Autoamerican
was
Blondie
's last real album (until their 1999 reunion with
No Exit
), after which the band collapsed in legal problems and solo aspirations.
The Hunter
was only made because they still owed
Chrysalis
an album on their contract, and it sounds like the obligatory record it was.
"Island of Lost Souls"
(the album's only U.S. singles chart entry and, in fact, the only song released as a single in the U.S.) was a try at remaking
"The Tide Is High,"
while
"The Beast"
tried to re-create at least the
rap
section of
"Rapture."
"War Child,"
which made the U.K. Top 40, was a
dance
rock
effort in the style of
"Call Me,"
and one of two somewhat autobiographical
Debbie Harry
lyrics, along with
"English Boys."
(
Harry
wrote all the album's words except for those to keyboard player
Jimmy Destri
's
"Danceway"
and the cover of
the Marvelettes
' 1967 hit
"The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game,"
which was written by
Smokey Robinson
.)
"For Your Eyes Only"
had been intended as the theme song for the 1981
James Bond
film, but rejected (rightly) in favor of a competing entry by
Bill Conti
and
Mike Leeson
that went on to become a Top Five hit for
Sheena Easton
. The rest of the material was equally second-rate, consisting of
funk-rock
tracks with the barest of melodies, and lyrics that ranged from impenetrable (
"Orchid Club"
) to incoherent (the science fiction epic
"Dragonfly,"
which alternated recited and sung sections having something to do with a spaceship race).
was always a band with ideas -- musical, lyrical, and visual -- but
found them running short conceptually as well practically. It was a disappointing end. ~ William Ruhlmann