Autoamerican - Blondie

Having conquered the music world with their successive monster albums 'Parallel Lines' and 'Eat To The Beat', both of which had spawned a string of successful singles, Blondie seemed unstoppable at the turn of the 1980's. However, they were at a point in 1980 where they were looking to expand to new horizons and explore new styles of music. They had flirted with reggae and even a lullaby on their previous album 'Eat To The Beat' and here on 'Autoamerican' ...
...of different musical styles. 'Autoamerican' sees Blondie tackle reggae, jazz, rap, electronica and the blues. Some times it works, other times it falls completely flat. This album was recorded at a point, I think it is fair to say, when Blondie were starting to decline and their power as one of the world's best bands was starting to diminish. This record certainly didn't do as well as those that preceded it, not staying in the charts for that long. ... more

Having conquered the music world with their successive monster albums 'Parallel Lines' and 'Eat To The Beat', both of which had spawned a string of successful singles, Blondie seemed unstoppable at the turn of the 1980's. However, they were at a point in 1980 where they were looking to expand to new horizons and explore new styles of music. They had flirted with reggae and even a lullaby on their previous album 'Eat To The Beat' and here on 'Autoamerican' they take their musical nous and apply it to lots of different musical styles. 'Autoamerican' sees Blondie tackle reggae, jazz, rap, electronica and the blues. Some times it works, other times it falls completely flat. This album was recorded at a point, I think it is fair to say, when Blondie were starting to decline and their power as one of the world's best bands was starting to diminish. This record certainly didn't do as well as those that preceded it, not staying in the charts for that long. This is chiefly because,as the band have since alleged, the record company did very little work to promote the album at the time, only releasing two singles (which both hit number one, go figure) and instead concentrating on an upcoming solo album from Debbie Harry, which, funnily enough, bombed.

The album opens with 'Europa', a filmic introduction composed by Blondie's lead guitarist Chris Stein (and in truth, only guitarist, as Frank Infante was increasingly left out of proceedings, resulting in a 1981 lawsuit where Infante would sue the band for leaving him out of key decisions). 'Europa' is like nothing else in the Blondie cannon, with its orchestra and Debbie Harry not singing but narrating. Perhaps this is a little pretentious maybe, that's something I certainly wouldn't argue against - Blondie at the time were trying to break free of the pop mould they had been cast in, just as they had broke free of the punk mould they were typecast in before that. So perhaps they tried to over-intellectualise their music, 'weird it up', I guess. While it is an edgy opening to the album and an interesting attempt at the total deconstruction of the pop song, 'Europa' is a little too leftfield and self-consciously avant-garde for the average listener.

'Live It Up', another Stein track, is my personal favorite track on the album, it is like a double-edged sword where it straddles both the conventional pop world, with its regular disco beats and round the disco-ball feel, but it also has a kind of darkness to it, a kind of empty void, and Harry sings almost with disinterest, a detatched observer commenting on what she sees. It is quite a track and should really have been released as a single.

Inconcistency rears it ugly head again on 'Here's Looking At You', a very weak track which sees Blondie attempt to tackle lounge jazz, and it really is the worst kind of musak, sounding very twee and camp. Blondie were always masters of the ironic lyric, but here they seem to take their irony, and also their knack for experimentation, too far and this makes the song seem hopelessly out-of-date and lacking in any kind of depth.

'The Tide Is High', recently brutally mauled by the terrible Atomic Kitten, is an all-time classic, it is just so lazy and sloping and carefree, Harry sounds like she doesn't have a care in the world on this track. Blondie, for the first time, augmented the usual six-person line-up with a full calypso band, and they excell on this track, a track that yearns for simpler things, when you can just kick back and relax and forget about the stresses of the world. At least that's what I get out of it. It is also another example of Blondie's experimentation, even though it may not seem like it now. At the time, a white band doing reggae must have seemed unreal, yet Blondie pulled it off with such verve that it worked.

'Angels On The Balcony' was written by keyboardist Jimmy Destri, a songwriter of immense talent, but someone who at this point was feeling increasingly shut out by the Harry/Stein axis that he felt was dominating the band. This track has a dark pop edge to it, complete with its clanking metallic opening and yet more detatched Harry vocals. This is another stand-out track. The song has a jarring feel to it, the pounding hammers of the introduction giving way to lots of sparkly keyboard bits and frenzied, distorted guitars.

'Go Through It', complete with blazing horns and Wild West feel, moves at a pace that reminds us, the listener, of a horse galloping (somebody help me out - what's the word for when something sounds like something else, like water dripping - is that onomatopia?), anyhow, this is another good track. Not a great track, you must understand, but in the context of 'Autoamerican', a good track.

'Do The Dark' is nice enough, where Harry urges us to 'do the invisible dance', whatever that may be. Blondie's lyrics seem to get increasingly cryptic and bizarre, moving from the simple fun irony of earlier albums to downright weird stuff. They would take this even further on 1982's 'The Hunter', which is a pretty unlistenable effort. This track, however, is distinctly average.

And then we have 'Rapture', Blondie's big move into the ghetto, so to speak. Debbie Harry was the first white rapper, and there aren't many white rappers who can be successful and credible at the same time. At this point Harry and Stein were increasingly immersing themselves in NYC culture, at the point where downtown graffitti artists were merging with uptown art, the blurring of the lines between class and race a vital moment in pop culture, and I would argue that 'Rapture' is possibly one of the most important tracks to come out of this period. In the sleeve notes producer Mike Chapman points out that Debbie wrote the rap in five minutes flat, it was just literally stream-of-consciousness stuff, and yet it works so effectively. This, was an important moment in time and a key moment in the history of pop. Rap music, thanks in part to Blondie, moved from something in the underground to the pop mainstream, capturing the imagination of the general public with its new urgency, something desperately necessary in pop at the time. Lecture over.

But on 'Faces' Blondie dip again and this highlights the frustration one feels when listening to this album. A work of sheer genius like 'Rapture' followed by this unlistenable free-form jazz nonsense where Harry warbles on about nothing in particular, it is so, so annoying! I tend to judge a good album by whether any track could potentially be released as a single, and 'Faces' is a severe setback to this theory. It really is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, folks, and so frustrating that it follows a song of such excellence and intelligence.

'T-Birds' is another high point (you get the picture now, right, high, low, high, low), written by Harry and bassist Nigel Harrison, another band member increasingly on the fringe. Some of the lyrics are, again, unintelligible, but the music and the groove evokes classic Blondie and should have been another single.

'Walk Like Me' is another strong point and another Destri effort. The song was almost copied verbatim when Blondie re-emerged in 1999 with their No. 1 single 'Maria', something I realised when I started to get back into this album. Destri, increasingly marginalised in the band, hits back with this killer track with some mighty fine lyrics.

And 'Follow Me' is a cover of an old song from a Lerner/Lowe musical... why does the band do this? It is hard to understand why the band sought to reject mainstream appeal when they could have gone on to even greater things. Perhaps they wanted to prove their intelligence in some way - back in the CBGB's days of early punk, Blondie's wit and intelligence was never noted, the irony seemed to fall flat on an American audience, who opted for the far more in-your-face intelligence and quirk-funk of the Talking Heads. Blondie must have been seeking the same kind of respect and cultural esteem? Either way, this track is appalling, worst song on the album.

This album was recently re-released with some added on material. The first of the new tracks is 'Call Me', the theme from the 1980 Richard Gere film 'American Gigolo', and it is a fine piece of work, showing Blondie back in their guise as a rock band. The only problem is this is the long version and it starts to annoy you after a while. The second added track is 'Suzy and Jeffrey', the B-side to 'The Tide Is High', and a track which outclasses most of 'Autoamerican', which is quite strange.

The third and final new track is a special disco mix of 'Rapture', so if you dig the original version you'll probably like this one too, although it is a little uneecessary.

In summary, this is perhaps Blondie's most awkward album. The moments of genius are held back by the moments of sheer stupidity, where the band don't seem to recognise the good thing they are doing and seek to do something completely daft like trying to do jazz. It isn't as bad as 'The Hunter', not by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to the likes of 'Parallel Lines' or 'Plastic Letters' and it just isn't in the same league. I am giving this album three stars, brought up from two from my previous review, on the strengths of the tracks I highlighted above. As a general work though, this isn't reccomended to the average consumer but more a completist. 

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