Blondie “Autoamerican” 1980. This week (January 25-31) in 1981 the single “The Tide Is High” was #1 on the US charts and helped propel Blondie’s fifth studio album to #7 in the US and #3 in the UK.

Duke Reid from Jamaica wrote “The Tide Is High” in the 1930′s and it has been covered several times over the years, Blondie’s version the best-known of course. Its ska-reggae groove was somewhat of a departure for Blondie but marked the experimental vein of the entire album: orchestral arrangements, jazz and blues, showtunes (“Follow Me” from Camelot) and rap. The other hit single from Autoamerican “Rapture” became the first pop song featuring rap to hit #1 on the charts and the first rap video to be aired on MTV. Hip hop artist Fab Five Freddy and graffiti artists Lee Quinones and Jean-Michel Basquiat make cameo appearances. I really do like Blondie and think Debbie Harry is hellacool but I think it’s kinda awful that it took a pop/new wave group with a model-pretty blonde front woman to get rap and hip hop to the top of the pop culture stage for the first time.