''Aliens Ate My Buick'' is the third studio album by English
new wave/
synth-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...
musician
Thomas Dolby, released in 1988.
Reception
The album peaked at number 30 on the UK Albums Chart. The lead single from the album, "Airhead", peaked at number 53. Second and third singles, "Hot Sauce" and "My Brain Is Like a Sieve", peaked at number 80 and number 89, respectively. In the US, the album peaked at number 70.
Dolby has said in interviews that he believes the album's commercial failure was due to his change in musical direction, evident on the album.
Track listing
All songs by Thomas Dolby, unless otherwise indicated.
# "The Key to Her Ferrari" – 4:39
# "Airhead" (Dolby, Grant Morris) – 5:07
# "Hot Sauce" (
George Clinton) – 5:03
# "Pulp Culture" – 5:35
# "My Brain Is Like a Sieve" – 4:52
# "The Ability to Swing" (Dolby,
Matthew Seligman) – 4:30
# "Budapest by Blimp" – 8:40
# "May the Cube Be With You" – 6:49 (CD/cassette bonus track)
Personnel
* Thomas Dolby – vocals, keyboards
The Lost Toy People
* Larry Treadwell – guitar
* Mike Kapitan – synthesizer
* Terry Jackson – bass
* David Owens – drums
*
Laura Creamer – vocals, percussion
Additional musicians
*
Robin Leach –
voiceover (track 1)
*
Ed Asner – voiceover (track 5)
* Edie Lehmann – backing vocals (track 1)
* Donny Geraldo – backing vocals (track 1)
* Mendy Lee – backing vocals (track 1)
*
Bruce Woolley – backing vocals (track 2)
* Colin Crabtree – backing vocals (track 2)
*
Rose Banks Stone – backing vocals (track 3–5)
* Jean Johnson McRath – backing vocals (tracks 3–5)
* Lesley Fairbairn – backing vocals (track 7)
*
Bill Watrous
William Russell Watrous III (June 8, 1939 – July 2, 2018) was an American jazz trombonist. He is perhaps best known for his rendition of Sammy Nestico's arrangement of the Johnny Mandel ballad "A Time for Love", which he recorded on a 1993 albu ...
– trombone
* Arno Lucas –
congas
The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest) ...
,
timbales
*
Bill Bottrell –
spaghetti western
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
guitar (track 3)
* Csilla Kecskesi – Hungarian
aria (track 7)
* Erica Kiss – Hungarian translation (track 7)
* Gueysel Tejada – domestic cleaning and outburst (track 3)
Technical
* Thomas Dolby – co-producer, arrangements
* Bill Bottrell – co-producer, engineer
* The Lost Toy People – arrangements
* Steve Vance – artwork, typography
* Leslie Burke – front cover and inner sleeve photography
* Dennis Keeley – back cover photography
*
Kathleen Beller – front cover model
* Mike Tacci – second engineer
* Daryl Koutnik – second engineer
References
Thomas Dolby albums
1988 albums
Albums produced by Thomas Dolby
Albums produced by Bill Bottrell
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