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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, winning numerous awards, and have toured worldwide. They are noted for their intelligent and artful pop songs, which showcase Lennox's powerful and expressive alto voice, and Stewart's innovative production techniques. They are also acclaimed for their striking promotional videos and visual presentation.
Their entire song catalogue has been published by BMG Music Publishing since 1982.
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, though it was initially banned by MTV for its "gay" content (which actually involved Lennox in male drag and a fellow, not two men; MTV had to be convinced). The "Love Is A Stranger" video saw Lennox in many different character guises, which she would become known for in subsequent videos ("Beethoven" and "The King & Queen of America" among them).
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 a haunting orchestral/synth ballad that led album. The video went into heavy rotation on MTV. "Who's That Girl" was also a massive hit, the videoing seeing Lennox as a blonde chanteuse and featured cameos by Bananarama, Kate Garner of Haysi Fantayzee, Jay Aston and Cheryl Baker of Bucks Fizz, Kiki Dee, and "gender-bending" pop singer Marilyn, among others. The upbeat, calypso-flavoured "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 Kervorkian and John "Jellybean" Benitez.
Later in 1984, Virgin Records released the Eurythmics 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 would later say 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". The album's hit single, "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)", was huge in the UK 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.
Their fourth studio album proper, Be Yourself Tonight, was produced in a single 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.
Lennox and Stewart reunited in 1987 for the critically acclaimed album, Savage. This saw a fairly radical change in 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 psychological 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".
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. that "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" and "(My My) Baby's Gonna Cry", the latter of which featured Stewart in his first prominent vocal role with Lennox.
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