Atomic Blondie

The band reflects on 40 years of ‘Heart of Glass,’ finally playing Cuba and hearing their songs at CVS

- Zach Schonfeld

BLONDIE’S SINGLE “HEART OF Glass”—released 40 years ago this month—wasn’t supposed to be a hit. It wasn’t even supposed to be on an album. When the band entered the studio to record 1978’s now-classic Parallel Lines, “Glass” was an abandoned disco experiment from years before. Their producer, Mike Chapman, persuaded them to salvage it by pumping up the backbeat.

By the spring of 1979, the glittery dance-pop anthem was “a commercial phenomenon,” says Blondie drummer Clem Burke, pushing the band from a fixture on New York’s underground punk scene to international stars. Singer Debbie Harry, guitarist Chris Stein and Burke recently marked the song’s anniversary with a 12-inch vinyl EP that resurrects early incarnations. There’s another milestone as well: In mid-March, the band will perform in Cuba for the first time. “Chris and I have always talked about going there,” says Harry.

That’s not surprising, says Burke, who describes Stein, affectionately, as a “left-wing commie.” He had wanted to go when Fidel Castro was alive. “The handling of most of Latin America is disgraceful, and Cuba especially so,” says Stein. The band had intended to play there in 2015, when President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations and lifted travel restrictions. “That didn’t happen,” says Burke, and then came Donald Trump. “When the new administration put these sanctions on [Cuba], we had to find a different arrangement. So we’re going under the auspices of a cultural exchange.”