Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

The duo of Scottish singer Annie Lennox and English multi-instrumentalist Dave Stewart, a.k.a. Eurythmics, was arguably one of the most important bands of the '80s. The pair first met in 1975, became a couple, and formed a band called The Catch which eventually evolved into The Tourists. Problems within that band caused it to dissolve after 1980's Luminous Basement, but although they were no longer romantically involved, Lennox and Stewart decided to continue on as a musical team. Their first album together, 1981's In the Garden, wasn't commercially successful. However, their next album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) put them over the top, reaching No. 3 on the British charts and No. 16 in the U.S. The title track for the album became a huge international hit single, reaching No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 2 in Britain, while the video for the song received heavy airplay on MTV.

So what made this album such a success? I think it's a variety of factors. The most obvious, of course, is Lennox. Since the ascendancy of Eurythmics, she's become larger than life, both for her powerful R&B voice and her striking image. Then there is Stewart. After the guitar gods who dominated rock music in the '70s, music fans were looking for something different. Stewart was one of a number of '80s musicians with the talent and creativity to give it to them. Synthesizers were certainly in use by some rock bands in the '70s, but the music of people like Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman tended to be grand and sweeping. Listening to Sweet Dreams, you find that Stewart is using them in a completely different way. They're chunkier, more textured, and more pop-friendly. Unlike most of the synthesists of the previous decade, Stewart is as much a computer programmer as a musician.

There's also a touch of darkness to the music of Sweet Dreams, just a taste of danger. The synthesizer loops throughout the various songs are ominous, and sometimes murky. But it's all in good fun. With the possible exception of the poor orange-haired, green-eyed title character of "Jennifer", who winds up "underneath the water," (Is she a sea nymph? Or a drowning victim? We'll never know for sure) most of the more dangerous emotions are expressed with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Throughout the album, Lennox tries on characters and personas the way an excited child who is set loose in the costume department of a large theatre might try on costumes.

Eurythmics - In The Garden

Eurythmics' debut album, In the Garden, is the missing link between the work of the Tourists, who included both Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox, and 1983's commercial breakthrough, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Co-produced by Kraftwerk producer Conny Plank at his studio in Germany, it has some of the distant, mechanistic feel of the European electronic music movement, but less of the pop sensibility of later Eurythmics. The chief difference is in Lennox's singing; even when the musical bed is appealing, Lennox floats ethereally over it, and the listener doesn't focus on her. As a result, In the Garden wasn't much of a success, though when Eurythmics streamlined their sound and emphasized Lennox's dominating voice on subsequent releases, they found mass popularity.

In a nutshell, In The Garden is a hidden gem. I say “hidden” because initially, even though the band was signed to RCA, the record was only available in the US as an import. Recorded at Conny Plank’s studio in Cologne, in Germany, in 1981, In The Garden belies its humble origins and stands the test of time, more than anything simply because it comes from the heart. Produced by Plank himself (who’d produced Devo and Kraftwerk) and featuring Blondie’s Clem Burke on drums and Can’s Holgar Czukey on (amongst other things) “Thai stringed instruments and French horn”, the record could have very easily kicked off the electro-clash movement; if historians hadn’t seen fit to slot in this particular episode a decade or so later.
Clem’s recruitment came about because Dave and Annie saw him in a club and Annie persuaded Dave to go up to him and ask him if he wanted to join. And Holgar? Well, “Holgar was always around at Conny’s and Conny himself was always so stimulating and interesting and Holgar just happened to be too, as well as being extremely eccentric and great fun to play with.” Holgar, of course, had been Stockhausen’s star pupil and Stockhausen’s son, Marcus, ended up playing brass on In The Garden. You can tell the Blondie influences on, in particular, Your Time Will Come, but whether this is anything to do with Clem or Annie’s personal fascination with Debbie Harry is a moot point. For Annie, Blondie was “the ultimate pop band” although for others this is something that Eurythmics were soon to become themselves.
Listening to In The Garden now, some three and a half decades after its release, is to be transported back to an era when electronic artists like Depeche Mode and Human League and even David Bowie ruled the airwaves. There are other influences too: Dave’s guitar work is reminiscent of both Chameleons and Magazine and the track Take Me To Your Heart is all lost-future, contemporaneous Kraftwek. Another track, namely She’s Invisible Now, is almost defiantly no wave (if you remember that, you really have been paying attention) with more than a nod to Marbles’ nature of the song is no more-or-less offset by the “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1″ countdown which gives an even more recognizable nod to Bowie’s Space Oddity. Moreover, as if to prove her European credentials, Annie sings in French on Sing Sing and of revenge on, ahem, Revenge a theme that Eurythmics would return to on a later record.
Ultimately, of course, In The Garden is the tale of Eurythmics taking flight for the first time, of Dave and Annie striding out into the world as equals, as one and of them letting their hair down after the trials and tribulations of The Tourists. It has innocence and beauty and is probably unlike every other Eurythmics record you will ever hear. For some Eurythmics’ aficionados it is their favourite record. And for others, quite soon, it may become theirs too.