1983 · Behind the Songs
Soul singing over a machine beat.
“Automatic,” from Break Out (1983), pairs a soul vocal with an electronic, almost mechanical beat. Ruth Pointer sings lead over a rhythm that ticks and pulses like a machine, but the feeling is not cold. The contrast is the song’s idea: a human voice, warm and expressive, set against a rhythm that will not bend. That tension gives the song its modern sound, and it helped take the group from soul and pop into the electronic pop of the mid-1980s.
The song also shows how the Pointer Sisters adapted without losing themselves. The synthesizers are new, but the harmony and the phrasing are recognisably theirs. “Automatic” sounds of its time, and it also sounds like the same group that sang “Fire” five years earlier, now singing through a different kind of backing.