FEATURE:
Second Spin
Blondie - Autoamerican
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I know I have featured…
Blondie and Debbie Harry on my blog a few times. I think they are one of the most influential bands ever, with a terrific catalogue to boot! Though many of their albums are celebrated and hugely acclaimed, there are a few that have not got the reception and adoration they deserve. One that warrants more affection and new light is their fifth studio album, Autoamerican. Released on 26th November, 1980, it followed the successful and phenomenal Eat to the Beat. Featuring Rapture and The Tide Is High, I am surprised Autoamerican received some mixed reviews! Although only a few songs on the album come up to the standard of Rapture, there is plenty to enjoy and love. Producer Mike Chapman insisted the band record in Los Angeles (the New York band recorded in their city beforehand). That decision was met with a bit of a split in the group. Probably not affecting their sound and performances, they did return to New York for 1982’s The Hunter. One of the reasons why some were confused or not fond of Autoamerican is because it was a radical departure from Blondie. This article from November explained how the album is a varied and eclectic work:
“Incorporating elements of jazz, blues, disco, and the avant-garde, Autoamerican was still a sizable commercial success (going platinum on both sides of the Atlantic), but it confounded critics. Rather like The Clash’s equally ambitious Sandinista!, Autoamerican attracted criticism simply for daring to embrace sonic diversity – something that was an element of Blondie’s DNA from the get-go.
“Blondie was probably the most modern band I’ve ever worked with in that they soaked up influences from innumerable sources,” Blondie and No Exit producer Craig Leon said in a 2019 Record Collector interview.
“As songs like [Parallel Lines’] ‘Heart Of Glass” show, they were like human samplers when it came to incorporating ideas and concepts and genres, often in just one song. They are probably the most eclectic band I’ve ever worked with.”
“Magical things did happen”
“Eclectic” remains the watchword where Autoamerican is concerned. Marking the first time Blondie had left their native New York to make an album, the recording sessions took place at United Western Recorders (now part of the Ocean Way complex) in Hollywood, where The Beach Boys recorded parts of “Good Vibrations”. During their Californian sojourn, Debbie Harry’s team was joined by Parallel Lines producer Mike Chapman and studio engineer Lenise Bent. The latter recalls band and producer being meticulous in their preparation.
“They’d done a lot of pre-production”, she told The Mix in 1999. “Everybody was pretty prepared by the time they got into the studio. Magical things did happen, there was room for those spontaneous things, but the preparation helped because you didn’t have to think about the basics.”
Blondie brought a wealth of new songs to the sessions, a clutch of which – “T-Birds,” the cinematic “Angels On The Balcony” and the aggressive, drum-heavy “Walk Like Me” – could easily have graced Eat To The Beat. Elsewhere, however, the band fearlessly grappled with everything from the jazzy cabaret of “Here’s Looking At You” to the shimmering disco-funk of “Live It Up” and the smoochy, noir-infused blues of “Faces,” with the latter featuring a gloriously smoky vocal from Harry.
“I was sure it was going to be a hit”
Two radically disparate musical genres, meanwhile, provided the album’s signature hits. Blondie had already dabbled with reggae on Eat To The Beat’s “Die Young, Stay Pretty,” but at the instigation of guitarist Chris Stein, they delved deeper into Jamaica’s rich musical heritage for a sunny, horn-laced cover of The Paragons’ 1967 ska hit, “The Tide Is High.”
“I was the one who picked ‘The Tide Is High’,” Stein told The Village Voice in 2008. “That’s the only song [from Autoamerican] I was sure was going to be a hit beforehand – not least because it said ‘number one’ in the chorus!”
Stein’s assumption proved entirely correct when the infectious “The Tide Is High” – released as the album’s lead single, in October 1980 – shot to the top of both the UK Top 40 and the Billboard Hot 100. Its follow-up, “Rapture,” also broke new ground. A hypnotic hybrid of disco, funk, and New York’s emerging hip-hop scene, the song featured an extended rap from Debbie Harry, who namechecked hip-hop pioneers Fab Five Freddy and Grandmaster Flash.
“An adventurous spirit and dynamic songwriting”
“Rapture” also topped the Billboard Hot 100 and received numerous critical plaudits, but while Autoamerican, which was released on November 14, 1980, fared well on the charts, it was greeted with less than sparkling reviews. These days, forward-thinking music fans would welcome a record which so brazenly pushes the envelope, but, in 1980, contemporary critics struggled to get a handle on this mind-bogglingly diverse disc, which concluded with a heartfelt cover of Lerner & Loewe’s “Follow Me,” from the musical Camelot.
Divorced from the times, though, Autoamerican has come into its own. In an interview on Blondie’s website, drummer Clem Burke enthusiastically cited it as “my favorite… it’s a very eclectic album”, while retrospective critiques such as Ultimate Classic Rock’s (“an LP beloved for its adventurous spirit and dynamic songwriting”) have finally brought this still-futuristic-sounding gem to discerning 21st-century ears”.
I think Autoamerican is an underrated album that deserves more acclaim. I don’t think I have ever heard songs like Live It Up or Faces played on the radio. There are some deep cuts on the album that are really solid. Despite a few tracks that are not up to Blondie’s normal standard, Autoamerican is an album that is worth listening to. The reviews are largely mixed. This is what AllMusic noted in their assessment of Autoamerican:
“The basic Blondie sextet was augmented, or replaced, by numerous session musicians (including lots of uncredited horn and string players) for the group's fifth album, Autoamerican, on which they continued to expand their stylistic range, with greater success, at least on certain tracks, than they had on Eat to the Beat. A cover of Jamaican group the Paragons' "The Tide Is High," released in advance of the album, became a gold-selling number one single, as did the rap pastiche "Rapture," but, despite their presence, the album stalled in the lower half of the Top Ten and spent fewer weeks in the charts than either of its predecessors. One reason for that, admittedly, was that Chrysalis Records pulled promotion of the disc in favor of pushing lead singer Debbie Harry's debut solo album, KooKoo, not even bothering to release a third single after scoring two chart-topping hits. But then, it's hard to imagine what that third single could have been on an album that leads off with a pretentious string-filled instrumental ("Europa"), and also finds Harry crooning ersatz '20s pop on "Here's Looking at You" and tackling Broadway show music in a cover of "Follow Me" from Camelot. Though more characteristic, the rest of the tracks are weak compositions indifferently executed. Thus Autoamerican was memorable only for its hits, which would be better heard when placed on a hits compilation”.
Maybe Blondie had past their best days or were entering new territory. In any case, I feel their work from the 1980s has some great moments. Autoamerican is an album that I have grown to love more. In addition to the monster that is Rapture, there are some pearls to be enjoyed. If you have not heard the album for a while (or at all), then give Blondie’s fifth studio album…
A bit of your time.