE RELEASED: January 3,
1979
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 1 week
Yes,
the New Wave group "Blondie", made up of Debbie Harry, Chris Stein,
Frank Infante, Nigel Harrison, Jimmy Destri, and Clem Burke, had a #1 hit with
"Heart of Glass" between April 28 and May 4, 1979, and yes, it was a
disco hit.
Well,
actually, it started off as a song called "Once I Had A Love", which
was penned by both Stein and Harry in 1974 - right when the band had first
gotten together. Recorded as a demo in
1975, the song had a very different sound than the version most of us got to
hear. It was a lot slower, and had a
more basic disco beat. And, reportedly,
the band experimented with several genres of music to try and make the song
work before settling on pop disco.
At
one point, the song was almost released as a reggae hit, similar to the group's
1981 smash "The Tide Is High"!
Now,
it's really unclear as to who came up with the idea to make "Heart of
Glass" a disco single. Some
sources say that record producer Mike Chapman convinced Harry and Stein to make
the record a disco one, while other sources claim that Harry was the one who
insisted that disco was the way to go.
And
to be fair, Harry supported the disco scene.
In an interview she gave with NME Magazine in 1978, she stated that
while disco was commercial, but was also good.
She cited famous disco producer Giorgio Moroder as an example of this.
And
prior to Blondie releasing "Heart of Glass", the group had performed
at the Blitz Benefit at the famous rock club CBGB in May 1978 where to
everyone's shock, they performed an impromptu cover version of "I Feel
Love" by Donna Summer. Certainly
Blondie seemed to break down barriers and maintained their neutrality stance. They knew that rock was cool, but they
wanted to show that they liked disco music too. Sure enough, that moment in 1978 was one of the first times that
a rock band had performed a disco hit live.
I
only wish that I could have found the original music video to show you guys,
but alas, it is not available on YouTube.
But I do have a link to the video HERE. I can also tell you a few things about it.
Obviously,
the video was filmed in New York City, as we see shots of the Empire State
Building and the former World Trade Center intertwined between shots of the
band performing in what appears to be a discotheque.
TRIVIA: Contrary to
what some may think, and despite the appearance of an exterior shot of the club
appearing in the video, the video itself is NOT filmed at Studio 54. It was actually filmed in a different club
in New York City.
Oh,
and Debbie's interesting dress? You'll
never guess where the inspiration for it came from.
Believe
it or not, the pattern came from television scan lines. The asymmetrical dress - designed by Stephen
Sprouse was inspired by the scan line pattern which was photo printed onto a
piece of fabric, which was then draped over a layer of cotton fabric and
chiffon on top. It was quite a
fantastic piece. I should also note
that Debbie Harry herself had a designing credit. She designed all the T-shirts that the male band members wore in
the video.
Of
course, while the single did become Blondie's first #1 hit, it also caused fans
to cause a backlash against them for selling out. And certainly some of the members of Blondie felt the same
way. Drummer Clem Burke would refuse to
play the song live until it became a huge hit and he was forced to. Other members like Stein and Harry defended
the single and were proud of its success.
Oh,
and in some British radio stations, the line "once I had a love, and it
was a gas, soon turned out it was a pain in the ass" was banned from
airplay. Or at the very least, the BBC
would mute the lyric completely from radio play. Yeah, it's not even that offensive, people! To solve the problem, a second version was
recorded where the "pain in the ass" lyric was changed to "had a
heart of glass". Because
repetition is so much better than having a naughty word.
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