Artist: Blondie.⁠

Record: Autoamerican.⁠

⠀⁠

“For a long time, my answer to the question “what’s your all-time favourite album” was 'Autoamerican' by Blondie. It’s no longer my answer, not because I do not love the record (I do), but because the question is no longer valid. After a lifetime of listening to music - mostly albums - my favourite is always changing. But what I love about ‘Autoamerican’ now, and think I did all along, is that it is a brilliant example of how far a pop band can push the envelope. ⁠

⠀⁠

Of all the nerve, at the very height of their fame, Blondie chose to throw everyone the colossal curveball that was ‘Autoamerican’. This year is the album’s 40th anniversary and Debbie Harry recently told ‘American Songwriter’: “When we turned it in, I don’t think it was accepted right away by the label.”⁠

⠀⁠

No wonder. The album contains brooding neo-classical (opener Europa), 1920’s cod-jazz pastiche (Here’s Looking At You, Faces), 50s rock n’ roll (T-Birds, Walk Like Me) a cover version of a 60s hit (The Tide Is High) and a song from Camelot the musical (Follow Me). And, of course, now firmly placed in pop legend, the world’s first commercial Rap release (Rapture). Those are just some of the styles on a record that defines the word eclectic like no other pop album I know. ⁠

⠀⁠

The cover art is a fabulous painting by Martin Hoffman of the band lined up on a rooftop in New York, with the Empire State prominent on the skyline backdrop. But when you think about it, the album works as a concept album about America itself - and then it all makes sense. ⁠

⠀⁠

I was a working-class kid growing up on a grim council estate in Northern England, and America and its pop culture just held such a fascination for me - especially its music. I’d come late to Blondie - a few years after they had broken up, and I was playing the hell out of ‘Eat to the Beat’ and ‘Autoamerican’ in the mid-80s after the band’s popularity had started to wane. I didn’t care. And as it turned out, the music became timeless anyway.”⁠

⠀⁠

...