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Post by ganews on Oct 1, 2022 14:20:46 GMT -5
Another month, another coin flip tiebreak. The winner for October is Blondie, "Autoamerican", which included two #1 singles.
Discuss below!
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 2, 2022 11:06:03 GMT -5
Are we allowed to discuss the album, or only the October Record Club poll that it won?
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Post by Prole Hole on Oct 2, 2022 12:23:58 GMT -5
I will have more thoughts going forward but I would like to say one thing, right from the get-go - "The Tide Is High" is a fucking terrible song, and I say that as someone who really, really likes Blondie. But it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu *deep breath* uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
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Post by ganews on Oct 3, 2022 8:49:29 GMT -5
I will have more thoughts going forward but I would like to say one thing, right from the get-go - "The Tide Is High" is a fucking terrible song, and I say that as someone who really, really likes Blondie. But it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu *deep breath* uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. I probably won't get to the whole album for another week, but I though Breihan's write-up was quite good: the first song at #1 to incorporate reggae elements without sounding like parody or putting on a fake accent. And I was struck by the truth of '“The Tide Is High” basically invents No Doubt'. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Oct 3, 2022 9:17:05 GMT -5
I will have more thoughts going forward but I would like to say one thing, right from the get-go - "The Tide Is High" is a fucking terrible song, and I say that as someone who really, really likes Blondie. But it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu *deep breath* uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. I probably won't get to the whole album for another week, but I though Breihan's write-up was quite good: the first song at #1 to incorporate reggae elements without sounding like parody or putting on a fake accent. And I was struck by the truth of '“The Tide Is High” basically invents No Doubt'. Ehhhh. It's not a badly written piece, but there's a few thing I disagree with, most noticeably the idea that "The Tide Is High" doesn't sound like a parody of reggae. it does, and that's why I don't think much of it (not that I'm a reggae fan anyway, but still). Also, " ...who almost never covered anyone else’s records... " is interesting reading for anyone who's heard " Denis" or "Hanging On The Telephone", given they were both major hits for the band. It's certainly true that the fact Harry sings it straight rather than in a cod-Jamaican accent is a boon, and I shudder when I think back to the Stones's attempts at white reggae in the 70's. But "Blondie’s “The Tide Is High” was the closest thing to a real reggae song that had ever hit #1 in America" shouldn't be seen as a synonym of it being actually close. |
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Post by Djse (and a Sack of Cats) on Oct 8, 2022 0:18:32 GMT -5
The very first record I ever owned was a "The Tide Is High" 7-inch.
Here's a Spotify link -
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,563 
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 9, 2022 20:44:28 GMT -5
"Europa" - Gee, this must have upset a lot of people when they first spun the vinyl in 1980. Aggh, "My 'Heart of Glass'! Shattered!". Love Debbie's "expressway" Hawthorne, NJ enunciation. Shades of Mirror Shades in the end of song narration.
"Live it Up" - Doesn't make me want to when listening to the song. Her cadence is snotty punk against post-disco funk. Still not for me unless I'm doing a DJ night somewhere I think people should be cooler.
"Here's Looking at You" - This is feeling like some kind of Gatsby-esque themerecord. Another curveball. Debbie the jazz chanteuse.
"The Tide is High" - I know it well. I don't mind it once I hear it rolling on the radio soundwaves.
"Angel on the Balcony" - Colour me new wave bedsit majesty.
"Go Through It" - I'm gonna, band. I'm gonna. Not gonna be easy, but I'll get to the end. Phew, this is a chore. Those mariachi horns. Woof.
"Do the Dark" - Like a lead-in to "Rapture". Same guitars. Same lazy days into oblivion feeling.
"Rapture" - If only.
"Faces" - Cassavetes-esque.
"T-Birds" - Lotsa feelings about the Ford motor vehicle.
"Walk Like Me" - Finally, a thumper.
"Follow Me" - Weel, if they asked I probably wouldn't. Soundtrack ballad feels.
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Post by ganews on Oct 12, 2022 9:35:04 GMT -5
Getting to this one late, so loose thoughts:
This album felt weird and scattered with random one-offs thrown in, like a Queen record. I like "The Tide is High" by itself but it is definitely one of those weirdos coming after instrumental sweep and disco tinkle and granny music hall. The spoken-word interludes as usual don't do it for me either. Then the band settles back in from the fifth track.
I like the mariachi horns here and there.
"Do the Dark" is very cool, but what is with this snake charmer tootle (that's probably racist now that I write it out, but it's exactly what came to my mind).
"Rapture" is pretty cool. My favorite vocal thing that Harry does (in a couple different songs) is when she transitions from airiness to to a deeper howl like in "raaaa-aaapturrrrrre". It's a pretty goofy little proto-rap but that's fine. They actually had Fab Five Freddy in the video and they knew the scene; it doesn't feel like a rip-off to me. Cool sax.
"Walk Like Me" is an okay song but Harry does not have the chops for the title vocal.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Oct 14, 2022 10:48:37 GMT -5
I'm a huge fan of The Paragons' original "The Tide Is High" (even put it on my wedding mix), so I hope this record's cover was a late-career source of royalties to John Holt & Co.
Beyond that, however, I can't say the Blondie version ever did much for me. Probably the weakest of their enduring singles.
As for the rest of the album, intermittently interesting but its eclecticness started the inter-band legal squabbles that derailed their output for nearly 2 decades (Debbie Harry, at the band's 2006 induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, quipped "It’s so nice to see everyone outside of the courtroom").
On the subject of Harry, I'll give a shoutout to her performance that was the best part of Heavy, a '90s indie that seems to be largely forgotten despite that it was the debut film of James Mangold (Walk the Line, Logan, Indiana Jones 5).
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Post by King Charles’s Butterfly on Oct 18, 2022 23:35:54 GMT -5
I’m with Prole Hole on “The Tide is high”—I can agree with the Number Ones article about its importance but it is just grates on me. It’s not chronological, but there’s an interesting mix of nostalgia and more contemporary stuff. They emphasized the . I actually think it holds together pretty well—basically from the beginning Blondie knew what Blondie was and their sound and Harry’s sentimental-but-tough attitude link eberything together. The “Europa” instrumental seems like it’s going for the old world with its big, film schore orchestrals, but I like how it goes into Kraftwerk-inspired lyrics and sounds afterwards, adapted for American highways. “Angels on the balcony” starts harsher and more electronic too, with some of the foreboding melancholy you hear a hint of on Parallel Lines (though Autoamerican doesn’t measure up to Parallel Lines, not close). “Follow Me” also starts a bit kosmische before going melodramatic and is an actual Broadway tune. There’s a lot of old-fashioned, Broadway-esque stuff here, kind of reaching back as far as the thirties or forties (part of some kind of nostalgia cycle?). In addition to “Follow Me” (actually from the sixties, shows what I know) “Here’s looking with you” and “Faces” share this aesthetic. Actually they kind of remind me of the movie you hear in a lot of early eighties dramas, dramedies and romantic comedies, I think (having trouble naming a specific one). “Do the dark” starts out like 30s film music, but rather than sustaining it the whole way through it goes back to the more typical Blondie thing. “Live it up,” “Here’s looking at you,” and “Go through it” are classic (or typical) Blondie, the sort of back-to-the-fifties ethos that inspired a lot of punk (not-actually-on-the-album “Suzy & Jeffrey” too). “T-Birds” is a bit too, although it’s a bit too anthemic. “Walk Like Me” as well, with a bit of a minor key edge—it actually reminds me of some Ramones songs where there’s some political bent but you can’t tell what the hell it actually is. “Rapture” is awesome and the most “present” song in the album. Apart from production lot of early rap pretty much blurs together with Homer’s Mr. Plow rap to me (yeah yeah I know Kurtis Blow’s early stuff was groundbreaking but…) but this stands on its own. The Number ones article basically covers it—Harry’s voice, absurdism, came out of actual connection and genuine early eighties New York weirdness. It didn’t really influence anything else, but it’s innocent, standing at the beginning of things. The extended verion has more than a bit of Caribbean in it, which brings “Genius of Love” to mind. It’s in some ways similar in its conception, but “Rapture” is still cooler because of the milieu it was made in, even if “Genius” is better and more important as a piece of music. Not a proper part of the album but “Call Me” rocks (again to bring up Parallel Lines this is by far the biggest banger here and it’s really a standalone single or part of a soundtrack). “Throw me in designer sheets/I’ll never get enough” is one of the all-time great lines. Debbie Harry’s video with the Muppets is great too: |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 29, 2022 16:54:40 GMT -5
My thoughts:
It’s a pretty good album, all things considered. Though as ganews said, it feels a bit scattered and I think the Queen album comparison is apt, although I think a lot of the nostalgic genre touches feel a bit less gimmicky than they tend to with a lot of other classic rock groups, Queen included. Like, the arrangement of strings and such on “Europa” feels a lot less like a cut rate imitation of classical music and more like it’s from a good film score from a couple of decades previous than I was expecting.
The spoken word stuff about cars in he future or whatever Debbie Harry is talking about was fun, IMO, although I think it lacks the thematic coherence to actually function as a real statement about Americans’ relationship to cars (the post-apocalyptic spoken word stuff about cars abandoned on the expressway clashes with the nostalgia of “Oh, how I love my T-Bird”, for example). Is this supposed to be a concept album? There’s lots of talk of cars, but I’m not sure it rises to the level of concept album.
As far as the two singles to make it into the pop culture canon go, I’ll give “The Tide is High” credit for not being nearly as grating (or as racist) as it could have been, but I’m still not really a fan. Don’t think I dislike it as much as most of you on here though. The absurdity of “Rapture”, as Lemur put it, makes it a stand out for what it is. That said, I dunno that it’s as good as something like “The Message” (although it’s definitely less homophobic than “The Message”) or “Rapper’s Delight” (also an at times absurd song) as far as old-timey rap goes, and as far as white rock artists doing early-80s rap goes, I’d have to say I prefer massive weirdo and canonical best Talking Head Tina Weymouth to Debbie Harry.
Like ganews, I also liked “Do the Dark” although I could have done without the ill-advised orientalist organs.
I thought “Walk Like Me” was good. The stuff that’s trying to sound like it’s from the 30s or 40s works for me in the context of an album, although if I were listening to music on shuffle and one of them came up I think I’d be inclined to skip.
I think I must have listened to the same extended edition Lemur listened to, because one of my main takeaways was also how much better “Call Me” is than any of the songs on the original album. An extended version of “Call Me” is a bonus track on the version I listened to, and that song rules. The drums are so good.
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