“(I Love The Sound of) Breaking Glass” by Nick Lowe

"I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" is Nick Lowe's 1978 hit from the album that appeared both as Jesus of Cool and as Pure Pop for Now People, and he produced it himself for Radar Records. The song was largely conjured in the studio from a half-formed tune, which is why Lowe shared the writing credit with his rhythm section, Andrew Bodnar and Steve Goulding: in his telling, they were the ones who really made it.

You can hear why. The drums and bass lock into a clipped, hypnotic stride, and Lowe floats a cool, sardonic vocal over the top, pure new wave pop with a wicked smirk. He's owned up that he didn't know David Bowie already had a song called "Breaking Glass", and conceded he'd probably borrowed a little something from Bowie musically anyway.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.