http://open.spotify.com/album/1JdHaHbRQ9oujxir6QhMHVSweet merciful Christ... Immediately the potential pitfalls of what I have volunteered for hits me in the stomach, I feel like a new recruit being helicoptered over the Cambodian killing fields and only just grasping the true horrors that I will have to face. No one needs to listen to a Eurythmics album now, no-one! They're like Polio- they have caused countless suffering in the past but their irradication is a sign of how far we have come along as a species.
I mean, come on, Eurythmics are a band that exist entirely of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, the pop equivalent of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. Even if you make it a trio and chuck in someone impossible to truly dislike, let's say Andi Peters (bass guitar, has to be) to try and even things out a bit, that's still a hideous concoction. I can understand how we didn't know as much about either of them 25 years ago, but today it simply wouldn't be allowed to happen.
It's fair to say I'm not looking forward to this....
0:20 Welcome to the 80s...
2:03 'Here Comes the Rain Again'- the sound of Heart FM, although strangely enough for an early 80s synth pop
record it really doesn't sound that dated, a lot more contemporary than La Roux ever sounds anyway
3:32 'Ooooooooooooo-ooooooo-wooooooooooooooo-hey-hey-hey-heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!'
5:32 'Regrets' sounds like Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love' played on stylophones and Speak n' Spells, which isn't necessarily a bad thing
7:18 Oh sweet jesus this is actually quite good, the minimal production isn't a million miles from Prince. This wasn't supposed to happen
9;09 It sounds a lot like Prince, how was Dave Stewart involved in something so agreeable?
11:20 This makes a lot more sense- 'Right by Your Side' is an absolutely abortion of cod-carribbean soul- all steel drums and rolling tongues, truly, truly awful. I feel a lot better now
11:35 'Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-Da-da-da! C'mon c'mon c'mon!' Enough now, you're only embarrassing yourself
12:39 Didn't Annie Lennox win an Oscar once? I'd hardly put her on a par with Ray Parker jnr.
14:08 'True Blue' is a mess off slap bass and dramaticly stabbed synths, and as such sounds like a chase scene in Miami Vice. To be fair tho, about 37% of all music in the 80s sounded like a Miami Vice chase scene
14:50 Awful chorus too...
17:35 Every song so far has been at least 60 seconds too long. Eeewwwwww! Bass solo!
21:32 'Who's That Girl' is one of those songs that has about 78% of the ingredients needed to be really good, but somewhere along the production line someone sneezed in the box and it didn't quite work out. It starts off relatively interesting in a glacial Kraftwerk kind of way, but at some point decides it'd prefer to be a bit of a drippy synth ballad.
22:04 I wonder if Ray Parker jnr. will have an album in here
22:26 Actually, it's probably unlikely isn't it? One can dream though...
26:14You know occasionally on albums you can just tell which tack was the last one the band recorded? Where it sounds so half-baked and lethargic that it practically collapses out of the speaker while moaning 'what do we need 10 tracks for anyway??'? Where you can just picture a record executive tapping his watch on the other side of the glass in the recording studio? Yeah? Well welcome to 'The First Cut' (ironic, I suppose)
27:43 It still hasn't finished though
27:58 Now it has
29:51 They probably thought 'Aqua' was a good idea at the time...
33:55 'Hoooooooooooooo-woo-wa-wooooooooooooooooo'
37:40 Regardless of whether I like it or not, when I hear a song like 'No Fear, No Hate, No Pain' that at least tries to do something a little left-of-centre and different, I can't help but appreciate it a little. So while the song is a bit of a mess (plus it has fucking gun-shot samples and anti-war lyrics you can place comfortably alongside Culture Club's 'war is stupid, people are stupid' in terms of pacifist poetry), at least it's interesting
37:54 That voice is fucking awful at times tho
38:30 Jesus, this sounds like the theme tune to Jet Set Willy, how on Earth is this supposed to last seven minutes??
39:38 A slap bass solo!!! May God have mercy on us all...
40:42 Five minutes to go...
43:11 In what universe does this song possess enough in it to last this long?
44:25 You just know this is the one they'd close their gigs with, and drag it out for about half an hour while people left to catch the last bus
45:36 And it's over- one side of a ninety minute cassette; perfect
Well, it didn't make me want to pour sulphuric acid in my ear, which means I've lost a bet with myself. In fact, and I never thought I'd say this, it wasn't actually a terrible album at all, a handful of absolute shockers, one or two 'will this do' specials, a couple of interesting failures and, unbelievably, a select few good songs. Large chunks of it sounded like the kind of experimental electronic music you wouldn't equate with the same continent as Annie Lennox, and although I can probably name at least 500 albums twice as good as it off the top of my head, to my eternal shame I actually enjoyed some parts of it
I feel dirty
C
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