How Blondie’s Debbie Harry Introduced Hip Hop To The World, Clutch’s Neil Fallon Explains

Clutch frontman Neil Fallon shared his 80’s mixtape with Louder Sound. Including Blondie, The Clash, Def Leppard, and more in his mixtape, the frontman explained how Blondie’s Debbie Harry introduced hip-hop to the world.

The band’s album, ‘Autoamerican’ is considered to be the first album to make hip-hop known worldwide with its hybrid form of music. Leaving music critics confused due to its mixed nature, ‘Rapture’ became one of the first songs to be mainstream. According to Debbie Harry, the song made rap viable for the mainstream charts. Even so, the singer declared she would never be a rapper.

During the latest interview, Fallon picked the hit ‘Rapture’ as his song of choice and shared how he first heard of it:

“My parents belonged to something called Columbia Records Clearing House, where you’d pay a penny and get twenty records. They let me pick one or two every once in a while, and I picked ‘Autoamerican’ because of the video, which is insane. It’s got Debbie Harry dancing around in a tube top, and space aliens. Such a bizarre song to be a hit.”

He added:

“It’s weird to think that Debbie Harry introduced the word ‘hip-hop’ to a good part of the world, because hip-hop was kind of still underground at that point.”

Though the song became a hit and caught big success, the band couldn’t. Two years after the release of ‘Autoamerican,’ the members ended the band’s career by splitting up after a fight they had onstage during one of their shows.

You can listen to ‘Rapture’ below.