Alternative Songs chart. The song also peaked at number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100[3] after crossing over to pop radio. It remains their most popular song to date. The single's cover features the band's hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. On March 3, 2017, "Through Glass" was certified platinum by the RIAA.[4]
Background
The song was originally inspired by frontman Corey Taylor's outrage at the music industry and how he felt that the musical revolution had never taken place. Taylor was quoted as having said:
I remember exactly where I was. It was 2004 and I was on tour with Slipknot. I was sitting in a European hotel room watching a music video channel, seeing act after act after act of this inane, innocuous, plastic music. They were plastic, bubbly, gossamer-thin groups where it was really more about the clothes they wore and the length of their cheekbones than it was about the content of the song they were singing. It really made me mad. I was like, "Is this it? Have we just gone full circle? Did the singer/songwriter revolution never happen? Is it just the same drivel from the same replicate over and over again?" ... "Through Glass" is really a very angry song. It's me basically calling bullshit on pretty much everyone involved with the American Idol-type shows. It has its place, but when you're basically cornering the market and making it very hard for anyone who actually writes their own music to get ahead, then it's wrong and that's really why I wrote this song.[5]
Years later, Taylor elaborated on the origins of the song, saying that he watched so much European music television because he was suffering from food poisoning in Sweden and was unable to move and change the channel from
The music video for "Through Glass" was shot with director
C.C. Deville.[7] The video begins with Corey Taylor singing the intro while sitting in a chair. He gets up to reveal that the video is taking place at a house party, and it subsequently goes through close-ups of the guests. A shot of a waitress bringing a plate of a plywood cutout of food is also shown. As the video progresses, the band begins to perform in front of the Hollywood Sign
, spelled as "Hollowood". Taylor walks through a pool and sings the rest of the song. Two men are shown to actually be plywood cutouts, which are then taken away. Another set of people are also plywood cutouts who are then taken away. As the video continues, the whole set is shown to be made up of plywood cutouts, which are taken away. When the band finishes, they walk away, revealing that the place in which they were performing was also made of plywood cutouts.
