plorentz's Full Review: Songs of Mass Destruction by Annie Lennox
For nearly 30 years now, she's been one of the most recognizable voices in pop music, a woman whose capacity to surprise us with a bluesy growl, an Aretha-worthy smackdown, a sexually vulnerable plea, or a suburban android drone has remained so constant that she's almost been allowed to coast on vocal virtuosity alone. Coupled with a persona that can alternate at will between playful child, disgruntled housewife, earth mother, and bitter crone, a public image that has shifted and evolved organically from flaming red-haired dominatrix to new wave Stax/Volt soul sister, from a Mick Jagger in Marilyn Monroe drag to heart-wounded, world-worn showgirl, from a colorful Vaudevillian novelty to the pale, plain, brittle visage that graced her last studio album Bare four years ago, Annie Lennox remains one of the most imaginative and thoughtful performers still recording.
Which makes it all the more amazing (and infuriating) that, with the (somewhat debatable) exception of her 1992 solo debut Diva, all that talent and imagination has never really translated into a solo masterpiece - a predicament she may very well have corrected with her latest offering, the pointedly titled Songs of Mass Destruction, a record which, like Bowie's Scary Monsters or Radiohead's Hail to the Thief seems to arrive as a summation-celebration of the artist's career to a point.
Even if the album's title comes a bit at W's expense, the record is mostly a personal one, which, as with Bare before it, concerns itself largely with the aftermath of a failed relationship, albeit in a far less depressed, far more tenaciously optimistic way. And, in a sense, it's everything we expect of an Annie Lennox record, an often glorious, occasionally challenging distillation of Lennox's artistry, full of funky sonic textures and studio-massed legions of overdubbed Annies, reminding us of all her many past faces, and placing them in an excitingly "now" context. Not hurting matters at all is the fact that it's also her most relaxed, upbeat, and unaffected collection of performances since, probably, the Eurythmics' Be Yourself Tonight.
The album opens with the somber introspection of "Dark Road" - a song whose gently fluttering piano chords seem to set the listener in an chilly empty room with an open window - and dark, recurring allusions to broken relationships abound on the disc, not just in ballads like the towering "Smithereens", in which Lennox devastatingly comes to realize her own power to hurt the one she feels most hurt by, or "Lost", a song whose matter-of-fact chorus culminates in a haunted vocal whoop, like a black-winged gull with a broken back; but also in funky rockers like "Ghost in My Machine", which comes on like a Louisiana bayou barbecue, all boot-stomping beats, Zydeco-style accordion and hot-as-tabasco attitude.
"Womankind" is an Information Age update on Fontella Bass, with Annie playfully recreating the blips and beeps of all our beloved portable instruments of communication with her voice, while on "Love Is Blind", she becomes a chain gang of one with a hammering call and response blues, only instead of digging a ditch, she hacks away angrily at her own mental chains with a fiery rally at the end - tired of being so screwed up! - all sounds that feel as innovative and spirited as the Eurythmics did 25 years ago.
But despite (and because of) the deep red darkness that permeates much of the disc, the moment most indicative of the album's atmosphere is the grown-up woman-power anthem, "Sing", the disc's undisputed climax, and by far, the record's most talked-about track. Conceived as a benefit single to raise consciousness of the African AIDS crisis (notably, the cause that reunited Lennox with her former Eurythmic partner Dave Stewart for the 1999 album Peace), the song boasts an extraordinary "Chorus of 32" - a massive international all-star coalition of super-high-priced back-up girls including Madonna, Shakira, and a bunch of other first-name-only pop divas. It may sound like an ego-fest on paper - and after all, Lennox's fame was at its peak in the Band-Aid/USA for Africa era - but amazingly, and true to billing, this cast of bigger-than-life voices remains a single, unified entity - a chorus - throughout the song.
If you've read anything at all about the starpower involved in "Sing", the song will, on first listen, seem utterly unimpressive. It is, after all, a straightforward, gospel-lite flavored dance anthem. But on repeated listens, the song grows more powerful and insistent - and in the context of the album, even cathartic - in its imperative simplicity - "Sing, my sister, Sing! Let your voice be heard!" - and its ability to reinforce that message of unity by never letting one voice outshine another, despite the bigness of the names behind those voices. You never hear just Celine or Pink or Dido or Bonnie. Well, okay, Madonna doubles Annie's voice on a couplet in one of the verses, but mainly, you just hear a bunch of women singing - rejoicing - together... in the face of mass destruction.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Songs of Mass Destruction" by Annie Lennox
Arista Records
Released 10/2/07
Produced by Glen Ballard
46 min.
SONGS: Dark Road - Love is Blind - Smithereens - Ghost in My Machine - Womankind - Through the Glass Darkly - Lost - Colored Bedspread - Sing - Big Sky - Fingernail Moon
Featured Song: Big SkyArtist: Annie LennoxAlbum: Songs of Mass DestructionTrack Listings:Dark RoadLove Is BlindSmithereensGhosts In My MachineWomankin...More at NBC Universal
Track Listing 1. Dark Road 2. Love Is Blind 3. Smithereens 4. Ghosts In My Machine 5. Womankind 6. Through The Glass Darkly 7. Lost 8. Colored Bedspre...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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