Autoamerican is the fifth studio album by the American rock bandBlondie. It was released in November 1980 and reached in the UK charts, in the US, and in Australia.
Overview
The album was a radical departure for the band, with opening track "Europa" setting the pace. The track is a dramatic instrumental overture featuring orchestral arrangements and ending with vocalist Debbie Harry declaiming a passage about automobile culture over an electronic soundtrack. Besides rock and pop tracks, the band explored a wide range of other musical genres: "Here's Looking at You" and "Faces" show jazz and blues influences, the reggae hit "The Tide Is High" was a cover of The Paragons' 1967 Jamaican ska hit, whereas "Rapture" combined funk, rock, jazz, and even saw them embracing the then emerging genre of rap. The closing track, "Follow Me", was a cover of a torch song from Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's 1960 Broadway musicalCamelot. Producer Mike Chapman insisted the band record in Los Angeles. Guitarist Chris Stein lamented: "Every day we get up, stagger into the blinding sun, drive past a huge Moon-mobile from some ancient sci-fi movie." Drummer Clem Burke welcomed the change: "Autoamerican was fun. We got to spend two months in California. I'm always up for a free ride." However, the band insisted on the cover artwork shot being from their hometown, posing on a roof near New York'sBroadway and Eighth. The image was taken from a commissioned painting by artist Martin Hoffman. In a 2020 interview with American Songwriter, to mark the 40th anniversary of the album, Chris Stein revealed the intended title was "Coca Cola" as it sounded very American, but Coke said no to the idea. The band released two singles from this album, "The Tide Is High" and "Rapture". "The Tide Is High" hit Number One in several countries, including the US and the UK. "Rapture" became the first rap song ever to reach number 1 on the singles chart in the US. Ironically, when they first turned the album in, their label at the time, Chrysalis told them that they didn't hear a 'hit' on the record. The label considered releasing either Angels On The Balcony or T-Birds as the third single from the album but the band were working on separate projects at the time, including Debbie Harry and Chris Stein who were collaborating with Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic on Harry's first solo album, KooKoo. Autoamerican was digitally remastered and reissued with two bonus tracks by Chrysalis Records in the UK in 1994 which included the extended 12" Special Disco Mix versions of "Rapture" and its B-side "Live It Up", from 1981. The album was again remastered and re-released by EMI-Capitol in 2001, again featuring the extended version of "Rapture" along with the full-length version of their number 1 hit "Call Me", and also "Suzy & Jeffrey" which was originally the B-side to "The Tide Is High" single.
