Automatic is the third album by Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band The Jesus and Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride, Glasgow in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid...

. The Mary Chain on this record is basically the core duo of brothers William and Jim Reid, with a drum machine providing percussion, and even a synthesizer filling in on bass guitar. The only other credited musician was Richard Thomas, who joined the touring version of the Mary Chain as a drummer. Thomas drummed on "Gimme Hell", and was a former member of Dif Juz

Dif Juz

Dif Juz was a British instrumental band, strongly influenced by dub, who were active in the early to mid 1980s. Retroactively they can be seen to be most strongly allied with the Post-rock movement.- History :...

. He also made appearances on Cocteau Twins

Cocteau Twins

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...

' 1986 Victorialand

Victorialand

Victorialand is the fourth album by Scottish band Cocteau Twins. Working without member Simon Raymonde, who had been enlisted to work on This Mortal Coil's Filigree & Shadow album, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and guitarist/producer Robin Guthrie produced a record almost completely devoid of...

 LP and This Mortal Coil

This Mortal Coil

This Mortal Coil was a gothic dream pop supergroup led by Ivo Watts-Russell, founder of the British record label 4AD. Although Watts-Russell and John Fryer were technically the only two official members, the band's recorded output featured a large rotating cast of supporting artists, many of whom...

's 1986 Filigree & Shadow

Filigree & Shadow

Filigree & Shadow is an album released in 1986 by Ivo Watts-Russell's supergroup, This Mortal Coil. The supergroup consists primarily of artists attached to the 4AD label, of which Ivo was the co-founder and the owner and president...

.

Reception

Although released to generally poor reviews at the time (with the aforementioned synthesized drums and bass being the biggest point of contention), Automatic contains their most successful single up to that point, "Head On" (later covered by the Pixies). Critical and fan reception has improved with the passage of time. Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

 wrote in 2006: "Conventional wisdom wrongly calls (Automatic) the dud," of the JAMC's discography, but that in hindsight the album "feels like a career peak" and has been a fan favourite.

The last two tracks, "Drop" and "Sunray", were initially only available on the CD release, and not the vinyl LP and cassette releases. Later re-issues on cassette and CD feature all 12 tracks.

Track listing

All songs written by Jim Reid

Jim Reid

Jim Reid is the lead singer for the alternative rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain, which he formed with his elder brother and guitarist William Reid -The Jesus and Mary Chain:...

 and William Reid

William Reid (musician)

William Adam Reid is a guitarist, composer and, at times, singer for the Scottish alternative rock band, The Jesus and Mary Chain.-The Jesus and Mary Chain:...

.
LP (BYN 20), limited gatefold LP (BYN 20W) and cassette (BYNC 20)
Side 1

1. "Here Comes Alice" – 3:52
2. "Coast to Coast" – 4:13
3. "Blues from a Gun
   Blues from a Gun
   "Blues from a Gun" is a U.S. Modern Rock number-one hit from The Jesus and Mary Chain's album Automatic from 1989. It spent three weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart...
   
   " – 4:44
4. "Between Planets" – 3:27
5. "UV Ray" – 4:04

Side 2

1. "Her Way of Praying" – 3:46
2. "Head On" – 4:11
3. "Take It" – 4:34
4. "Halfway to Crazy" – 3:41
5. "Gimme Hell" – 3:18

CD (BYNCD 20)

1. "Here Comes Alice" – 3:52
2. "Coast to Coast" – 4:13
3. "Blues from a Gun
   Blues from a Gun
   "Blues from a Gun" is a U.S. Modern Rock number-one hit from The Jesus and Mary Chain's album Automatic from 1989. It spent three weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart...
   
   " – 4:44
4. "Between Planets" – 3:27
5. "UV Ray" – 4:04
6. "Her Way of Praying" – 3:46
7. "Head On" – 4:11
8. "Take It" – 4:34
9. "Halfway to Crazy" – 3:41
10. "Gimme Hell" – 3:18
11. "Drop" – 1:55
12. "Sunray" – 1:35

The Jesus and Mary Chain

• Jim Reid
  Jim Reid
  Jim Reid is the lead singer for the alternative rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain, which he formed with his elder brother and guitarist William Reid -The Jesus and Mary Chain:...
  
   - vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
   (tracks 2, 4 to 10), guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , synthesizer
  Synthesizer
  A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
  
  , drum programming
  Drum machine
  A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
  
  , production
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  
• William Reid
  William Reid (musician)
  William Adam Reid is a guitarist, composer and, at times, singer for the Scottish alternative rock band, The Jesus and Mary Chain.-The Jesus and Mary Chain:...
  
   - vocals (tracks 1, 3, 11), guitar, synthesizer, drum programming, production

Additional personnel

• Alan Moulder
  Alan Moulder
  Alan Moulder is one of Britain's premier alternative rock record producers. He has worked with such artists as Depeche Mode, Erasure, Elastica, Gary Numan, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Curve, Ride, Lush and My Bloody Valentine, Lostprophets, Shihad, Ivyrise and Placebo, as well as with many American...
  
   - engineer
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  
• Jamie Harley - recording assistant
• Lee Curle - recording assistant
• Dick Meaney - mixing assistant
• Richard Thomas
  Richard Thomas (musician)
  Richard Thomas is British a musician, writer, and comedy actor. He is best known for composing and scoring the award-winning Jerry Springer: The Opera with Stewart Lee. Thomas collected the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Score in 2004....
  
   - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
   on "Gimme Hell"
• Ryan Art - design
  Graphic design
  Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
  
  
• Steve Mitchell - photography
• Andrew Catlin - photography

Charts

Year	Chart	Position
1989	UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...	11
1989	US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	105
1989	Swedish Albums Chart Sverigetopplistan Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association ....	42