In yesterday’s post, I alluded to something that needed to get out. How awful Eurythmics became in just a single album, without warning. My journey spanned the gap from being an Annie Lennox early adopter and avid collector to not caring a whit about whatever it she’s done for the last quarter century. It’s been a long road, but her artistic decisions have most definitely not resonated with me.
The Tourists: “Reality Effect” outtake ©1979 Gered Mankowitz
I first heard her sing in The Tourists, the mod New Wave band from England. I chanced to see their video for their cover of Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want To Be With You” in 1979, when their second album “Reality Effect” got released in America. I instantly loved this band! The vocals were shared between band writer Peet Coombs and Annie Lennox. Future musical partner Dave Stewart played guitar, but this was the time that he and Lennox were actually a couple. I played that album probably more than any other in 1979. The pop sensibilities of the band were strong, but so were the hints of psychedelia laying just underneath it all. Not shocking considering the drugs that Coombs and Stewart were known to take at the time.
I quickly discovered that “Reality Effect” was their sophomore effort. Their debut was only available as an import and it was in fact the first import LP that I can remember purchasing at the enormous cost of $10.00! Back when my $7.50/week lunch money was all I had to work with. The debut album was produced by Conny Plank, who I was already cognizant of thanks to his production of Kraftwerk, whose “Autobahn” was one of the first albums I’d bought the previous year when getting my first stereo.
1980 brought their third album, “Luminous Basement” and it was another winner, but as soon as the album was released, I discovered that the band had split up. I kept my nose to the ground and found out that Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart had formed a band called Eurythmics in 1981. I avidly searched for any records, but they were mighty thin on the ground! It looked like no importers were bothering where I lived. It was not until a full year later, that I finally found my first Eurythmics record.
It was my birthday in 1982, and I used my birthday cash to buy music, of course! I finally nabbed the “Never Gonna Cry Again” 7″ at Record City Colonial and could finally hear this new band. They sounded a far cry from the pop rock of The Tourists, but I could definitely get behind the dark, Krautrock sound they were exploring with Conny Plank. His earlier work with them was more on their turf. they met him half way [or more] here, Some time later, I found a used copy of the “This Is the House” 12″ single at Retro Records and I felt like I’d won the lottery. But no further Eurythmics records were forthcoming. That all changed in the spring of 1983 when the album below dropped.
“Sweet Dreams [Are Made Of This]” obviously got The Big Push® from label RCA, since the band almost overnight got massive airplay on MTV and that was just the beginning of the group mining gold and platinum for a solid run that extended through their “Revenge” album in America. It felt strange seeing Annie Lennox become a household name, but the work they were doing in Eurythmics, was exceptionally good. It was odd that these two refugees from a New Wave band turned their attention to synthesizers, and while I tended to listen to a lot of synth-based bands, to this day I preferred the music of The Tourists. That’s not to say I disliked Eurythmics.
Indeed, I was delighted to see people who I thought were talented and making great records, were even managing to sell them by the truckload not only around the world but also in America. A happy circumstance of their success was that it was possible after the “Sweet Dreams” album to obtain the first Eurythmics album that I had been waiting for since 1981! Their canny image manipulation that must have been the thing that put them over the top, because while talent is important, you, I, and the lamppost know that it does not necessarily sell records! The band’s excellent videos must have only helped.
Their next two albums were increasingly intense, and darkly introverted material. “Touch” was an even bigger seller in America – reaching Platinum [1,000,000 sales] in spite of an emotionally brutal series of songs that only lightened up for the uncharacteristically upbeat Latinesque “Right By Your Side.” It seemed to be nothing troubling at the time, but I can see it now as an outlier to where the band were soon headed. That was followed by the even more dour “1984: For The Love Of Big Brother” album which was marketed as the soundtrack to the film adaptation of George Orwell’s book in the title year. There was controversy over their inclusion into the film’s soundtrack when director Michael Radford bristled at their inclusion into one edition of his film. He also had a version of the film in release with an orchestral score and no Eurythmics. I recall that was the workings of Virgin who wanted some pop hits out of what was a very good adaptation of the book. When Eurythmics moved on after this, the bottom dropped out.
Aretha Franklin with Eurythmics: A photo to match the grace of the record
1985, the year of many a New Wave band’s Waterloo, was no different when Eurythmics cam calling with the turgid “Be Yourself Tonight.” As boring and mainstream imaginable from these previously fascinating musicians. Only one single managed to rise above the mire to my ears. “It’s Alright [Baby’s Coming Back]” managed to hold the dull rock music at bay. The album was salted with big name guest stars handing in perfunctory turns that were uniformly awful …from Stevie Wonder, to Aretha Franklin, and even Elvis Costello; who was certainly at the cusp of his sell-by-date at that time. He had just made the first of his awful records a year earlier.
Next: …We Can Only Go Up From Here
![Steven Wilson Earns That Money With Stunning "Lament" 12" Remixes From Ultravox [part 1]](https://i0.wp.com/postpunkmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ultravox-lamentwilsonremixesus12a.webp?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1)
![Forty Years Ago Today, Simple Minds Changed Everything with "New Gold Dream [81,82,83,84]"](https://i0.wp.com/postpunkmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/new-gold-dream-in-spotlights.jpg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1)
Post-Punk Monk 
yes, 100% yes. I recall playing the debut and Touch (and Touch Dance!) a lot, but the third album, which I brought (and the next one) I was just pretty much eh about. I gave about with the one where she was wearing the blonde wig (I think, it’s all fuzzy now)
LikeLike
dhrichards – Too bad you missed “Savage!” That one was a Lazarus-like effort that came out of nowhere to rise to the front of my Eurythmics queue. It’s like the older, wiser sequel to “Touch.”
LikeLike
I don’t go out of my way much for Touch, Revenge or Be Yourself Tonight but Sweet Dreams (and all the b-sides) and Savage are just great albums in my book. The Terry Hall collaboration with Dave is fun, I would love to hear a covers album where Annie does the vox on that but I think she’s past a lot of that and living on the bankroll of her career. Good for her and am grateful for a library of more things that I genuinely like than don’t.
LikeLike
Tim – Hard to believe but I think with Annie Lennox it’s about 50/50 by now at to whether I value her projects or not.
LikeLike
Part of re-building the lost music hard drive is some of the work that I did with bands who have artists who go off on solo careers. A lot of the folders are labeled ”collected works” and are chronological collections. However, what does one do with the collected works of Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry? Does one have separate folders or one integrated library? Same with Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics. While I am mostly on board with your assessment of the Annie solo years I find it’s more a split for me, the first two albums I like a lot and then it’s scattershot from there.
And the solution I came up with for both Roxy Music and Eurythmics is the uber chronological folder. B-sides are integrated with parent albums, extended versions often replace album version, homemade extended versions, check, same and live tracks and remixes end up in another folder called “New, Live & Rare.”
LikeLike
Tim – “New Live + Rare?” So you’re an Echo fan?
LikeLike
There were a bunch of those done out of Japan. I had an Aztec Camera one and an Echo one. I like the name and it’s useful for my endeavors. I am more of an Aztec Camera fan than Echo…….really choosey with E&tBM. Love Mac’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Lover, Lover, Lover.” & otherwise for them it’s Ocean Rain and then dribs and drabs of everything else.
LikeLike
I’m pretty much onboard with you here Monk. While I really enjoy The Tourists’ work, I was completely taken in by Eurythmics debut In The Garden. Annie and Dave were more than half a decade ahead of the height of the indie guitar pop of the C-86 era bands like The Primitives and The Darling Buds on a track like Revenge. It also has some wonderfully Motorik moments like Your Time Will Come and Take Me To Your Heart.
I will agree with Tim in finding Savage quite a good record. Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) is a masterpiece. You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart is sweet Synthpop confection. Heaven has a production swagger that mixes equal parts Moroder and Horn. The title track finds Annie and Dave meddling with a 60’s Pop sound to make it their own.
I find the 1984 Film songs – is it really a soundtrack in the typical sense? – simply wonderful – full of tension, tribal beats, “world music.” They explored some of the same sonic territory that Human League and Talking Heads had moved on from, adding some elements of Jazz and improvisation and still managing to give some good 80s synths songs attention – Sex Crime and Julia.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love Savage, especially “Heaven” and “Beethoven.” (Ironically the biggest hit off that one, “I Need a Man,” is my least favorite track of the record.) I really love the Sweet Dreams and Touch albums (and yes Touch Dance).
When 1984 came out I remember thinking of the album as kind of mediocre, but it’s really grown on me over time. I quite like it now. After that though? Monk is right about “Be Yourself Tonight.” Utterly forgettable for me. As is Annie’s solo stuff.
LikeLike
MathManDan – I really don’t have any least favorites from “Savage.” For me, it’s that kind of record. It felt like the transitional album between “Sweet Dreams” and “Touch” that never was. The affected R+B stomp of “I Need A Man” was far more compelling to me than their less camp attempts on “Be Yourself Tonight.” I also loved Annie’s conceit of a woman as a man in drag for the images she put forth. But then, I admit that I see every heavily made up woman as “in drag.”
LikeLike
Echorich – Five years ahead of C-86?! Try a decade ahead of Stereolab!! Heck, I will state for the record, right now, that Eurythmics invented Stereolab with “Sing-Sing!” Among their many accomplishments. For me, the ultimate version of “Your Time Will Come” was the amazing live version of the B-side of “This Is The House” 12 single! That dinky little drum machine that could! When Stewarts’s guitar erupts it’s like Vesuvius! Shards of light and heat stream from the speakers! I heard that version first so when I finally got “In The Garden,” I found it somewhat toned down and disappointing.
LikeLike
Totally agree about I Need A Man being the Savage clunker.
Julia is a fantastic song. The 1984 soundtrack was a brave step, like others I dismissed it when it was new and have grown to like it a lot.
Who’s with me for some We Two Are One love? Crickets…..
LikeLike
I love “Doubleplusgood” as well.
We Two Are One: it’s just so… ordinary.
LikeLike
Ordinary, that’s funny. That’s how I felt about the Revenge of Being Yourself Tonight. They are not exceptional albums, I think that I really like two tracks on each but they don’t really say “Eurythmics” to me (as time goes by I find my opinion of Touch moving more in that direction as well).
I think that these two rawkish albums are really more Dave Stewart albums than Eurythmics, I read his bio a bit over a year ago and it seems like Annie progressively checked out of the group as time went on, I remember really anticipating reading the section about Savage and just being underwhelmed at the description of the birthing of that album.
For me there’s a lot of what they dabble in prior to We Two Are One that just doesn’t work for me, rawk, acoustic, quasi gospely stuff, the alchemist is trying to make some gold however there’s some critical ingredient to the formula that is blocking the magic. We Two Are One has a lot of that music and for me it works, not only independently but as a companion or extension to Savage.
No, it doesn’t contain the electronica of the earlier albums and it isn’t as overtly rawk as what they went for with five and six, it’s not really weird or kinky or transgressive, it’s mature and a tough trick for a band is to age and have their audience age with them and have it work (contemporary to the release of We Two Are one I was joking about that New Kids on the Block thing saying that they had a best if used by date on them already because there’s only so long that a bunch of guys are going to want to be known as ‘’kids”). It is not Sweet Dreams Mach II, it’s just an album in a continuum of music that they have made and I am genuinely endeared of most of that one.
LikeLike
Tim, you have convinced me to listen to “We Too Are One” anew with a fresh ear!
LikeLike
Gee, thanks for that comment!
LikeLike
I’m onboard with We Too Are One. I’ll tell you what solidified it for me. Working in NYC in the celebrity/music photography industry, it was never very hard to take advantage of some perks. Well Eurythmics moved over from RCA to sister label, Clive Davis’ Arista for the release of WTAO. In typical Davis showiness, he rented the ballroom of the Puck Building on Houston & Lafayette Streets for a release party. But the best part of it was that Eurythmics would perform songs from WTAO as well as some familiar songs. Well Annie was certainly in the mood! She was a vocal gymnast, a smooth crooner, a balladeer, a singer fully engaged with her music. The new songs were strong and I looked forward to the new album. I felt, once I had the album, it seemed overproduced, but the songs, like those on Savage were some of the strongest they had written in years. It’s more of a thoughtful Pop album than a guitar driven guitar album, which I never felt was them. Songs like King and Queen of America, Sylvia and Don’t Ask Me Why are stand outs for me.
LikeLike
MathManDan – You’re so right about “Doubleplusgood!” Someone remix that right now! On “We Two Are One” I’d mostly agree With you. “Don’t Ask Why” was a sophisticated keeper for me, though. Ice cold silk. And was that an outlier to “Why?” I liked the promo remixes of “[My My] Baby’s Gonna Cry,” but it’s been long years since I had pulled it out to listen. Most of my deep CD single collections are “off rack” since there’s not enough rack space for my CD collection to be visible at all times. A problem I’m working on right now, actually [memo to self: share the thoughts on storage]
LikeLike
Tim – I have been blindsided of late by inclement weather. Last Wednesday, I missed half a day in the morning due to ice. That meant that I had to make up four hours on Thursday and Friday; hence the lack of blogging since, well, forever! Tomorrow we are said to expect 1-3 inches of snow and who knows when I will be able to finish this post! [N.B.: I only blog during my lunch hour at work since I have too many other things to do in my personal life] Thoughts on “WE2R1” will hopefully follow before it’s Valentine’s Day.
LikeLike
It’s 10 below here in Wisconsin with wind chill that take it down another twenty and tomorrow is supposed to be colder. On top of the snow that we received yesterday and the day before. A lot of places that don’t often close down are shut down, the plus side is that I have a midweek weekend at home.
Cold, colder, coldest.
LikeLike
Tim – My wife and I were just talking about your fair state and the crazy insane cold that holds what’s left of the arctic very much in the shade. I left work by 10:00 am and just walked home about 3.75 miles up the mountain where we live with my car left at the base as the buildup was sufficient to fishtail up the earliest switchbacks. Yikes. Very, very good form on your tag that brought us back on topic like a genius!
LikeLike
What I find deeply intriguing is that Eurythmics recorded their debut album in Cologne at the same time as Ultravox did “Rage in Eden” there (and DAF “Alles ist Gut”)! Yet there’s no mention of two bands ever crossing path – which is strange as Conny’s studio was far from palace. That’s interesting for me because Dave Stewart clearly learned a few tricks from Ultravox/Visage book (for example, those flowing bass synth lines he favoured during 1982-1984 are so “Fade to Grey”! Not to mention the whole “European” aura). And with Annie and Midge both being from Scotland you’d expect at least some acquaintance. Would’ve been good to find something about all this.
LikeLike
Vlad – A lot of Dave’s early production style was down to low budget. Don’t forget they made the “Sweet Dreams” album for a few thousand pounds. An 8-track studio and no budget gave the work dramatic focus, due to the technology used. Good point about the Plank crossover potential for each of those bands. But the only real collaborations that Eurythmics made at the time were with Chris + Cosey.
LikeLike
That Chris & Cosey + Dave & Annie track is a strange one – should’ve been interesting given the time it’s been made in and experimental inclinations of all participants, but I’m always underwhelmed when I hear it. It’s kind of not here nor there and ends up being just a meandering kind of stuff. I like both Eurythmics and C&C, but they seemingly were not made to collaborate.
As for their 8-track stuff, I’m puzzled and deeply saddened that their B-sides from 1982 didn’t make it on any of the CD reissues. These are some of the most experimental things Eurythmics did, they should be proud of it – but looks like they want to forget (or actually did!).
LikeLike
As for the music, well, Iэму never heard the Tourists and have a hard time with “In the Garden”. It has some great tracks (“Belinda”, “Take Me to Your Heart”, “Never Gonna Cry Again”) but the rest kind of blurs for me. Perhaps need to listen to it more, maybe I’m missing something. “Sweet Dreams” is my fave, just great from start to finish (and my, what a hit the title track is in Russia! Bizarrely it was everywhere on radio for years in the 1990s and 2000s – though the song is not really a stuff evergreen hits in Russia are made of). “Touch” is somewhat weaker, but still very good (though I’m hesitant about the use of so many “real instruments” for the proclaimed synth duo). “1984” is divisive – mainly the music is very good, but Annie’s huffing and puffing and wailing and yelping all over it possessively is rather off-putting. Just shut up and have a cup of coffee, woman! “Winston’s Diary” is spine-tinglingly chilling, I’d wish it would last 10 times longer! Also “Julia” is a gem, sounds so fresh and doomy – though how anyone could’ve seen it as a single I’ll never know!
After that – mostly singles and selected songs. Still, there are occasional gems like B-side “Grown-up Girls”, up there with the best of their synth stuff, and “Tout les garsons and les filles” I like very much (though the original, which I’ve heard only recently, is quite nice). I feel, they excelled at ballads – “Miracle of Love” and “Don’t Ask Me Why” are just hair-raising and tear-jerking, their true masterpieces I always have time for.
What is a bit strange is how they continued almost unscarred commercially right through the 1980s while their peers have all but crumbled after 1986. What did they have that enabled them to survive at almost even level of success? Thing to ponder :)
LikeLike
I think that the answer to your question is Dave Stewart. The man is a music writing machine. I think that Annie was along for the ride for a while and after a point was done with the demands of it. Sure she had a solo career but it’s much more low key whereas Dave just kept going at it. I don’t think a lot of folks are aware of how much music this guy has made, not just under the Eurythmics brand but as a writer for others and the post Eurythmics work that he did either in a set up like Vegas or purely on his own.
LikeLike
For comparison, Annie’s solo career is 6 albums in about 24 years or 1 every four years.
Under the Eurythmics they made 7 albums in 8 years, I agree with a lot of comments that the quality control varies but that is some serious output. David A Stewart is the engine behind that quantity.
LikeLike
Never looked at it this way :) But that’s interesting to point out – take 1980s bands like OMD, Ultravox etc. They too made albums almost every year, sometimes a couple of them. But visibly petered out by mid-decade, losing focus, making subpar records and so on. What made Stewart stand out? His output is quite consistent, actually. Was it that he started much earlier and had a broader pallette of influences and sounds? Or was he simply more gifted and easy with music? Very interesting, I think I should buy his memoir (though those are usually concerned with off-stage antics much more than with music).
LikeLike
I read his bio a year or two ago. The first part of the book is better, the second half is a laundry list of flings, wives and musical collaborators. Having a person with autsim in the house I read the book and wondered if he has ever been diagnosed as ADD or ASD (there are crossovers between the two that may complicate identification and until recently in the US you could only be identified as one or the other). When writing about collaborating with people it’s basically him saying that he came up with something awesome, presented it to talented person of interest, they got on like a house on fire, created musical magic and then the next chapter is about the next fling/wife/collaborator.
In short (too late, I know) I think the man is a musical percolator with a head just popping full of ideas.
You may want to check out his Dave Stewart Songbook, Vol 1 cd. It features work that he did with/for The Eurythmics, The Spiritual Cowboys, Vegas, the Stones, Tom Petty, I think there’s a Stevie Nicks collaboration on there….a bit more rawk than the post punk electronica that is the item of choice here but you know every time that I listen to this album I find myself wondering why I don’t listen to it more.
LikeLike
Argh, what a tease! I was super excited for a massive hair-pulling FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN vent about Annie Lennox post-mid-80s and then crushed when the article abruptly stopped. Then I noticed it’s only three days old so part 2 is surely in the works… panic subsided.
Literally just yesterday I had my semi-annual pondering over how her solo era is one of the great music disappointments of the last half-century. Crazy coincidence to find this post the very next day. Every couple years I wonder if I missed something or if she made those kind of records it takes many listenings to appreciate, so I skip through some 90s-00s albums and so far nothing likeable has turned up.
LikeLike
PS, re: 1985
Did you know there’s a whole chapter in Bob Stanley’s Yeah Yeah Yeah about how 1985 was one of pop music’s all-time biggest train wreck years? Although I’m sure he was far from the first to point this out. The chapter btw is called “1985: What the f@%$ is going on?”, play on words from the JAMs album of almost the same name as you know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I go back and forth on buying that book, it is any good, T?
(and there’s lots of comments strewn through this site about when the 80’s went off of the rails and why)
LikeLike
There is a heated discussion of it here, in the comments section: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/06/story-modern-pop-bob-stanley-review#comment-28623960 :)
LikeLike
Thanks for the link, I found more people bickering about Led Zeppelin and musical appropriation than the content of the book per se, I’ll have to just wing it and add it to my queue of books to take a chance on. Gonna be a while, I just finished one on the space race (Red Moon Rising) and am currently working through a big one that is oral history of folks who grew up in Saratov and Moscow post 1950.
LikeLike
Yeah Yeah Yeah is hands-down among the five most important books on popular music ever written. What sets it apart is its ability to combine detail and scope yet still be engaging; a writing style which is articulate and intelligent yet direct and free of unnecessary pomposity or amateur theorizing; and avoidance of rock pantheon hagiography.
For people who know a lot about the music on this blog, or any individual eras, it really fills in gaps and fleshes out the context in which the artists became popular and of which we Americans are often unaware.(Things like, in 1991 the #1 top huge colossal super-mega artist that dominated charts and radio and TV and clubs was… the K.L.F. who were arguably little more than a one-hit wonder techno/sort-of-novelty act in the US.)
You definitely should order a copy from the U.K. because a lot was left out of the U.S. edition: the fascinating and entertaining footnotes (there’s hundreds and are often whole paragraphs); and chapters were eliminated or shortened on the birth of the hit parade (pre-1955), British folk rock, skiffle, Two Tone, Mod, glam, and dance music.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ohhhh…..huge fan of the KLF and their antics.
I wonder if the footnotes issue was remedied for the US Kindle edition, that’s pretty much how I read nowadays.
LikeLike
T – Bob Stanley’s book has been on my mental back burner for a few years now. A must to eventually read. But there’s so little time for reading it vexes me.
LikeLike
I’m not too worried by “Be Yourself Tonight”, it has some good tracks and, whilst inconsistent, I find it a relatively enjoyable experience. I save all my vitriol for the vomit inducing car crash that is “Revenge”. I just hate that album. I hate the sleeve and the leather rock aesthetic. I hate the tite. I hate the production and I hate the songs.
LikeLike
For me Eurythmics where for a short period one of the greatest singles bands ever – ‘Sweat Dreams’, ‘Who’s That Girl?’ and ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ are still pure essential classics in my book. As for the albums they just could not keep up with the brilliance sadly and soon they turned to the worse as success had hitted them hard. Of course it speaks for Dave Stewart’s craftmanship to handle all the styles forthcoming and creating a following no matter what they did and tried afterwards but they lost me pretty soon after ‘sex crime’ with just too many funk/soul/pop rock blur and embracing of the mainstream altoghether – visually and musically.
LikeLike
Slur – I’d agfee for the most part with your conclusion, but “Savage” was the fly in their ointment. Their last true flowering of brilliance. Maybe I’d rate “Don’t Ask Why” after that but little else.
LikeLike
Like you I prefer the Tourists, Blind Among The Flowers, So Good To Be Home Again and yes the Dusty tune. You can’t discredit the Eurythmics though, I’m not a massive fan, but won’t turn the radio down if they come on. Wish I got the chance to see the Tourists though :-(
LikeLiked by 1 person
MikeO – Welcome to the comments! It’s nice to hear from another hardline Tourists fan! There’s got to be a few of us out there. There was probably no band in 1979 I wanted to see more than The Tourists. And they never came within 500 miles of Florida, I suspect.
LikeLike
I too am more of a Tourists fan than Eurythmics fan but PPM is on target pointing out that they did have time to make a bunch of very fine and occasionally even great music before 1985 happened to them (and a bunch of other bands that had been doing pretty good work up to that point). Did the price of cocaine drop precipitously that year or something?
Anyway, here’s the thing about Annie: I can’t hate her, even when she puts out crap material. It’s kinda like Kate Bush — you just keep hoping till you die. :) But those pipes are amazing, and every now and again she does something really worth noticing — even if it’s only making The Lover Speaks guys as rich as they deserved to be. Will always appreciate her for that.
Those Tourist records are among my absolute favourites and one day when I’m rich I’m going to track down every single note they ever committed to tape. I remember how much I loved the first Eurythmics album, and how shocked I was seeing Annie in the video for the new album Sweet Dreams on MTV. I haven’t done a Eurythmics “deep dive” listen in too long to comment intelligently on their non-singles, but I do remember liking a lot of their singles (and the 1984 material, though I agreed with the director that the original soundtrack was a better choice). The later works all blend together, but I could say that about a lot of mid-to-late 80s stuff and bands.
As for her solo career, it’s spotty but better than the final years of Eurythmics. I can’t comment on Dave’s career post-Annie much because I haven’t really liked much of what I’ve heard of it, though I will always appreciate him giving Tom Petty some acid and the latter’s one great song video. Roll on part 2!
LikeLike
As far as I’m concerned, Annie Lennox is one of the absolute best female singers, but in the worst band of all time. Just a problem of being at the right time in the wrong place.
LikeLike
Lionel – Welcome to the comments! – No matter what our opinions on her art [and we seem to approach from opposite ends of the spectrum, yet, here we are], few can dispute that Ms. Lennox certainly has the pipes. With “singer’s singers” types like Ms. Lennox, I think it would behoove me to very carefully sample their recordings. Eddie Reader or k.d. lang are close to her level of singing achievement, and while I loved the Fairground Attraction album the Eddie Reader solo I bought left me cold. With lang, I have just two of her albums and find them acceptable but suspect that if I had jumped on her train fully, I’d be less satisfied.
LikeLike
Another vote for what You and They all said Monk, but with a twist. Like you I was introduced to AL by the Tourists’ Reality Effect, and as fab that album was as mediocre was most everything Eurythmics that Dave Stewart turned his grubby synth hands to afterwards. However, if you want that meld of Tourists and what Eurythmics could and should have become (i.e., an inventive, musically-tight rock band with an angel for a front woman) take a listen to “Revenge” from the first Eurythmics album (that no-one really talks about) called ‘In the Garden’. “Revenge” is hands-down the finest thing that Eurythmics have ever done. Nothing touches this track. That I’m serious in these assertions is indicated by the size of my Eurythmics collection — I have two tracks from their entire oeuvre: “Revenge” and (the spookily sublime) “This City Never Sleeps”. The rest of Eurythmics you can bash up your arse — all of it.
LikeLike
I found this little gem from Annie Lennox a few weeks back, can’t honestly remember how I stumbled on it.
There is an album by one Yungchen Lhamo which came out in 2006, name of the album is Ama. The second to the last track (Fade Away) is shared vocals with Annie Lennox and musically the texture of the song is very much adjacent to Brilliant Trees era David Sylvian. I was pleasantly surprised with this song, if you’re not interested in splurging on the whole album you’re able to cherry pick just the one song on Amazon (and I presume iTunes).
Also found a Herbie Hancock album where she covers Paula Coles’ “Hush, Hush, Hush.” As much as I would like to think Annie could sing the phone book and I would like it I find that I prefer Paula’s original (which also boasts some guy named Peter Gabriel for you completionists out there).
LikeLiked by 1 person