On this date in 1979

Blondie hit the Number One position on the Billboard charts with "Heart of Glass" and kept the position for a week.

You could say that some fans were outraged. On the other hand...Debbie Harry told Billboard, "I don't think being commercial is totally derogatory. I think that this was the most intriguing or interesting cut (on Parallel Lines) being that it was a crossover, and it... helped introduce new wave music in a more commercial way."

Chris Stein told Creem magazine, "We didn't expect the song to be that big. We did it as a novelty item to put more diversity into the album. It's not selling out, it's only one song."

At the time, Jimmy Destri told Pleasant and me, for the record - as our conversation was part of a Lobotomy cover story on Blondie, that "Heart of Glass" used to be called "The Disco Song," even though it was a kind of pop-funk thing.

"Heart of Glass," which topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, was the second single from Blondie's Parallel Lines album. The first single was "Hangin on the Telephone," a cover of The Nerves song, written by Jack Lee. Released in Sept. 1978, Parallel Lines peaked at #6 and spent a total of 108 weeks on the Billboard Hot 200. It was certified platinum by the R.I.A.A. in June 1979.