| Eurythmics |
Annie
Lennox, a member of Eurythmics
|
| Background information |
| Origin |
London, England |
| Genre(s) |
New
Wave, Synthpop,
Rock,
R&B |
| Years active |
1980 - 1991
1999 - Present |
| Label(s) |
RCA, Arista |
Associated
acts |
The Tourists |
| Website |
Eurythmics.com |
| Members |
Annie
Lennox
David
A. Stewart |
For the approach to music
education, see Eurhythmics.
Eurythmics (often incorrectly referred to
as "The Eurythmics") are a British musical duo, formed in 1980 by Annie
Lennox and Dave Stewart.
The pair have achieved significant global, commercial and
critical success, selling 75 million records worldwide, winning
numerous awards, and have undertaken several successful world tours.
They are noted for their intelligent pop songs, which showcase Lennox's
powerful and expressive alto
voice, and Stewart's innovative production techniques. They are also
acclaimed for their promotional videos and visual presentation.
Their entire song catalogue has been published by BMG
Music Publishing since 1982.
|
Contents
- 1 History
- 1.1 Formation,
In The Garden (1980-1982)
- 1.2 Sweet
Dreams, Touch and 1984 - For The Love Of Big Brother (1982-1985) and
worldwide fame
- 1.3 Be
Yourself Tonight and Revenge (1985-1987)
- 1.4 Savage
and We Too Are One (1987-1990)
- 1.5 Hiatus
and solo years (1991-1998)
- 1.6 Reunion,
Peace, and "I've Got A Life" (1999-2006)
- 1.7 Trivia
- 2 Discography
- 3 Video
releases
- 4 Footnotes
- 5 See
also
- 6 External
links
|
History
Formation, In The
Garden (1980-1982)
The pair had first worked together as members of The
Tourists. During this time, they were also romantic partners. This band
achieved modest commercial success, but the experience was reportedly
an unhappy one. Personal and musical tensions existed within the group,
whose main songwriter
was Pete Coombes, the band often received very negative critical press
in the UK, and there were legal wranglings with the band's management,
publishers and record labels. Lennox and Stewart felt the fixed band
line-up was not a good vehicle to explore their experimental creative
leanings.
Lennox and Stewart decided their next project should be much
more flexible and free from artistic compromise. They were interested
in creating 'pop music', but wanted freedom to experiment with
electronics and the avant-garde as well. Calling themselves
"Eurythmics" after a dance technique (Eurythmy; see also Eurhythmics)
Lennox had encountered as a child at her school, they decided to keep
themselves as the only permanent members and songwriters, and involve
others in the collaboration as they saw fit "on the basis of mutual
compatibility and availability". RCA Records decided to retain the pair
from their Tourists recording contract. Wanting to concentrate on their
musical relationship, Lennox and Stewart decided to discontinue their
romantic liaison in 1980 (see 1980 in music).
Their first album saw them continue to work in Cologne with
the legendary Conny Plank (who had produced the later
Tourists sessions). This resulted in the album In
the Garden, released October 1981), including
contributions from Holger Czukay and Jaki
Liebezeit of Can, drummer Clem Burke
of Blondie,
Robert Görl of Deutsch
Amerikanische Freundschaft, and flautist Tim Wheater. A couple of the
songs were co-written by guitarist Roger Pomphrey (now a TV director).
The album featured rather cold and melancholy songs, mixing psychedelic,
krautrock
and electropop
influences. It received a lukewarm critical reception and poor sales.
Two singles from the album also flopped, though "Never Gonna Cry Again"
made the UK charts. Lennox and Stewart then put their new Eurythmics
mode of operation into action by touring the record as a duo,
accompanied by backing tracks and electronics, carted around the
country themselves in a horse-box.
Stewart and Lennox retreated to Chalk Farm
in London, and used a bank loan to set up a tiny 8-track studio above a
picture framing factory, giving them freedom to record without having
to pay expensive studio fees. They began to employ much more
electronics in their music, collaborating with Raynard Faulkner and
Adam Williams. They continued to record many tracks and play live using
various line-up permutations. However, the three singles RCA released
for them that year ("This is the House," "The Walk," and "Love
Is a Stranger") all flopped on initial release in the UK. The band's
state of affairs was becoming critical — although their mode of
operation had given them the creative freedom they desired, commercial
success was still eluding them, and the responsibility of running so
many of their affairs personally (down to roadying their own equipment)
was exhausting. Apparently Lennox suffered at least one nervous
breakdown during this period, while Stewart was hospitalized with a
collapsed lung.
Sweet Dreams,
Touch and 1984 - For The Love Of Big
Brother (1982-1985) and worldwide
fame
Eurythmics' commercial breakthrough came with Sweet Dreams (Are
Made of This) (1983
in music), whose hit single of the same name featured a dark,
powerfully sequenced synth bass line and a striking video that
introduced the orange crew cut Lennox sported to fame. The band's
fortunes changed immensely from this moment on. The album became a huge
British hit due to the title track, which quickly topped the American
charts as well. Lennox was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone
magazine. Stewart recently revealed that the famous synth bass line in
the song was discovered by accident when he inadvertently played a
track backwards.
"Love Is A Stranger" was re-released and became a hit in its own right.
The "Love Is A Stranger" video saw Lennox in many different character
guises, which she later became known for in subsequent videos
("Beethoven" and "The King & Queen of America" among them). The
album's working title was Invisible Hands (as was a
track left off the album), inspiring the name of UK indie label
Invisible Hands Music - known for releasing music by Hugh Cornwell,
Mick Karn and Hazel O'Connor.
Touch, the
follow-up to Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), was
released in late 1983 and spawned three major hits. Here Comes the Rain Again
(number four in the U.S.) was an orchestral/synth ballad (with
orchestrations by Michael Kamen) that led the album. The
video went into heavy rotation on MTV. "Who's That Girl?"
was also a massive hit, the video seeing Lennox as a blonde chanteuse
and featured cameos by Hazel O'Connor, Bananarama
(including Stewart's future wife, Irish born singer Siobhan
Fahey), Kate
Garner of Haysi Fantayzee, Thereza
Bazar of Dollar, Jay Aston
and Cheryl
Baker of Bucks Fizz, Kiki
Dee, Jacquie O'Sullivan and
"gender-bending" pop singer Marilyn, among others.
The upbeat, calypso-flavored "Right By Your Side" showed a different
side of Eurythmics altogether, and Touch solidified
the duo's reputation as being major talents and cutting edge musicians.
In 1984, RCA released Touch Dance, a
mini-album of remixes
of four tracks from Touch, aimed at the 'club
market'. The remixes were by prominent New York name producers François
Kevorkian and John "Jellybean" Benitez.
Also released in 1984, the Eurythmics soundtrack album 1984 (For the
Love of Big Brother). Virgin Films had
contracted the band to provide a soundtrack for Michael
Radford's modern
film adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Radford later said that the music
had been "foisted" on his film against his wishes, and that Virgin had
replaced most of Dominic Muldowney's original
orchestral score with the Eurythmics soundtrack (including the song "Julia", which was heard
during the end credits). However, the record was presented as "music
derived from the original score of Eurythmics for the Michael Radford
film version of Orwell's 1984". Eurythmics charged
that they had been misled by the film's producers as well, and the
album was withdrawn from the market for a period while matters were
litigated. The album's hit single, "Sexcrime (Nineteen
Eighty-Four)", was huge in the UK and in Europe, and a major dance hit
in America, but its supposedly suggestive title (actually taken from
the "Newspeak"
phrase used in Orwell's book) resulted in many U.S. pop radio stations
refusing to play the track.
Be Yourself Tonight
and Revenge (1985-1987)
Their fourth studio album proper, Be
Yourself Tonight, was produced in a week in Paris.
It showcased much more of a "band" and a centred sound (with an R&B
influence), with real drums, brass, and much more guitar from Stewart.
Almost a dozen other musicians were enlisted, including members of Tom Petty's
Heartbreakers, guest harmonica from Stevie
Wonder, bass guitar from Dean Garcia, string arrangements by Michael
Kamen, and Lennox singing duets with Aretha
Franklin and Elvis Costello. It
continued the duo's transatlantic chart domination in 1985, and
contained four hit singles: "Would I Lie to You?" was
a U.S. Billboard top five hit, while "There
Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)" (featuring Wonder's harmonica
contribution) became their first and only UK number one single. "It's Alright
(Baby's Coming Back)" and the Franklin duet (originally intended for Tina
Turner) "Sisters Are
Doin' It For Themselves" also rode high in the charts.
Eurythmics released their Revenge
album in 1986, which continued their move towards a band sound (some
might even say verging on an AOR-pop/rock sound). Sales continued to be
strong in the UK, but somewhat petered out in the U.S., though "Missionary Man"
reached number 14 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart and would be regarded as
something of a Eurythmics classic. Eurythmics went on a massive
worldwide tour in support of this album, and a live concert video from
the tour was released. The folk-tinged "Thorn
in My Side" powered the UK success of Revenge,
which remains Eurythmics' best selling album to date. Around this time,
Stewart began producing, for Tom Petty
and Bob
Dylan, among others, while Lennox did some acting.
Savage and We
Too Are One (1987-1990)
Lennox and Stewart reunited in 1987 (see 1987
in music) for the album, Savage. This
saw a fairly radical change within the group's sound, being based
mainly around drum loops, with synth and guitar parts fairly low in the
mix (Lennox would later say that where Revenge was
more of a Stewart album in sound, Savage was more
of a Lennox one). Lyrically the songs showed an even darker, more
obsessive side to Lennox's writing. The entire record was also released
as a video album, directed by Sophie Müller, with a film for each
song. These largely followed Lennox's character of a frustrated
housewife-turned-vamp (as exemplified in the bizarre "Beethoven (I Love to
Listen to)", a UK hit and fan favourite). Much less commercial than the
two previous albums, Savage was mostly ignored in
the U.S., while sales in the UK were fair. The brazen, sexually charged
rocker "I
Need a Man" remains a Eurythmics staple, as does the delicate "You Have Placed
a Chill in My Heart". "Shame" reads as an indictment of the side of pop
culture that had made the duo famous, and its theme would be reprised
on the later-day Eurythmics single "17 Again" when Lennox sang "Sweet
Dreams are made of anything that gets you in the scene".
In 1989, Eurythmics released the solid We
Too Are One, a UK number one hit that did
rather poorly in the United States, although "Don't
Ask Me Why" grazed the Billboard top 40. Overall the album performed
better in the U.S. than Savage had, indicating that
America wasn't ready to dismiss Eurythmics. Other singles from the set
include "Revival", "The King and Queen of
America", "Angel" (where Lennox
eulogized the loss of a much-wanted child and the death of her own
father) and "(My My) Baby's Gonna Cry",
the latter of which featured Stewart in his first prominent vocal role
with Lennox.
Hiatus and solo years (1991-1998)
After strenuous years of touring and recording (Eurythmics
released eight albums — excluding the remix "Touch Dance" — in eight
years), Lennox needed a break and took time off to have a baby and to
consider a new direction after Eurythmics. Years of being constantly
together had created a rift in the relationship between the duo; the
two had virtually no communication with each other from 1990 to 1998.
In 1991, Eurythmics' Greatest Hits collection was released, entering
the UK album chart at #1 and becoming a massive seller. New remixes of
"Sweet Dreams" and "Love Is A Stranger" were also released as singles
at this time. In 1993, a live album featuring recordings from various
years throughout Eurythmics' career was also released.
In 1992 (see 1992 in music), Lennox released a solo
album, Diva, which was
a critical and popular sensation, while Stewart began writing film soundtracks
and formed a band called "The Spiritual Cowboys",
releasing two albums with this group.
Stewart released proper solo albums in 1995 (see 1995
in music), Greetings from the Gutter,
and 1998 (see 1998 in music), Sly-Fi; neither of
these albums were as well-received as his 1990 duet with saxophonist Candy
Dulfer, "Lily Was Here." Lennox's Medusa,
a cover album, fared much better, reaching number one in the UK.
Reunion, Peace,
and "I've Got A Life" (1999-2006)
Eurythmics reunited in 1999 (see 1999
in music) and released Peace. Peace
highlighted the duo's enduring musical bond and creativity. "I Saved the World Today"
reached number 11 in the UK singles charts and a remix of "17 Again"
gave the duo their first chart-topper on the U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play
chart. The band also embarked on a world tour, dubbed Peacetour,
to support the album. The tour started on September
18, 1999 at Cologne's Kölnarena
and ended on December 6, 1999 at the London Docklands Arena. All proceeds from
the tour went to Greenpeace and Amnesty
International. The year 2000 saw numerous European festival appearances
by Eurythmics (at Germany's Rock am Ring, among others). These mark
the last concert appearances of Eurythmics.
In 2001, Stewart performed with U2 for the "America: A Tribute To Heroes" benefit
concert.
In June 2003, Lennox released her third solo album, entitled Bare,
which was a good hit, with three singles at the top of Hot Dance Music/Club Play
in 2003 and 2004. She also recorded the song "Into
the West" for Peter Jackson's film The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,
where it appeared as the closing theme and earned Lennox the 2004 Academy
Award for Best Song.
In November 2003 Eurythmics played three songs at the 46664
(concerts) in Cape
Town. David Stewart was a big part in the organisation of this show.
They played an unplugged version of "Here Comes the Rain Again", "Seven
Seconds" with Youssou N'Dour and "Sweet Dreams".
On November
7, 2005,
Eurythmics released Ultimate Collection,
a remastered greatest hits package with two new songs. One of them,
"I've Got a Life," was released as a single and went Top 20 on the UK
singles chart, as well as spending three consecutive weeks at number
one on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play
in the U.S.. On November 14, RCA re-released their eight studio albums
in remastered and expanded editions featuring rare b-sides, remixes and
unreleased songs. The remasters are available separately as digipaks
with expanded artwork and together in a collector's box set, Boxed.
However, the 1984 soundtrack album 1984 (For the
Love of Big Brother) was not included in this
re-release campaign because Virgin Records holds the rights to
that album.
Lennox and Stewart also performed together on a number of TV
shows (such as Top of the Pops)
to promote the greatest hits album as well as the single.
In March 2006, the Steve Angello remix of "Sweet Dreams
(Are Made of This)", entered the top 10 on French internet retailer
FNAC's sales chart.
Trivia
- Eurythmics songs have been referenced in at least three
episodes of The Simpsons: Grift
of the Magi, Smart and Smarter, and Half-Decent
Proposal.
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums, singles and videos,
see Eurythmics discography.
Video releases
- 1983 Sweet Dreams (The
Video Album)
- 1987 Live (Revenge Tour)
- 1987 Savage (Video Album)
- 1990 We Two Are One Too
- 1991 Greatest Hits
- 2000 Peacetour
- 2005 Ultimate
Collection
Footnotes
See also
External links
| v • d • e Eurythmics |
| Annie Lennox | David
A. Stewart |
| Eurythmics discography |
Albums/EPs: In
the Garden | Sweet Dreams (Are
Made of This) | Touch
| Touch Dance | 1984 (For the
Love of Big Brother) | Be
Yourself Tonight
Revenge | Savage
| We Too Are One
| Peace
Compilations: Greatest Hits
| Live 1983-1989
| Ultimate
Collection
Box Set: Boxed
Singles: Never
Gonna Cry Again | Belinda | This
Is the House | The Walk | Love
Is a Stranger | Sweet Dreams
(Are Made of This) | Who's That Girl?
| Right By Your Side | Here Comes the Rain Again
| Sexcrime (Nineteen
Eighty-Four) | Julia | Would I Lie to
You? | There
Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) | Sisters Are
Doin' It for Themselves | It's Alright
(Baby's Coming Back) | When Tomorrow Comes | Missionary Man | Thorn
in My Side | The Miracle of Love | Beethoven (I Love to
Listen to) | Shame | I Need
a Man | You Have Placed
a Chill in My Heart | Revival | Don't
Ask Me Why | The King and Queen of
America | Angel | (My My) Baby's Gonna Cry | I Saved the World Today | 17 Again | I've
Got a Life
Video/DVD: Sweet Dreams - The
Video Album | Revenge
Tour | Savage
(video album) | We Two Are One Too
| Greatest Hits
| Peace Tour
| Ultimate
Collection
|
