The Eurythmics of Our Lives: Vol. 4 - Be Yourself Tonight
Written: Dec 20 '05 (Updated Dec 26 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A strong band sound; their most confident, consistent, and empowered record ever
Cons: Their most commercially successful record, it ultimately set them on a bumpy course.
The Bottom Line: In which the author has packed his bags and cleaned the floor.
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| plorentz's Full Review: Be Yourself Tonight... [Digipak] [Remaster] - Eury... |
For me, one of the most intriguing things about watching a reality TV show is to be able to witness the participants' characters as they are changed by the experience - both physically and emotionally. It's not all catfights and roadblocks and immunity challenges. For me, it's about watching American Idol Carrie Underwood's hair morphing from week to week as if the search for a marketable identity was a kind of rock climb, and her ever-changing look was a weekly struggle to find a footing or drop to her death.
I loved the delicious desperation of it all; and there was something satisfying in seeing her singing in the Macy's parade on Thanksgiving, looking like the baby celebrity she is, as insincerely smiling and plastic as a Barbie doll knock-off - and then comparing her to her AI forebear Kelly Clarkson, having emerged from a long pupation in a cocoon of commercial uncertainty and critical skepticism, as a fully formed pop star, who may, in fact (and to the surprise of many observers) have the brightly colored wings enough to carry her to success beyond the standard shelf-life of her species of pretty pop star. She has become herself - albeit a heightened, glamorous pop star version of herself.
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In the two years following the Eurythmics' breakthrough hit "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", after the release of their schizophrenic but massively successful - both artistically and commercially - follow-up album, Touch, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox went through a bit of a pupation themselves, recording only a film soundtrack (1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)), and for the most part disappearing from the radio for a bit.
By the time they emerged from their cocoon in 1985, many of their new wave and synth pop peers had disappeared (Men At Work), were splintering into adversarial factions (Duran Duran), or sinking into addiction and its attendant ignominies (Culture Club). The brand of pop by which the duo had attained their fame and acclaim was becoming increasingly irrelevant. But where the self-delusions and sheer exhaustion wrought by fame had destroyed so many, The Eurythmics emerged anew - no longer the little, artsy synth-pop duo that could, but a heightened, glamorous pop star version of themselves - with their fourth (and to my mind, greatest album, the appropriately titled Be Yourself Tonight.
Confident, muscular, and self-empowered, Be Yourself Tonight rendered quaint everything that came before it - not just the group's tenure with the Tourists or the flaccid In the Garden, but also the great, classic singles that broke them - almost completely ditching their chilly DIY aesthetic and their tinny New Romantic synthesizers for a gigantic, soulful, live band sound inspired by Motown, and brilliantly exemplified by the album's lead single "Would I Lie To You?" (which along with the S&M-tinged "I Love You Like a Ball and Chain" would be the group's first appearance on American rock charts).
Here, for the first time ever, Annie is bolstered by the bevy of back-up girls she so clearly deserves, and Dave finally gets to unleash his inner rock guitar god - and for once, the band has a solid, three-dimensional, living, breathing rhythm section, and that - that makes all the difference. Though "Would I Lie To You?" represented a major departure for the group, it also proved to be one of their biggest hits, and demonstrated once and for all that the band (and they were a band by now) had legs - hot, sexy ones to boot. Even from a video point of view, where the group had previously been (and at times, would continue to be) challenging and artsy, "Would I Lie To You?", despite a brief (but wholly unpretentious) conceptual introduction, was raw performance, pure and exhilaratingly simple.
Be Yourself Tonight also demonstrates not just the band's confidence enough in themselves to ask their heroes to guest on their albums, but also the fact that their heroes respected them enough to accept. Thus, Elvis Costello shows up as a harmony vocal on "Adrian" and Stevie Wonder closes the twinkly "There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)" (a song written with Stevie in mind - though it sounds more In Square Circle than Songs in the Key of Life) with an extended harmonica solo.
Even better, the band is joined by none other than Aretha Franklin - then riding an artistic renaissance of her own - for the fiery six-minute gospel-infused girl-power anthem "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves" (which, incidentally, also appears on Aretha's 1984 album Who's Zoomin' Who?). To Dave and Annie's credit, they never come across as timid or star-struck in the presence of greatness - but especially on the latter track, they simply elevate themselves to match it. If the world was already aware of the power inherent in Annie's vocals, it is here where, with the endorsement of the Queen of Soul, Annie Lennox becomes a diva in the truest sense.
Though not nearly as high profile, the lovely "Conditioned Soul", from which the album takes its title is one of the group's best songs - a moment of sometimes painful clarity with one of Annie's simplest, least affected vocal performances. "It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" sticks immediately in your head, and with its soulful horn section resembles something Dusty Springfield would have done in her Memphis period.
But at the height of their powers, the Eurythmics close the album with a song called "Better To Have Loved Before (Than Never To Have Loved At All)" whose wistfully pretty melody is set against a thunderous tribal rhythm, giving the song an air of ominous inevitability - almost like a premonition of the duo's painful creative separation, or an echo of their earlier romantic one. Either way, from here on out, for better and worse, things were gonna get ugly.
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Like the other CDs in this wonderful, long overdue reissue campaign, this deluxe edition of Be Yourself Tonight comes in a glossy, tri-fold digipack, with a generous booklet loaded with period photographs and Phil Savidge's historical liner notes, all laid out by Laurence Stevens, who did the original artwork for all of the Eurythmics records.
It also includes a half dozen very cool bonus tracks, not the least of which are the 12" remixes of "Would I Lie To You?" and "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves" and a previously unreleased live version of "Conditioned Soul" Also included are a couple of supercute b-sides (very different, and much poppier than many of their previous more experimental b-side tracks), "Grown Up Girls" (which actually got some club and radio attention) and the adorable "Tout Les Garcons Et Les Filles"; along with a cheeky, previously unreleased cover of the Doors' "Hello I Love You".
All told, this edition of Be Yourself Tonight exemplifies all that is good and enduring about the Eurythmics music - a near-perfect hybrid of the naive synth-pop duo they once were, and the jaded, angry rock duo they were about to become. Easily their most consistent and accessible record (and unsurprisingly their most commercially successful), this classic record is a must-have for fans of the band, and great place to start for novices.
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RATINGS:
Original album - 5 stars
Reissue - 5 stars
Total - 5 stars
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Be Yourself Tonight" [deluxe edition] by The Eurythmics
RCA / Legacy Records
Originally released 1985
Reissue released 11/15/2005
Produced by Dave Stewart
Remastered by Ian Cooper
72 min.
SONGS: Would I Lie To You? - There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) - I Love You Like a Ball and Chain - Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves - Conditioned Soul - Adrian - It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back) - Here Comes That Sinking Feeling - Better To Have Lost in Love (Then Never to Have Loved At All) /BONUS: Grown Up Girls - Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles - Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves (ET Mix) - Would I Lie To You? (ET Mix) - Conditioned Soul (live) - Hello I Love You
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THE EURYTHMICS OF OUR LIVES:
In the Garden (1981)
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1983)
Touch (1983)
Be Yourself Tonight (1985)
Revenge (1986)
Savage (1987)
We Too Are One (1989)
Peace (1999)
Recommended:
Yes
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plorentz
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Member: Paul Lorentz
Location: The Land of Limburger and Leinenkugel's
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