Blondie “Autoamerican”

sfilzen — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 17:00:53 +0000

Blondie “Autoamerican” released 40 years ago today, November 19th, 1980. The LP was Blondie’s fifth and it went to #7 in the US and to #3 in the UK. It has two of Blondie’s biggest hit singles: “The Tide is High” (a cover of the reggae song originally performed by The Paragons in 1967) which went to #1 in the US and UK (I remember absolutely loving this song in 4th grade), and “Rapture” which also hit #1 in the US and went to #5 in the UK. “Rapture” was the first “rap” song to hit #1 – though it’s really more disco/funk with some rapping – and was the first “rap” song to be played on MTV. I like the track a lot but find it ironic and a bit historically distasteful that it took an all-white new wave band to get hip hop/rap onto the airwaves (in particular MTV resisted playing black artists until Michael Jackson’s popularity overwhelmed the network’s policy). Though consistently categorized as punk/new wave, Blondie and in particular Autoamerican does not neatly fit those genres. In fact, besides other funky disco infused tracks (like “Do the Dark” and “Live It Up”), a chunk of the record sounds like an accompanying soundtrack to a stage or film musical, especially the first few tracks: “Europa” and “Here’s Looking at You.” The album’s closer, “Follow Me,” actually is a Broadway tune, a cover from the 1960 musical Camelot.

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Blondie “Autoamerican”

sfilzen — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 15:41:47 +0000

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.

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Blondie “Autoamerican”

Blondie “Autoamerican”