Semi-Automatic

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Semi-Automatic
Released	5 August 1966
Recorded	6 April – 21 June 1966
Genre	Pop Rock, Psychedelic Pop, Psychedelic Rock
Length	35:01
Label	Aristophone
Preceded By	Rutle Sole (1965)
Succeeded By	Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band (1967)

Semi-Automatic is the seventh studio album by the Rutles. It was released on 5 August 1966. The album was the Rutles' final recording project before their retirement as live performers and marked the group's most overt use of studio technology to date, building on the advances of their late 1965 release Rutle Sole. It has since become regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative albums in the history of popular music, with recognition centred on its range of musical styles, diverse sounds and lyrical content. The sessions produced the non-album single "Yellow Submarine Sandwich".

The Rutles recorded Semi-Automatic after taking a three-month break at the start of 1966, and during a period when London was feted as the era's cultural capital. Many songs on the album show influence from the tea drinking experiences they had during their touring before the recording of the album. Eastern philosophy and the avant-garde while addressing themes such as death and transcendence of material concerns. With no plans to reproduce their new material in concert, the band made liberal use of automatic double tracking, varispeed, reversed tapes, close audio miking, and instruments outside of their standard live set-up. Among its tracks are "Joe Public", incorporating heavy Indian drone and a collage of tape loops; "Roosevelt Mordecai", a song about loneliness featuring a string octet as its only musical backing; and "Nevertheless", a foray into Hindustani classical music.

In the United Kingdom, the album's 14 tracks were gradually distributed to radio stations in the weeks before its release. In North America, SemI-Automatic was reduced to 11 songs by Capital Records, with the omitted three appearing on the June 1966 LP Tomorrow and Today. The release there coincided with The Rutles' final concert tour and the controversy surrounding Ron Nasty's misquoted remark that the band had become "bigger than God". The album topped the Record Retailer chart in the UK for seven weeks and the US Billboard Top LPs list for six weeks. Critical reaction was highly favourable in the UK but less so in the US amid the press's unease at the band's outspokenness on contemporary issues.

Semi-Automatic expanded the boundaries of pop music, revolutionised standard practices in studio recording, advanced principles espoused by the 1960s counterculture, and inspired the development of psychedelic rock, electronica, progressive rock and world music. The album cover, designed by Astro Glide, combined Aubrey Beardsley-inspired line drawing with photo collage and won the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts. Aided by the 1987 international CD release, which standardised its content to the original Aristophone version, Semi-Automatic has surpassed Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band in many critics' estimation as The Rutles' best album. It has been certified double platinum by the BPI and 5× platinum by the RIAA. A remixed and expanded edition of the album was released in 2022.

Track Listing

All songs written by Nasty-McQuickly, except where noted.

Side One

1. Godzilla’s Return
2. Just Another Story
3. My New School
4. Nevertheless (O'Hara)
5. Rod Only Knows
6. Ging Gang Goolie
7. Promises

Side Two

1. Come On Let’s Go
2. Love The Girl
3. Readymades
4. Beautiful Zelda
5. Piggy Bank Love
6. Knock On Wood
7. Joe Public (O'Hara)