"In and Out of Love" is a single by American rock band Bon Jovi. It is taken from their second album, 7800° Fahrenheit and is also featured on the band's best-of album Cross Road, and Disc Two of their Greatest Hits album. A live version of the song, recorded in Tokyo during summer 1985, can be found on the album One Wild Night Live 1985-2001.
In an interview, Bon Jovi said that he wrote the song while watching MTV's Top 20 Video Countdown.
The single entered the Billboard Rock chart in July 1985, peaking at No. 37. It entered the Hot 100 in August and peaked at No. 69, holding that position for two weeks.
"She Don't Know Me" is a single by American rock band Bon Jovi. It was the second single from their self-titled debut album Bon Jovi (1984). It was written by Mark Avsec (of Donnie Iris & The Cruisers fame) and charted at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song has the distinction of being the only release in Bon Jovi's entire discography that was not written or co-written by a member of the band.
In the early 1980s, fresh off a stint playing in the band Wild Cherry, Avsec wrote and produced the debut album for the disco band LaFlavour, who scored a pair of minor hits with "Mandolay" and "Only the Lonely (Have a Reason to be Sad)" upon the album's release in 1980. At the time, Bon Jovi and LaFlavour were both signed to labels owned by Polygram. By the time Avsec composed LaFlavour's follow-up album, however, the band's name was changed to "Fair Warning", and their disco image was scrapped. "She Don't Know Me" was one of the songs Avsec penned for the upcoming record, and it appears as the lead-off track on what was to be Fair Warning's self-titled album.
However, around this same time as LaFlavour's transformation, PolyGram was preparing to release Bon Jovi's debut album, and they were looking for a strong hit single. The decision was made for Bon Jovi to also record "She Don't Know Me" and feature it on their own debut album. This prioritization of Bon Jovi, combined with the fact that Van Halen were releasing an album with the same title that same year, caused the stagnation of the Fair Warning project. Beyond a few promotional copies, Fair Warning's self-titled album would never be officially released. Incidentally, it would take several more years for the Bon Jovi album to materialize.
Meanwhile, in the ensuing interim period, two already well-established musical acts covered the tune. The well-known 1960s/70s band The Grass Roots included a version of the song on their 1982 reunion album, Powers of the Night. The following year, former Outsiders and Climax frontman Sonny Geraci recorded his own version of the tune under the pseudonym "Peter Emmett" (backed by the Donnie Iris and the Cruisers band, including Avsec).
In 1984, Bon Jovi's self-titled debut album was finally released, and "She Don't Know Me" was released as a follow-up to the band's first hit, "Runaway."
In addition to the studio version of the song, a live version also appears on the Document in Japan bootleg recorded on 28 May 1985 from the 7800° Fahrenheit tour. It is an extended version of the song lasting 8:24, commencing with a 3-minute drum solo.
The song has not been performed live since the mid-1980s, it was dropped from their setlists immediately after the band broke through to mainstream success with their album Slippery When Wet. Taking into the account that the band generally shies away from their pre-stardom material in their concerts combined with the fact that they did not write the song, it is highly unlikely that they will ever perform the song again.
A music video was released in the USA in May 1984 to promote the song. It was directed by Martin Kahan and produced by Lenny Grodin, and features the band – primarily Jon Bon Jovi – in live action vignette scenes centered around a local bar, inter-cut with staged performance shots. The loose plot shows Jon troubled by thoughts of an unattainable woman, portrayed as a split character by Beth Toussaint; several classic vintage automobiles are used as set pieces. The current version's end scene has been edited to remove a part where the woman's alter ego levels a gun at two thugs that are about to assault her. The scenes were filmed at and around the Brewery Bar, in Benicia, California, with director Kahan making a cameo appearance.
"Runaway" is the debut single by American rock band Bon Jovi. It was originally recorded in 1981 for the so-called "Power Station Demos" at the beginning of singer Jon Bon Jovi's career, featuring the vocalist backed by session musicians.
The song became a surprise hit in 1983 on WAPP-FM (now WKTU), leading to the formation of the first proper lineup of Bon Jovi for a short tour.
The track was recorded in 1982 at the Power Station recording studio, and released to radio in 1983. Jon Bon Jovi chose studio musicians who were recording with other artists using the studio at the time—these musicians became known as "The All Star Revue", which included: bassist Hugh McDonald (who would join Bon Jovi in 1994 as an unofficial member); guitarist Tim Pierce (who was working on a John Waite record with producer Neil Giraldo); drummer Frankie LaRocka; and keyboardist Roy Bittan. The keyboard intro was written by Mick Seeley—then of John Bongiovi and the Wild Ones and later with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes—who also performed backing vocals on the track with David Grahmme.
In 1983, local radio station WAPP 103.5FM "The Apple" had a contest, held in conjunction with St. John's University, to search for the best unsigned band. After the song won the contest, it became a radio hit in the summer of 1983.
"Runaway" became the first single from the band's self-titled debut album. It hit the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 at #39 in early 1984 and became the band's first Top 40 hit in the US.
A dance/club remake of "Runaway" was released in July 2008 by "DJ Freddy Retro featuring Jim Davis Jr." on Casa Records.
One night, after a show, guitarist Richie Sambora found Bon Jovi backstage and told him he should be the guitarist for the group. Bon Jovi wrote him off and did not think much of it but told him to learn the material and show up for rehearsal. Sambora was early and had learned all the given material, which impressed Bon Jovi.
The music video was directed by Mike Cuesta (not to be confused with TV producer Michael Cuesta) and featured Jennifer Gatti in one of her earliest roles.
In latterday live performances, Jon Bon Jovi has been known to do a short guitar solo near the end of the song instead of hitting the high notes at the end; something only done in the 1980s, as heard on the vintage performance featured on One Wild Night: Live 1985-2001.
After the band attained worldwide fame in the mid to late 1980s they largely dropped earlier material from live performances, in favor of more well known and accomplished material. However, "Runaway" is a song of which they remain proud. For well over 20 years, it has been the only song from the bands' first two albums to be performed on a regular basis. "I still think a couple of the songs hold up," Bon Jovi said of the debut album in 2007. "'Runaway', definitely." A few others have been played live over the years, notably during The Circle Tour in 2010; however they were extreme rarities when they appeared and were not regularly performed.
The song was made available to download on November 9, 2010 for use in the Rock Band 3 music video game in both Basic rhythm, and PRO mode which takes advantage of the use of a real guitar / bass guitar, and standard MIDI-compatible electronic drum kits / keyboards in addition to three-part harmony or backup vocals.
The song was featured on a MasterCard television commercial and in the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
A portion of the song is heard during a scene of the seventh episode of the second season of the Netflix series Stranger Things.
A song that is featured in the Transformers 2018 prequel, Bumblebee.
"Rapture" is a song by American rock band Blondie from their fifth studio album Autoamerican (1980). Written by band members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, and produced by Mike Chapman, the song was released as the second and final single from Autoamerican on January 12, 1981, by Chrysalis Records. Musically, "Rapture" is a combination of disco, funk and hip hop with a rap section forming an extended coda.
"Rapture" was another commercial success for the band, shipping one million copies in the United States, where it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and spent two weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, their fourth and last single to reach number one. It was the first number-one single in the United States to feature rap vocals. The single also peaked at number three in Canada, and number five in Australia and the United Kingdom.
The accompanying music video for "Rapture" made its US television debut on Solid Gold on January 31, 1981, and not only became the first rap video ever broadcast on MTV, but was part of its first 90-video rotation. Set in the East Village section of Manhattan, the "Man from Mars" or "voodoo god" (dancer William Barnes in the white suit and top hat) is the introductory and central figure. Barnes also choreographed the piece. Much of the video is a one-take scene of lead singer Debbie Harry dancing down the street, passing by graffiti artists, Uncle Sam, an American Indian, child ballet dancer and a goat. Fab Five Freddy and graffiti artists Lee Quiñones and Jean-Michel Basquiat make cameo appearances. Basquiat was hired when Grandmaster Flash did not show for the shoot. The UK 7" version of the song is used in the video.
"The Tide Is High" was covered by the American new wave band Blondie in 1980, in a reggae style that included horns and strings. It was released as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, Autoamerican (1980), giving Blondie their third number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and their fifth in the UK (where it became Blondie's last British number one for 18 years, until "Maria" in February 1999). The track also reached number one in Canada and New Zealand, and was a Top 5 hit on many European charts as well as in countries including Australia and South Africa. The B-side was "Suzie & Jeffrey", which appeared as a bonus track on the original 1980 cassette edition of the Autoamerican album, and was also included on EMI-Capitol's re-issue of Autoamerican in 2001.
Official remixes of the Blondie version have been issued twice; first by Coldcut in 1988 on the Blondie/Debbie Harry remix compilation Once More into the Bleach, and the second time in 1995 by Pete Arden and Vinny Vero on the album Remixed Remade Remodeled: The Remix Project (UK edition: Beautiful: The Remix Album).
Blondie re-recorded the song for the 2014 compilation album Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux. The compilation was part of a 2-disc set called Blondie 4(0) Ever, which included their tenth studio album Ghosts of Download, and marked the 40th anniversary of the band's formation.
A music video (using the single edit version) was produced, directed by Hart Perry. It depicts the band waiting out on the street for singer Debbie Harry, who appears to be trapped in a flooding apartment. All the while she is being monitored from outer space by what appears to be a Darth Vader-like alien being. She soon reunites with the band on the street and they drive to a rocket launch and fly into space. They then crash into the spaceship or space station. Harry confronts the alien being and begins dancing with him.
"Call Me" is a song by the American new wave band Blondie and the theme to the 1980 film American Gigolo. Produced and co-written by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder and released in the United States in early 1980 as a single, "Call Me" was No. 1 for six consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it became the band's biggest single and second No. 1. It also hit No. 1 in the UK and Canada, where it became their fourth and second chart-topper, respectively. In the year-end chart of 1980, it was Billboard's No. 1 single and RPM magazine's No. 3 in Canada.
"Call Me" was the main theme song of the 1980 film American Gigolo. It is played in the key of D minor. Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder originally asked Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac to help compose and perform a song for the soundtrack, but she declined as a recently signed contract with Modern Records prevented her from working with Moroder. It was at this time that Moroder turned to Debbie Harry and Blondie. Moroder presented Harry with a rough instrumental track called "Man Machine". Harry was asked to write the lyrics and melody, a process that Harry states took a mere few hours. The lyrics were written from the perspective of the main character in the film, a male prostitute. Harry said the lyrics were inspired by her visual impressions from watching the film and that "When I was writing it, I pictured the opening scene, driving on the coast of California." The completed song was then recorded by the band, with Moroder producing. The bridge of the original English-language version also includes Harry singing "Call me, my darling" in Italian ("Amore, chiamami") ("Love, call me") and in French ("Appelle-moi, mon chéri") ("Call me, my darling").
In the US, the song was released by three record companies: the longest version (at 8:06) on the soundtrack album by Polydor, the 7" and 12" on Blondie's label Chrysalis, and a Spanish-language 12" version, with lyrics by Buddy and Mary McCluskey, on the disco label Salsoul Records. The Spanish version, titled "Llámame", was meant for release in Mexico and some South American countries. This version was also released in the US and the UK and had its CD debut on Chrysalis/EMI's rarities compilation Blonde and Beyond (1993). In 1988, a remixed version by Ben Liebrand taken from the Blondie remix album Once More into the Bleach was issued as a single in the UK. In 2001, the "original long version" appeared as a bonus track on the Autoamerican album re-issue.
In 2014, Blondie re-recorded the song for their compilation album Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux. The compilation was part of a 2-disc set called Blondie 4(0) Ever which included their tenth studio album Ghosts of Download and marked the 40th anniversary of the forming of the band.
Harry recorded an abbreviated version of the song that was backed by the Muppet Band for her guest appearance on The Muppet Show in August 1980. It was first broadcast in January 1981.
The single was released in the United States in February 1980. It spent six consecutive weeks at number one and was certified Gold (for one million copies sold) by the RIAA. It also spent four weeks at No. 2 on the US dance chart. The single was also No. 1 on Billboard magazine's 1980 year-end chart. The song lists at No. 57 on Billboard's All Time Top 100.[10] It was released in the UK two months later, where it became Blondie's fourth UK No. 1 single in little over a year. The song was also played on a British Telecom advert in the 1980s. 25 years after its original release, "Call Me" was ranked at No. 283 on the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1981, the Village Voice ranked "Call Me" as the third-best song of the year 1980 on its annual year-end critics' poll, Pazz & Jop.
In 1981, the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, as well as for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
There were two videos made:
One was clips and video footage of Debbie Harry in New York City. The video can be found on the 1991 UK video compilation The Complete Picture: The Very Best of Deborah Harry and Blondie.
The other, which came out in 1981, did not feature any of the band. It depicted a New York City taxi driver (who had appeared in several other Blondie music videos) driving his Checker Taxi through Manhattan traffic. This version was part of the 1981 "Best of Blondie" compilation video.
"Heart of Glass" is a song by the American new wave band Blondie, written by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. It was featured on the band's third studio album, Parallel Lines (1978), and was released as the album's third single in January 1979 and reached number one on the charts in several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
In December 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the song number 255 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was ranked at number 259 when the list was updated in April 2010. Slant Magazine placed it at number 42 on their list of the greatest dance songs of all time and Pitchfork named it the 18th best song of the 1970s.
In 2018, "Heart of Glass" ranked at number 66 in the UK's official list of biggest selling singles of all-time, with sales of 1.32 million copies.
In August 2020, songwriters Debbie Harry and Chris Stein sold the rights to the song, as one of 197 Blondie songs, to investment fund company Hipgnosis Songs Fund.
Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote an early version of "Heart of Glass", called "Once I Had a Love", in 1974–75. This earlier version was initially recorded as a demo in 1975. The song had a slower, funkier sound with a basic disco beat. For this reason the band referred to it as "The Disco Song". This original version was inspired by The Hues Corporation's hit disco song "Rock the Boat" (1974). The song was re-recorded in a second demo with the same title in 1978, when the song was made a bit more pop-oriented. Harry said that "'Heart of Glass' was one of the first songs Blondie wrote, but it was years before we recorded it properly. We'd tried it as a ballad, as reggae, but it never quite worked", and that "the lyrics weren't about anyone. They were just a plaintive moan about lost love." It was only when the band met with producer Mike Chapman to start work on Parallel Lines that Harry recalled Chapman "asked us to play all the songs we had. At the end, he said: 'Have you got anything else?' We sheepishly said: 'Well, there is this old one.' He liked it – he thought it was fascinating and started to pull it into focus."
Exactly who decided to give the song a more pronounced disco vibe is subject to differing recollections. On some occasions, the producer Mike Chapman has stated that he convinced Harry and Stein to give the song a disco twist. On other occasions, Chapman has credited Harry with the idea. As a band, Blondie had experimented with disco before, both in the predecessors to "Heart of Glass" and in live cover songs that the band played at shows. Bassist Gary Valentine noted that the set list for early Blondie shows often included disco hits such as "Honey Bee" or "My Imagination".
In an interview published in the February 4, 1978, edition of NME, Debbie Harry expressed her affinity for the Euro disco music of Giorgio Moroder, stating that "It's commercial, but it's good, it says something... that's the kind of stuff that I want to do". A notable example of this type of musical experimentation occurred when Blondie covered Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" at the Blitz Benefit on May 7, 1978. In his history of CBGB, music writer Roman Kozak described this event: "When Blondie played for the Johnny Blitz benefit in May, 1978, they surprised everyone with a rendition of Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love'. It was arguably the first time in New York, in the middle of the great rock versus disco split, that a rock band had played a disco song. Blondie went on to record 'Heart of Glass,' other groups recorded other danceable songs, and dance rock was born."
The song was ultimately given the disco orientation that made the song one of the best-known Blondie recordings. For the single release the track was remixed by Chapman, with the double-tracked bass drum even more accentuated.
In reflecting on the development of "Heart of Glass" from its earliest incarnations until the recorded version on Parallel Lines, Chris Stein noted that the earliest versions had a basic conventional disco beat, but that the recorded version incorporated the electronic sound of Euro disco, stating that "The original arrangement of 'Heart of Glass'—as on the [1975] Betrock demos—had doubles on the high-hat cymbals, a more straight-ahead disco beat. When we recorded it for Parallel Lines we were really into Kraftwerk, and we wanted to make it more electronic. We weren't thinking disco as we were doing it; we thought it was more electro-European."
The Parallel Lines version (as well as most others) contained some rhythmic features that were very unusual for the disco context, which typically follows a strict four-beats-per-measure pattern for maximum danceability.
A 5:50 version of "Heart of Glass" was first released as a 12-inch single in December 1978. Some radio stations in the United States were reluctant to play the song because of the "pain in the ass" lyric, so an edited 7-inch single was released in January 1979. The original album version was released as a single in the UK where the BBC bleeped out the word "ass". Debbie Harry told The Guardian, "At first, the song kept saying: 'Once I had a love, it was a gas. Soon turned out, it was a pain in the ass.' We couldn't keep saying that, so we came up with: 'Soon turned out, had a heart of glass.' We kept one 'pain in the ass' in – and the BBC bleeped it out for radio."
The single reached number one on the singles charts in the US and the UK. In the US, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in April 1979, representing sales of one million copies. In the UK, it was certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in February 1979, also for sales of one million copies.
Despite its overall popularity, "Heart of Glass" was not a hit in New York City's traditional discothèques such as Studio 54, Xenon and Crisco Disco, and reached only No. 58 in Billboard's Disco Top 80 chart. One of the first rock/disco fusion hits, it was more popular in rock-oriented nightclubs such as Hurrah and the Mudd Club.
Blondie re-recorded the song for the 2014 2-disc set Blondie 4(0) Ever.
The song is associated with the disco and new wave genres.
The "Heart of Glass" promotional video was directed by Stanley Dorfman. Contrary to popular belief, it was not filmed at the Studio 54 nightclub; Chris Stein said that "in the video, there's a shot of the legendary Studio 54, so everyone thought we shot the video there, but it was actually in a short-lived club called the Copa or something". The video begins with footage of New York City at night before joining Blondie on stage. Then, the video alternates between close-ups of Debbie Harry's face as she lip-syncs and mid-distance shots of the entire band. Harry said, "For the video, I wanted to dance around but they told us to remain static, while the cameras moved around. God only knows why. Maybe we were too clumsy."
In the video Harry wears a silver asymmetrical dress designed by Stephen Sprouse. To create the dress, Sprouse photo-printed a picture of television scan lines onto a piece of fabric, and then, according to Harry, "put a layer of cotton fabric underneath and a layer of chiffon on top, and then the scan-lines would do this op-art thing." The popularity of the song helped Sprouse's work earn a lot of exposure from the media. Harry also said that the T-shirts used by the male members of the band in the video were made by herself.
"Draped in a sheer, silver Sprouse dress," Kris Needs summarized while writing for Mojo Classic, "Debbie sang through gritted teeth, while the boys cavorted with mirror balls". Studying Harry's attitude in the "effortlessly cool" video, musician and writer Pat Kane felt she "exuded a steely confidence about her sexual impact... The Marilyn do has artfully fallen over, and she's in the funkiest of dresses: one strap across her shoulder, swirling silks around about her. Her iconic face shows flickers of interest, amidst the boredom and ennui of the song's lyrics." Kane also noted that the band members fooling around with disco balls, "taking the mickey out of their own disco fixation." Reviewing the Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision DVD for Pitchfork, Jess Harvell wrote that while "owning your own copy of 'Heart of Glass' may not seem as cool [anymore]... there's the always luminous Deborah Harry, who would give boiling asparagus an erotic charge, all while looking too bored to live."
