The primarily pop album[4] includes a diverse range of styles in the songs:[5] rock, disco, new wave, punk, reggae, and funk, as well as a lullaby. "Atomic" and "The Hardest Part" fused disco with rock.[6] Blondie's first two albums were new wave productions, followed by Parallel Lines which dropped the new wave material, exchanging it entirely for rock-inflected pop.[7]Eat to the Beat continued in this pop direction.[6]
Three singles were released in the UK from this album ("Dreaming", "Union City Blue" and "Atomic"). "The Hardest Part" was released as the second single from the album in the USA instead of "Union City Blue" (though a remix of "Union City Blue" would be released in the USA in 1995). According to the liner notes of the 1994 compilation The Platinum Collection, the song "Slow Motion" was originally planned to be the fourth single release from the album, and producer Mike Chapman even made a remix of the track, but following the unexpected success of "Call Me", the theme song to the movie American Gigolo, these plans were shelved and the single mix of "Slow Motion" remains unreleased. An alternate mix of the track entitled The Stripped Down Motown Mix did, however, turn up on one of the many remix singles issued by Chrysalis/EMI in the mid-1990s.
Blondie's first video album was produced in conjunction with this record, featuring a music video for each of the album's twelve songs. It was the first such project in rock music.[8] Most of the videos were filmed in and around New York. One of the exceptions was the "Union City Blue" music video, which was filmed at Union Dry Dock, Weehawken, New Jersey. Each video was directed by David Mallet and produced by Paul Flattery. The video was initially available as a promotional VHS in 1979 and subsequently released on videocassette and videodisc in October 1980.[9]
Unlike the rest of Blondie's original albums, Eat to the Beat was not remastered in 1994. It was later digitally remastered and reissued by EMI-Capitol in 2001, with four bonus tracks and candid sleeve notes by Mike Chapman:
They wanted to try anything. And I was right there with them. We also had a title for the album at a very early point, so we had a concept of sorts: Eat to the Beat. I tried to have Debbie explain exactly what it meant to her, but in her normal fashion she simply confused me and I was forced to give it my own interpretation. ... [Drugs] found their way to the studio and presented us with yet another obstacle. The more drugs, the more fights. It was becoming a real mess. ... The music was good but the group was showing signs of wear and tear. The meetings, the drugs, the partying and the arguments had beaten us all up, and it was hard to have a positive attitude when the project was finally finished. ... Was this the record that the public was waiting for, or was it just the waste of seven sick minds? I had never experienced this kind of emotional rollercoaster before, and I have never forgotten the sounds, smells and tastes that came with it. I guess that was what they meant: Eat to the Beat.[10]
The 2001 remaster was again reissued in 2007 (June 26 in the USA; 2 July in the UK) without the four bonus tracks. Included instead was a DVD of the long-since deleted Eat to the Beat video album, marking the first time it had been made available on the DVD format.
Reviewing Eat to the Beat in 1979, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau felt that the record was not "a tour de force" like Blondie's previous album Parallel Lines and expressed reservations about "the overarching fatalism" of its lyrics, but noted that he liked "the way the lyrics depart from pop bohemia to speak directly to the mass audience they're reaching. And Debbie just keeps getting better."[18] Debra Rae Cohen of Rolling Stone found the album "not only ambitious in its range of styles, but also unexpectedly and vibrantly compelling without sacrificing any of the group's urbane, modish humor."[5] A review in People observed that the band sounded "less raw but still fresh."[19]David Hepworth, writing in Smash Hits, praised it as a "brasher, more rocking follow-up... as hard and shiny as glass and I love it."[20]Eat to the Beat was voted the 17th best album of 1979 in The Village Voice's year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[21]
In a retrospective review, William Ruhlmann of AllMusic viewed Eat to the Beat as a "secondhand" version of Parallel Lines, finding that its similar attempts at "rock/disco fusion" were less effective, while "elsewhere, the band just tried to cover too many stylistic bases."[6] In contrast, BBC Music writer Chris Jones opined that Blondie had successfully expanded on the sound of Parallel LinesonEat to the Beat, which he said "still sounds box fresh today", praising Mike Chapman's production expertise and the album's musical diversity.[4]
^Weingarten, Marc (September 21, 2001). "Blondie: Blondie / Plastic Letters / Parallel Lines / Eat to the Beat / Autoamerican / The Hunter". Entertainment Weekly. New York. p. 85.
^"Blondie: Eat to the Beat". Q. No. 182. London. October 2001. p. 143.
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