I’m up and still groggy from a 45
minute nap I didn’t have time for, but couldn’t put off any further. I have a lot of chores to accomplish in the
next couple of days and not a lot of time to accomplish them but without that
map I think I would be down for the count.
Instead – another music review!
Disc 543 is…. We Too Are One
Artist: Eurythmics
Year of Release: 1989
What’s up with the Cover? If your subject matter for your photo shoot is Annie
Lennox and Dave Stewart, then putting the stunningly stark beauty of Annie
Lennox front and centre and, putting the very average appearance of Dave
Stewart in the blurred background is the right call. Obviously someone made the right call. Also, I'm loving the old school "list the tracks on the front" thing. Very retro.
How I Came To Know It: I remember my friend Curt being really into this
album when it came out, but it was years before I would finally shed myself of
the anchor of the Eurythmics greatest hits and collect their individual albums
in earnest. When I did so, “We Too Are
One” was one of the first albums I bought.
How It Stacks Up: I have five Eurythmics albums, and I like all of
them. I’ll say this one is about third best of those five, but close to second.
Rating: 3 stars, but almost 4
“We Too Are One” came out in 1989. The eighties were ending and so was the
collaboration of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox, who would go their own way for
the next ten years. The fact that they
remained friends is cold comfort to Eurythmics fans who also wanted them to
make more beautiful music together.
Whatever irreconcilable differences there were
between the two do not come through on this record, which is a brilliant and
seamless connection of Lennox’s deep, soulful vocals and Stewart’s flair for combining
a techno-inspired rhythm section with the power chords of rock guitar. All this stuff together should be a hot mess,
but instead it creates a groove that gets your head shaking and your foot
tapping.
The opening two tracks are good, although “The King and Queen of America” has
lyrics that are a bit forced. For me the
album really starts to show its true self on track three with “(My My) Baby’s Gonna Cry.” The song starts with a techno sound that
travels speaker-to-speaker (thank you inventor of stereo) and then morphs into
a classic Stewart guitar riff. Half the
lyrics are sung by Stewart as well. Stewart
can’t hold a candle to Lennox’s powerhouse vocals and to his credit he doesn’t try
to compete. Instead he stays low (and even a little fuzzy) in the production. This gives maximum contrast to the songs, and
every time Lennox sings it is that much more awe inspiring.
This is the musical feel throughout the record. The Eurythmics, who began as a new wave/techno-inspired
band now come around to their soul revival roots. There is even a song called “Revival” which alternately makes you
feel like you are dancing in the aisles of some southern church or in some East
Berlin club scene depending on how you let your ears approach the song. I like it equally both ways.
These up tempo tracks are as good as anything I’ve
ever heard for getting you up out of your chair and hitting the dance floor
hard. Anyone who thinks the eighties
didn’t have any good music for dancing didn’t listen to the Eurythmics.
For all that celebratory atmosphere, the album is
even better when it explores the sad and introspective. Maybe this is a function of a band about to
break up – I really don’t care what cause it, I just know it creates beautiful
music.
“Don’t Ask Me
Why” is one of the decade’s great break up songs. When Lennox sings:
“I don’t love you anymore
I don’t think I ever did
And if you ever had any kind of
love for me
You kept it all so well hid.”
She sings it in a powerful and certain way that wipes
you out as a listener, even as it makes it clear she is going to be OK.
This theme is less powerfully delivered on “You Hurt Me (and I Hate You)” which lets
you peak behind the curtain of the grand experiment of music style combinations
that the better songs hide so well. Even
these lesser tracks, however, have Lennox’s voice to carry them through from
shaky to solid ground.
The third theme on the record is that of disconnection. The hit “Angel”
is a genuine dirge; a eulogy for someone who lost the battle with the forces of
isolation the modern world so readily deploys.
Driven as ever by Lennox’s power and a stripped down production, we have
a suicide laid bare in all its tragic waste and finality. Yes, this song is depressing, but it is also strangely
uplifting in Lennox’s tender tones.
The album ends on an uplifting note with “When the Day Goes Down.” This is a song for all those people who’ve
ever felt out of place. It is one for
all the freaks and losers, and ultimately for the freak and loser deep inside each
of us. “When the Day Goes Down” is the musical equivalent of that final
scene in “Revenge of the Nerds” when everyone comes down to stand together,
united with their inner weirdo. Lennox
sings high and sweet here, and Stewart matches her with some tastefully subdued
guitar work. The album ends with these
words:
“And this is for the broken
dreamers
This is for the vacant souls
This is for the helpless losers
This is for the helpless fools
And the burnt out
And the useless
And the lonely and the weak
And the lost and the degraded
And the too dumb to speak.”
Like any great preacher, Lennox makes it clear that
this motley collection of castaways is ultimately every one of us. More than any other album, “We Too Are One”
has a spiritual connection to its music.
Rather than dissipating the band’s early new wave sound, it shows just
how far you can go with it if you’re willing to free yourself of the limits of
genre and expectation. On the one hand
it makes me wish they’d stayed together and kept pumping out records. On the other hand, it seems a fitting way for
them to end it, going out on top.
Best tracks: (My My) Baby’s Gonna Cry, Don’t Ask Me Why, Angel,
Revival, Sylvia, When the Day Goes Down
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