Chapman and Blondie also used plenty of other little tricks on “Heart Of Glass”: digital reverb, multi-tracked guitars, echo machines, a Minimoog, Chapman’s own backing vocals. It’s a beautiful piece of recording, all these sticky and hazy interlocking pieces combining together into a sighing, rippling landscape. Parts of it — Clem Burke’s lockstep drums, Nigel Harrison’s funky and vaguely Chic-esque bass-pops — sound truly disco. Other parts sound like rockers in an expensive studio attempting to figure out how the Giorgio Moroder magic was made. The whole thing glimmers and flutters and fades like a mirage on the horizon. It’s beautiful.

“And if you want to talk about pop music between 1980 and now, that issue—the question of who’s singing and who’s being sung to—is an important one. The study assumes that hit singles in the eighties and hit singles in the new millennium play the same role in our culture. But over the past 30 years, the weekly charts have seen changes a lot more significant than any surge of ego. It’s not just that pop’s audience has changed; it’s that its whole purpose has.”

"But all of a sudden, for a brief time at least, she's the only real pop star around."