Album

Autoamerican

1980 · Rock, Pop

62 collectors on Gatefold own this

Autoamerican is an Electronic album by Blondie, originally released in 1980. On Gatefold: 201 pressings tracked, owned by 62 collectors.

About

The fifth album from Blondie, 1980’s Autoamerican, finds the New Wave hitmakers at their most radio-dominant—and at their absolute strangest. Autoamerican would yield two chart-topping singles (actually, three chart-topping single, if you count the career-defining non-LP track “Call Me,” which first appeared on the American Gigolo soundtrack, and was later appended to the Autoamerican reissue). But for all the album’s mainstream succe, Autoamerican is the sound of the band stretching their legs into weird and wild places—as evidenced by its two biggest hits: the irresistible Caribbean-pop of “The Tide Is High” and the landmark hip-hop homage “Rapture.” To record Autoamerican, producer Mike Chapman relocated the band to Los Angele, where he rang up his session-musician pal. As a result, Autoamerican has the lushest arrangements of any Blondie album, swooning with strings and horn, and featuring appearances from such pop royalty as Motown guitarist Wah Wah Watson (“Live It Up”) and Flo & Eddie of The Turtles (“T-Birds”). The storied Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña shows up on “The Tide Is High”—the album's first single, and a cover of a 1967 rocksteady single by The Paragon. But Autoamerican isn’t an album obsessed with the past: Its most consequential track, “Rapture,” would become the first Billboard chart-topper to incorporate rap—a style that had yet to enter the mainstream (Blondie guitarist Chris Stein would later say that members of Wu-Tang Clan and Mobb Deep had credited “Rapture” as the first rap song they ever heard). Beyond its two iconic hit, Autoamerican is the sound of a band spinning in all direction, unafraid to follow any whim or idea. The album's opening credits sequence, “Europa,” features a 30-piece orchestra playing Stein’s majestic score. “Live It Up,” meanwhile, is absolutely luxurious post-disco that sounds like Chic on a Star Wars-sized budget. Elsewhere on the album, “Here's Looking At You” takes a spin through 1940s-era vocal jazz, “Faces” recasts Harry into a singer belting sad tales of the Bowery at a noir piano bar, and “Go Through It” is highway-worn country rock. .

via Apple Music

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