''Autoamerican'' is the fifth studio album by American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Blondie. It was released in November 1980 and reached in the UK charts, in the US, and in Australia.
Background
The album was a radical departure for the band, with the opening track "Europa" setting the pace. The track is a dramatic instrumental overture featuring orchestral arrangements and ending with vocalist
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981.
Born in ...
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 Tide Is High
"The Tide Is High" is a 1967 rocksteady song written by John Holt, originally produced by Duke Reid and performed by the Jamaican group the Paragons, with Holt as lead singer. The song gained international attention in 1980, when a cover ver ...
" was a cover of
the Paragons
The Paragons were a ska and rocksteady vocal group from Kingston, Jamaica, initially active in the 1960s. Their most famous track was "The Tide Is High", written by band member John Holt.
Career
The Paragons were originally Garth "Tyrone" Eva ...
' 1967 Jamaican ska song, whereas "
Rapture
The rapture is an eschatological position held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise "in the c ...
" 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
A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affect ...
from
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatr ...
and