1982 · Behind the Songs
Disco’s songwriters meet the ’60s’ finest stylist — sparks fly.
In 1982 the Bee Gees — Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb — wrote and produced an entire album for Warwick, and the title track was its gleaming centerpiece. Built on a percolating groove and Barry Gibb’s unmistakable melodic fingerprints, Heartbreaker asked Warwick to loosen up, and she responded with one of her most relaxed, rhythmic performances.
The single reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Adult Contemporary chart, giving Warwick her biggest hit of the 1980s. It was a perfect generational handshake: the disco era’s defining songwriters meeting the 1960s’ defining song stylist. The result sounds like neither camp and entirely like both — a sleek, sad dance record only she could have sung.