![]() She noted that she “experimented with everything imaginable, attempting to figure out who I was as an artist – or if I even was one. “I had come to to be an artist,” Harry writes in her memoir, Face It. The story of rags to riches practically writes itself. Unsure of just what kind of stardom she was going to seek, she paid her dues like every superstar, waiting tables, and answering phones. Debbie Harry, the enigmatic and gorgeous face of the group, was a Jersey girl who, like many, made her way to New York City. Blondie’s lore has the hallmarks of a great story: a cracking band with a goddess for a lead singer that creates their legend by building on the Downtown New York art and punk scene, putting in performances at iconic venues like Max’s Kansas City and CBGB. The greatest pop music narratives are those of struggling musicians who come from humble backgrounds, toiling away at nightclubs and bars before making it big. But more than that, it also ignores the trajectory of pop music. It ignores the hard work and good art that they produced at their commercial height. “Heart of Glass” gave the band pop superstardom that seemed incongruous with their punk roots.īut simply damning Blondie as a commercial band that ‘sold out’ is reductive and superficial. Eventually, the song grew and evolved into the cool, sleek synth-banger that adorned the band’s classic album Parallel Lines. Before the band’s superstardom, frontwoman Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein wrote the song as a midtempo, funk number, inspired by the soulful urban dance music of the time. But like everything that captures mainstream success, disco for the masses meant tacky, cringy ephemera like The Ethel Merman Disco Album or Donny Osmond’s Disco Train.īut Blondie’s step into dance music wasn’t a crass cash grab. It was an art form created and nurtured by Black and queer creatives who would often center Black female voices. Though by the late 1970s, disco had become mainstream, its roots were far from Middle America. It perfectly encapsulates their long thesis: They wanted to be commercial and punk at once. But the success – and brilliance – of “Heart of Glass” is the story of Blondie, the band. ![]() Because of their punk roots, Blondie’s foray into disco was derided as “selling out” or “pandering” to gain a wider audience, in much the same way that other mainstream acts who “went disco” would be accused. Though the band was a creative resultant of the punk movement of the 1970s, “Heart of Glass” was a song of a different genre, one just as identified by its decade: disco. The comparison of epic music, trailer music and film music genres forms the core of the study.In the winter of 1978, Blondie released “Heart of Glass”, which would become the band’s first number one hit single in the United States. We likewise deal with theoretical questions and present our own definition reflecting the characteristic features of the genre. We offer concise data regarding the way of creation and combination of epic music with other genres. The most famous composers and companies producing epic music are presented. We deal in more detail with the question of what tendencies and facts in the domains of film and trailer music contributed to the origination of the new genre. In the study we focus on the origins of epic music, its historical background and theoretical definition of epic music, film music and trailer music. Epic music, a music phenomenon popular mainly with young generations, is gradually acquiring a permanent position among the similar genres of film music and trailer music.Īs the issue of epic music as a new music genre has not been dealt with in the scholarly literature sufficiently yet, the aim of the study is to present basic existing information about and characteristic features of the genre, as well as a comparison with related genres, and to bring new impulses for further elaboration of this current theme. A rather young – and still in the process of development – music genre of epic music, with origins rooted in film music, and namely in trailer music, may serve as an example. Our present era offers us ideal conditions for experimenting both with combinations of various music genres, and with creation of new ones, not analysed hitherto in theoretical reflection. Title: Epic music – história, vznik a charakteristikaĮpic Music – Its History, Origination and Description
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