Eurythmics - Pop's Ball and Chain

Folie à deux (French for “madness shared by two”), or shared psychosis, is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of hallucinations and delusional beliefs are transmitted from one individual to another. This syndrome is often diagnosed when the two subjects in question live in close proximity to one another and may be socially or physically isolated, having little interaction with other human beings.

Funny, really, because Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart's souls found each other in London over forty years ago now, lost in the heart of a metropolis teeming with millions of people, where it's not actually all that easy to avoid interacting with other human beings — especially if your job involves negotiating with the record industry and striking deals with dozens of musicians, producers and sound engineers, week after week. It's Dave himself who'll put forward the theory of a possible case of folie à deux during a TV interview in the early '80s, followed by a moment of “practical demonstration” in which he and Annie start conversing in a ridiculous, entirely made-up language. It's clearly a massive piss-take, but amid their tight-lipped giggling you can't help but notice a rare sense of complicity that brings a smile to your face while, at the same time, gently inviting the viewer to stay just outside the threshold of the door. Artists are all a bit autistic, as we know — people perpetually teetering between creative indolence and those flashes of genius that, if caught in time, make the meaning of life as clear as the water in a swimming pool. But while it's fairly easy for the audience to enjoy the finished work, for the artists in question reaching that clarity of formal and emotional expression involves anything but a direct path, and in this Eurythmics are the perfect embodiment of it — they'd go on to write an eternal hit about exactly that.

Their story is like a film. In an early phase, Annie and Dave were entangled in a morbid erotic/romantic relationship and played in a rock band — the Tourists — in which neither had any say in the songwriting (a source of great frustration for both). In the second phase, however, their relationship took on an unprecedented artistic dimension right at the moment their romance fell apart, which led them to air each other's dirty laundry through music, pouring into it all the experience accumulated from that disorienting love/hate dynamic. The result was a kind of couple's interplay that often verges — indeed — on folie à deux: nervous flare-ups and long, sulky silences, but also quick glances and imperceptible gestures capable of conveying a lifetime's worth of thought between one another through a code entirely their own — signals impossible for anyone else in the room to decipher, who sometimes feel as though they've just landed on Mars. Dave is scattered and unruly, Annie composed and precise; in the studio they communicate on an emotional, almost telepathic level, magically weaving together a varied, ever-shifting songbook of the most disparate sounds.

It's easy nowadays to pigeonhole Eurythmics as the duo who, throughout the 80s, fired off a relentless volley of memorable singles straight at the charts of the entire world – later collected on a Greatest Hits that sold over six million copies, cementing their status forever as icons of last century's British Pop. But from their marriage with Teutonic-style electronics, their love of Philip Glass and new wave, all the way through the fabulous synth-pop revolution and then the guitar-driven turn powered by soul, blues and r&b, these two pale Englanders sketched out one of the most singular and gripping careers of the entire 80s, filled not only with massive radio hits but also with memorable long players and little gems scattered here and there.

But who, really, are these two madcaps? Born in Sunderland in 1952, David Allen Stewart presents himself with a mystical aura, heightened by his habit of hiding behind little round glasses and Mad Hatter-style headgear. When he opens his mouth, he turns out to be a soft-spoken speaker with delicate British eccentricities, a lover of nonsense and psychedelic drugs that send him travelling toward solipsistic, faraway worlds. An eternally curious multi-instrumentalist, equally at ease with a guitar slung over his shoulder as in front of the bulkiest of synthesizers, over the course of a career now nearly fifty years long he would go on to work with the most unlikely names on the most disparate projects. But many don't know that his roots also reach back into a curious psych-folk-rock past as a member of Longdancer, a quartet of freak longhairs who in the early 70s released a couple of albums on Elton John's Rocket Records. The sheer stylistic gap between one of those tracks and Eurythmics' earliest synthetic experiments is already enough to frame one of the UK's most eclectic musical communicators.

But the real mystery of the duo remains Ann "Annie" Lennox, an icy Scot from Aberdeen, born on Christmas Day 1954 into a modest working-class family. Annie arrived in London at just seventeen after winning a scholarship to attend the prestigious Royal Academy Of Music, where she played flute, piano and harpsichord. For her family, having a daughter studying in the capital was an enormous source of pride, but for the very young Annie the dream of becoming a classical musician was shattered all too soon, when she realised that such a conservative, imagination-starved academic environment wouldn't let her express herself outside the established rules. Which at first struck both her parents and her teachers at the Academy as strange, since young Ann had always come across as a docile girl with no silly notions in her head, the kind who dressed neatly with her hair tidily parted to one side. And yet Annie dropped out and soon found herself scraping by however she could to survive in a ruthless, alienating metropolis, while also trying unsuccessfully to break into the world of popular music by playing in various local bands. What was going through her head in those years, God only knows. One evening, her friend Paul Jacobs came to see her while she was working as a waitress in a restaurant and introduced her to an acquaintance of his named Dave Stewart, who – blind drunk after polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniels – stared into her eyes for a moment and immediately asked her:

Will you marry me?

They would never make it to the altar (fortunately), but the meeting between Annie and Dave on that evening in 1976 would mark the start of an intense relationship between the two, one that would help our heroine break out of her shell once and for all and turn her into one of the most recognisable icons of the vividly colourful 80s – but with a certain grace. Unlike figures such as David Bowie, Diana Ross and Grace Jones – whom she herself credits as sources of inspiration – Annie would never turn her own life into a work of Art, remaining instead tied to the frugal, rigid working-class upbringing she received as a child – proof of which lies in all the years of social activism for charitable causes that, at the time of writing, have almost come to replace her image as a musician. Annie carries within her a strong sense of duty that keeps her from ever going all the way, but paradoxically she has no trouble standing in front of the cameras and letting millions of people watch her nonchalantly swap one mask for another. Because Annie Lennox is many things at once; she has two icy, frosty eyes and a gorgeous face that always looks flawless from whatever angle it's filmed, yet she's also androgynous to the point of dressing as a man – without ever needing to waste time "explaining herself". On stage she can transform into a charismatic performer capable of commanding huge crowds, she's blessed with a gorgeous voice tinged with unfathomable passive-aggressive coolness, yet she can also summon enormous soul-drenched openings that at first made people mistake her for African-American (as happened with fellow artists Alison Moyet and Lisa Stansfield). On video we'll see her reborn as a suicidal housewife and a Diva gripped by psychosis, yet in her private life there also emerge images of a fervent feminist and of a weak, insecure woman, a staunchly agnostic speaker with her own deeply personal creed, as well as, of course, a great gay icon. A bewildering kaleidoscope full of contrasts, in short: Annie Lennox is a woman who also tries to hide and mocks herself with a thoroughly Nordic sense of humour, only to suddenly reappear like a tiger draped in feathers and jewels, or with a sadomasochistic mask pulled down over her eyes. It will be Dave Stewart himself, the man who perhaps more than anyone else over the years has come closest to her intimacy both emotionally and artistically, who will declare without mincing words:

Honestly, I haven't got the faintest idea who on earth Annie Lennox is, and I don't think there's anyone else in the world who knows either. Maybe not even she does.

Accidental Tourists

Dave soon invites Annie to sing in a band he's formed with Peet Coombes, a longtime friend with whom he grew up back in Sunderland. At first they call themselves The Catch, and in 1977 they introduce themselves with an endearingly amateurish photo accompanying a couple of songs co-written in a fairly convincing disco-soul vein; the A-side, "Borderline", is steeped in a thoroughly urban melancholy that strongly evokes Steely Dan and the Stevie Wonder of tracks like "Living For The City", while the B-side offers "Black Blood", which shows a sound closer to a certain stretched-out disco music, enriched by a trumpet solo and the inevitable backdrop of strings. One immediately notices Lennox's lovely voice, warm and sensual, yet tinged with a thoroughly metropolitan nervous edge and a timbre that – especially on the second track – at times comes close to our own Loredana Bertè.

But the project never takes off at all, so while keeping their contract with the Logo label alive, Peet Coombes takes the reins of artistic direction and, with the addition of Eddie Chin on bass and Jim Toomey on drums, the new quintet rechristens itself The Tourists. A shame, really – to this day the Catch experience remains the only available document of Lennox singing disco – one of those small-but-significant regrets scattered throughout the history of pop music.

But Peet Coombes has other ambitions; the scorching heatwave of summer 1976 – among the most memorable of the last century in the English popular imagination – brought drought and stirred up tempers to the point of lighting the fuse on the punk explosion, a new movement that spread from the pavements of Kings Road in the capital to take hold across the rest of the country, complete with the UK landing of the Ramones and the "rivalry" with homegrown Sex Pistols, who in those very months are recording "Anarchy In The U.K.". But glam, reggae and new wave are also winning converts among the young; the enormous melting pot of the 70s is at the peak of its stylistic ferment. As the new leader and sole songwriter for the Tourists, Peet cranks up the guitars and urges Chin and Toomey to lay into the rhythm section. Annie and Dave, for the time being, are still lost in their own deeply personal, alienating honeymoon.

The Tourists (1979) is produced, of all people, by Conny Plank, one of the most celebrated sound engineers in the world of kraut and electronic music (already having worked with Kraftwerk and Neu!), but although his touch manages to lend a more refined finish here and there to the treatment of the various parts, the songwriting shows a verse/chorus quality that's really far too generic and uninspired, which combined with the most classic voice/guitars/bass/drums line-up produces a record that's never bad but certainly very anonymous – which in a way is even worse. With Peet and Annie both singing lead on most of the tracks, the band's image also takes on a flat, choral effect that fails to spotlight either personality in particular (though to be fair, Coombes, with his perpetually couldn't-care-less attitude, could easily pass for a more nasal version of Bob Geldof).

From the opening of the melodic single "Blind Among The Flowers" right through to the closer "Just Like You", The Tourists is a pub-rock record that goes down easy but offers precious few real thrills. "Ain't No Room" tries out a timid reggae groove, "Deadly Kiss" unfolds over a vaguely more interesting stop&go structure, while the solitary figure portrayed in "The Loneliest Man In The World" reveals the still-unripe seeds of a songwriting talent with more refined narrative potential. With its faintly electronic intro punctuated by a touch of sax and a catchy chorus, "Useless Duration Of Time" is perhaps the most evocative and at the same time most frustrating moment of the bunch: a good track, but one that still doesn't quite let its imagination run free.

Out there are bands like Roxy Music, the Boomtown Rats and The Police, acts with razor-sharp sounds led by ultra-charismatic frontmen who throw themselves into incendiary performances and write surreal, captivating lyrics. Against that backdrop, the Tourists are a bit like the local band playing down the pub on a Tuesday night.

There's still room, though, for a fine "Fools Paradise", with one of those hypnotic, circular melodies in the vein of Velvet Underground that one could almost picture being sung by Nico, though Lennox's clean timbre still does the job brilliantly. The acoustic "Another English Day" is a very brief moment of decadent poetry, sung by Peet with the air of a commuter resignedly watching the landscape slide past a train window.

The Tourists is largely ignored both by unenthusiastic critics and by a wider audience swept up by the far more irresistible nervous energy of the other bands mentioned above. Eager to gain ground as quickly as possible, Logo pushes the band to get straight back into the studio and record a follow-up.

Produced by Tom Allom (who had already worked with Genesis, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest), Reality Effect (1979) adjusts the aim slightly, even if Coombes's songwriting remains more or less anchored to the usual simple, harmless pop-rock formula. What stands out most is the restlessness within a rhythmic pattern that stays very similar to itself from track to track – "In My Mind (There's Sorrow)", "Circular Fever" – a problem that is now only partly held in check by playing with effective interludes and, in certain spots, applying snippets of more distinctive sonorities.

The opening of "It Doesn't Have To Be This Way" reveals a more interesting electronic leaning, "In The Morning (When The Madness Has Faded)" is coloured by a couple of eccentric piano interludes and a cinematic ending, "All Life's Tragedy" also manages to alternate a couple of evanescent near-silent moments with the usual pub-rock plod of the guitar/bass/drums combo, and "Everywhere You Look" bursts out of the gate with an engaging drums-and-keyboards chase. A small step forward for the Tourists, then, who despite a not exactly thrilling set of songs, really mean business. Logo even helps them put together an elaborate set for the striking cover photo, which shows them from above dressed in white in a totally white room, with artful scatterings of dried flowers and paint splashed across the floor.

There is, however, an unexpected turn of events that will turn out to be the pivotal moment of their brief history; during the recording sessions for Reality Effect the band decides almost as a joke to try their hand at a cover, and following Annie Lennox's love of old soul, they opt to redo "I Only Want To Be With You", the famous song that was a huge hit for Dusty Springfield in 1964. Within a couple of hours the track is already finished and gets slotted into the running order without much further thought. Instead, this will be the very song that rapidly climbs the UK charts in November 1979, reaching as high as No.4 – and it even picks up a fine No.10 in Australia. Suddenly the Tourists are thrust into the national spotlight, complete with TV appearances, interviews and a promotional tour.

But becoming famous through a cover of a song that was already hugely famous in its original version is a blow to Coombes's ego, as well as a worrying sign of who exactly his band's audience really is: far from being teenagers hungry for novelty and transgression, the Tourists come across as a reassuring band updating old favourites for all those bewildered parents confronted with children sporting coloured mohawks and safety pins stuck through their nostrils! The fact remains that the other single, "So Good To Be Back Home Again", also climbs as high as No.8 on the UK chart, and, as it happens, this too is a reassuring Beach Boys-style number seasoned with one of those cloying lyrics that every mother would love to hear her kids singing away from home:

It's so good to be back here again

Having fun with all my friends

When everybody says hello

You know there's nowhere else to go

It's so good, yeah it's so good

It's so good to be back home again

But you can't say no to success: both singles push the whole of Reality Effect into the UK Top 30, and with the first money and the first attention from the press, the band is finally on a roll. For Annie and Dave, Reality Effect is an almost prophetic title; without this first taste of success, their artistic lives might never have set out on the path that would eventually turn them into the iconic pop stars we all know. But in the musical landscape of the time (and in any later reassessment), an album like this doesn't offer much of interest, and it will soon go out of print along with the rest of the catalogue.

Unfortunately things quickly get more complicated, and not for artistic reasons; after a series of arguments with Logo, the Tourists are dropped and soon picked up by RCA, a huge American major label capable of both creating genuine pop stars and acting as a meat grinder for the undifferentiated masses. Having lost some momentum, the band goes back into the studio to honour the new contract; Luminous Basement is released in record time in October 1980, exactly a year after the previous album. Obsessed with the need to break free of a past that felt too sugary, Coombes keeps cranking up the decibels, while Allom, behind the mixing desk, does his best to weld the five members into as tight-sounding a unit as possible. The cover art shows a simple but effective pop-art design very much in the style of Blondie, a band hugely popular worldwide at the time.

In the video for the bouncy single "Don't Say I Told You So" the Tourists adopt an eye-catching new romantic look, with Lennox dressed and styled like a more grown-up counterpart to the popular faces of Susan Sulley and Jo Catherall, the two famous backing singers of Human League. The album's opener, "Walls And Foundations", driven by Coombes's vocals, is certainly among its most light-hearted and entertaining moments, thanks to a punk-ish drive that really takes off in the closing guitar solo. But "Week Days" and "So You Want To Go Away Now" also sound like certain energetic tracks by the Pretenders, and "Round Round Blues" and especially "Let's Take A Walk" are likewise packed with guitars galore, the latter arriving seasoned with a playful harmonica line and a finale of all shouts and hubbub. A more unusual chord sequence and a subtle electronic sheen in the background help "Talk To Me" shake off the cobwebs, especially in its experimental, noise-laden ending that stretches the track out to almost six minutes. The excellent chorus of "Angels & Demons", meanwhile, is delivered with real bite by a Lennox on tremendous form.

It's also worth noting that the version of the album released for the Anglo-Saxon market came with a free 7" featuring two unreleased songs; "From The Middle Room" is a highly distinctive instrumental piece that plays off a shadowy electronic atmosphere against a heavy, grating, acidic hard rock chorus. "Into The Future", on the other hand, is a mini power-pop blast typical of the band by now. Overall, Luminous Basement only partly explores the production "quirks" that had peeked through on the previous album, preferring instead to get down to business with a barrage of roaring guitars and driving rhythms aimed at reaching younger, more rebellious listeners too, but once again, it's not always backed up by truly memorable songwriting.

Relations within the band during the recording of the album weren't exactly at their best either; Coombes was suffering from a serious hard-drug addiction that left him absent and volatile, while Annie and Dave no longer felt comfortable with the limited and somewhat repetitive songwriting being offered to them. Credited to Annie Lennox, "One Step Near The Edge" is indeed a moment where the music slows down and the singer allows herself an elegant, refined vocal performance full of nuance – all qualities that would go on to become her unmistakable trademark. A track like this shows how both she and Dave were by now more than ready to take the reins of their own art – unbeknownst to the rest of the band, the two had already booked some private studio sessions where they intended to experiment with the more electronic side of their sound, an idea that had stuck in their heads ever since that first visit to Conny Plank's recording studio in Cologne.

And in the drama that follows, things will, paradoxically, work out in their favour; Luminous Basement sells very poorly and sends the band crashing back down into the lower reaches of the chart, far removed from the sparkling, youthful image the Tourists would like to project. Even the promotional tour organised across Asia and Australia proves to be a major failure: by the time the band reaches Sydney, Peet Coombes nearly loses his life to an overdose and is forced to return to the UK to get his head together again. The band carries on the tour to honour their contractual obligations, but without their leader and main singer on stage, there's little point in carrying on much longer. At the same time, the romantic relationship between Annie and Dave comes to an end, further straining relations within the group, and RCA's zero-tolerance policy towards a minor band with no future delivers the final blow: upon returning to England, the Tourists split up for good.

From here on, Coombs and Chin will try to put together a new project, but they won't even manage to finish recording anything. Coombs will die in 1995 after an unfortunate life plagued by drugs, and unfortunately his relationships with his former bandmates will never heal, with neither Annie nor Dave attending the funeral. But after his death, the two will nonetheless decide to honour the career of their old band with a more than exhaustive 20-track Greatest Hits, which to this day remains their most readily available album on the market. It's as clear as day, though, that the Tourists' reappraisal among new generations still happens today mainly because their ranks once included the towering names of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. Beyond that, the band remains a cult concern for collectors, or at best a small forge of modest but genuine possibilities that never managed to produce a record truly worthy of the names involved.

Nel giardino che nessuno sa

Breaking up a romantic relationship while at the same time forming a new band, with the risk of having to spend entire days breathing the same stale air in some cramped recording studio: it sounds like the most absurd of scenarios, but that's officially how Eurythmics came to be, an unexpected creative bang following an emotional crash. In the midst of this painful upheaval, with her music career now dangerously close to bursting like a soap bubble, the stubborn Annie Lennox held on to just one certainty in life:

Creatively, I don't want to work with anyone but Dave.

And so the artistic partnership carries on, still under contract with America's RCA, who – quite naively – still see in the duo a chance to explore the catchy pop-rock vein that made "I Only Want To Be With You" a hit for the Tourists. But things immediately take a different turn, starting right from the new name the duo chooses: Eu because Annie and Dave feel more European than strictly English, and rythmic because rhythm is the foundation of all music, but tied into that union is also the word eurythmy, a form of expressive bodily movement devised by the philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900s, a practice Annie had studied as a child. Eurythmics: a word with an unfathomable meaning and a sophisticated pronunciation, yet instantly memorable and recognisable among billions of other musical projects – one of the many important building blocks for their future success.

To record their first record, Eurythmics once again head to Germany, to Conny Plank's studio, a figure who had left a deep mark on the duo's imagination ever since the days of the first Tourists album. The recording sessions also feature a string of high-profile figures circulating in the rock and avant-garde scene of the time, who often passed through Plank's studio: Robert Görl of D.A.F. (the "Der Mussolini" guys, to be clear) and Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay of Can, who in turn bring in Markus Stockhausen (son of the famous composer) to play brass. But RCA's reach extends a little further than just Europe, so even Clem Burke is drafted in to help out, better known as the drummer of the already multi-platinum Blondie.

From this oddball London/Cologne/New York axis comes In The Garden (1981), a debut album as compelling as it is raw in the most unspoiled sense of the word, built on a sonic mélange that moves between the most Teutonic, kraut-adjacent electronics, new wave guitars, and a songwriting full of angles and British flourishes that leaps from Dadaist narration to curious power-pop choruses – a mood perfectly captured by a cover photo somewhere between sophisticated and amateurish, with Annie and Dave striking artistic poses surrounded by lush foliage and topped off by a curiously gothic typeface.

There's really no better way to capture the summer humidity of Albion's land than "English Summer", thanks to Dave's azure shower of guitars forming a thick harmonic blanket, while Annie Lennox's voice captures melancholy snapshots of everyday life, portrayed like an old faded photograph. But the very first Eurythmics single is "Never Gonna Cry Again" (a modest UK No. 63 in May '81), which glides along on a sinuous bass line seasoned with spacey little keyboards and a flute solo, naturally played by Lennox herself. The track is also accompanied by a wonderfully bizarre video that packs in every possible nonsensical eccentricity you could stage on a dreary North Sea beach with a limited budget: one of the strangest calling cards ever put out by an emerging band.

But even the electronic desolation of "Take Me To Your Heart", with its post-punk-leaning emphasis on the bass line, perfectly captures one of those depopulated, run-down suburban urban landscapes, with Lennox this time lamenting, in a forlorn tone, a cold and emotionally distant lover – comparisons with her just-ended romance with Dave are inevitable at this point, putting the spotlight on an exceedingly uncomfortable yet almost therapeutic song, one of the key pillars of Eurythmics' contrasting songwriting. "Caveman Head" also sits among the record's hybrid curiosities, seasoned as it is with screeching electric guitars and a series of off-screen noises, and much the same can be said of "She's Invisible Now", which bears heavy traces of Plank's Teutonic production polish and features a harmonic choice that's almost too unusual for a pop song, though the countdown that kicks in around the middle of the track – intoned by Annie through a filtered microphone in the style of Kraftwerk – also sounds like a clear homage to David Bowie's "Space Oddity".

On the more melodic pop-rock side, In The Garden offers another irresistible single in "Belinda", a song that might have found greater favour with the public in the voice of Debbie Harry, but Annie's performance is every bit as good: soft and velvety, before surging towards the end to reveal a potential that would later be put to the best possible use. The prophetic "Your Time Will Come" unfolds through a verse with almost Middle Eastern harmonic flavours before opening up into a soaring, epic new-wave chorus (Czukay is said to play some unidentified traditional Thai string instrument on this track). And it's again somewhere in between with "All The Young (People Of Today)", a sort of psychedelic bath held up by a dub bass line and a Velvet Underground-style chorus.

With "Sing-Sing", however, things slide straight into nonsense territory, a nursery rhyme rattled off in French over a tiptoeing rhythm and seasoned in the bridge with cacophonies that sound as though they were recorded on a stylophone. And then there's "Revenge" to close things out, again a bouncy bass-and-drums rhythm with over-the-top keyboard flourishes and a Lennox freely experimenting with a range of different vocal registers (further heightened by the electrifying distortions Plank applies to the microphones).

It's hard to pin a record like this down to a single category, hard to separate the fascination with experimental electronics from a Lennox still somewhat stiffened by her academic training, with jagged guitars and sinuous dub bass lines further blurring the edges of perception thrown into the mix. The public has absolutely no idea what to make of an album like this, and attention is minimal, to the point that the entire Eurythmics project comes within a hair's breadth of ending before it's even properly begun. RCA does the bare minimum to promote a work that falls squarely outside commercial norms, and although they don't drop Eurythmics outright, the band's financial backing is quietly put on hold. It essentially falls to Annie and Dave to go out on tour and drum up a bit of promotion on the radio, along with a couple of scattered TV appearances, but the result proves physically and emotionally draining for both of them, to the point that by the end of the tour the two find themselves hospitalised, with no idea how to carry on. Their career is hanging by a thread at this point.

Given what the duo's life would soon become, both in terms of success and in terms of their new, highly sophisticated sonic direction, it's not hard to look at In The Garden as the record of another band altogether, as the midpoint between the Tourists and Eurythmics, or as the classic dark, formative period of two future millionaire popstars. There's one aspect, though, that simply can't be ignored: for all its rough edges and oddball fascinations, there's really no other record of the period that comes close to the unspoiled atmospheres of In The Garden. And that makes it a chapter almost outside of comparison, an album capable, in its own way, of winning over both listeners coming from pop and those arriving at it out of curiosity via the long road of kraut. Put it on your headphones and treat yourself to an unexpected leap back in time, to an era rich with the most disparate contaminations.

The legend of the £5,000: the creative/financial genesis of a memorable little slice of pop history

It's around this time that the legend is born of how Dave manages to wrangle a £5,000 loan out of his bank manager. And it really is a legend, because by the financial standards of a grim England gripped in the vice of Thatcherism, Mr. Stewart is hardly the best candidate to entrust with money, especially if the goal is getting it back with interest. Just picture it: a penniless musician with all the signs of a dissolute lifestyle written across his face, showing up with no credentials to speak of beyond a fleeting old No. 4 chart hit earned with a now-defunct band like the Tourists (and he hadn't even written that song!) – admit it, you wouldn't even lend the man an umbrella in the rain. He himself recalls his lysergic years like this:

[…] I'd eat once every four days, get through industrial quantities of amphetamines and never sleep. Or I'd leave the house to buy bread or matches and turn up again three days later with some guy called Circles.

But who knows, maybe it was lunchtime and the bank manager was in a hurry to get rid of yet another nuisance that day. Or maybe it's true what they say about Dave: that for all his apparent silence in the shadow of Lennox, he's actually a stubborn and rather persistent little fellow when he wants to get something done. Whatever the case, that day Mr. Stewart walks out of the bank with a triumphant grin plastered across his face, holding a cheque that's modest by the standards of what he intends to do with it, but still well beyond the financial means usually available to him. There are two possible outcomes: either it works, or they'll be washing dishes for the next two years.

And this is where Annie Lennox's equally legendary Scottish thrift comes into play: a woman of iron will who always knows how to say no to whatever extravagant nonsense crosses her colleague's mind, and who at night even counts the coins in his trouser pockets. The duo's first joint decision is to rent a flat in Chalk Farm, in the Camden area, and turn it into a mini recording studio, since professional ones cost too much. The rent is a bargain, Annie is pleased with the deal, Dave a little less so: of course the rent is cheap, the flat is located above a sawmill! But how do you record an album while they're splitting fir logs downstairs?

So here's the explanation for the duo's second major joint investment: a cool £1999 (plus VAT) spent on a Movement System Drum Computer, a hybrid drum machine built on samples from the popular Simmons Drum Synthesizer, but fitted with a screen that allowed them to compose and record digitally (even while they were splitting fir logs downstairs). On the advice of mutual musician friends, such as Robert Clash and Adam Williams (the latter plays bass for the famous ska band The Selecter), Dave personally travels to get hold of one of the brand-new MSDC units, made at a specialist shop in Bridgwater, Somerset, and spends the night on the shop floor while the machine is being set up. Upon his heroic return to London, the Eurythmics are among the first in the world to work with such a synthesizer (other famous examples of the machine's use in those years can be found in the work of John Foxx, Mick Karn and Kim Wilde on "Cambodia").

But the Eurythmics have other ideas, driven above all by the fact that they can only afford a miserable eight-track recorder to complete the entire album; so they almost entirely do away with the usually dominant traditional pop instruments like guitar, bass and drums, and combine the precious sound of the MSDC with other contemporary machines, such as the Oberheim OB-1 and the EDP Wasp. During mixing, the eccentric Dave keeps one hand behind his back while with the other he wields a pair of garden shears, with which he can only operate one of the eight knobs at a time — a way of forcing himself not to blend the various parts together and to keep the sound as clear and clean as possible. With very little money the Eurythmics create an unprecedented, almost entirely synthetic melange that is truly the height of electronic sophistication available at the time: a clean, cold, robotic sound, yet with a roundness in the bass and a smoothing of the edges that make it incredibly enveloping — a softness never before captured by any other single piece of electronic gear. Annie recalls:

It sounded so sophisticated!... except we always had to wait for the sawmill downstairs to switch off its machines before we could record the vocal parts...

There's no need to reiterate man's fascination with the Machine; from Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream to the space-rock of Hawkwind and the disco music of Giorgio Moroder and Patrick Cowley, through to the British wing of New Order, Depeche Mode and Human League of "Reproduction" — by now, applying electronic instruments to popular music demands the same seriousness of treatment once reserved for the six strings of a guitar. The Movement System Drum Computer still has plenty left to reveal, but the sophistication of the sounds it produces, and the creativity with which the Eurythmics blend them with other keyboards, are already more than capable of carrying the whole synth- movement toward new, crystal-clear horizons, effectively marking a "before" and "after" in the synthetic productions of the Eighties. From the heights of its mainstream success, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) remains one of the most famous and beloved examples of the genre. All of it, moreover, achieved on a genuinely tiny budget given the sheer scope of the result.

But technique, as we know, is at most only half the work. While Dave and colleagues spend entire days programming the computer, as excited as teenagers with a Game Boy, it's the magnetic presence of Annie Lennox that completes the picture of a work now truly deserving to be called memorable. Just looking at her would be enough to win you over, but really all you need to do is listen to her: she writes synthetic, cutting lyrics and then delivers them with a staggering voice, moving from icy, dark new-wave mantras to the heartfelt tones of blue-eyed soul. Through the images beamed out by a newborn MTV, Annie Lennox quickly becomes one of the leading faces of the Second British Invasion, an androgynous and captivating figure, yet also mysterious in her art-school sophistication, stirring up both bewilderment and curiosity in audiences from the very start, including the notoriously more wary American side.

The singer's shape-shifting personality is already visible in the first three singles that Eurythmics doled out cautiously over the course of 1982. April brought the release of the bass-serrated electronic pastiche “This Is The House”; the response to a track like that was still precisely zero, but Eurythmics were clearly playing a game of subtraction. With just a handful of words assembled in a Dadaist fashion, half of them sung in Spanish, the duo recreate with striking effectiveness the experience of living in a house crammed with all sorts of characters — the universal feeling of intense cross-cultural contact that still greets anyone today who leaves their hometown behind for the chaos and temptation of a cosmopolitan city (a famous bit of trivia: among Annie's flatmates during her pre-Eurythmics Berlin years was none other than our own boisterous Gianna Nannini).

Listening to the brisk pace of the following single, "The Walk", on the other hand, is like venturing late at night into the fog along the Thames, except now the cosmopolitan metropolis takes the shape of a seductive and dangerous woman, played by Annie with the sly air of a Cheshire cat, while a nocturnal noir-jazz trumpet and a series of hypnotic, clashing voices peek out in the background. Still, this is June 1982, and however miserable the English summer, the public isn't yet ready for the autumnal inflections of a track like this.

With the following single, "Love Is A Stranger", released in November of that same year, the Eurythmics nonetheless craft one of their finest tracks ever, as well as the true artistic manifesto of the whole project (even though the public will only realise it later, when the song re-enters the charts the following year, propelled by the overwhelming success of the next single, which we'll get to further on). You surely know it already, but listening back to "Love Is A Stranger" still sends chills down the spine today; a soft, hypnotic pulse seasoned with little synth blips that sound lifted from an old video game, over which Annie delivers blunt words of love treated like a drug addiction, climbing into an inimitable falsetto toward Motown-tinged soul backing vocals. The accompanying video shows us, in all its splendour, a magnetic and photogenic figure, amid wig changes and knowing, flirtatious glances, while the viewer can't stop watching her, trying once and for all to figure out:

Is that boy a girl, or is that girl a boy?

Finally, in January 1983 it's the turn of the fourth single, and what a single: "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" starts out creeping in quietly, appealing only to the more aesthetically minded listeners, but after weeks lingering in the lower reaches of the charts it finally takes off thanks to the other enigmatic accompanying video, and after a thrilling battle against "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, it even reaches the very top in America, turning into a smash across the rest of the globe as a result (including a solid No. 2 back home) — for the Eurythmics, life will never be the same again. What else is there to add about such an iconic track? This is Annie at the peak of her raw, controlled and deliberately ironic Scottish realism. The words she rattles off with such urgency — about the eternal human doubt that haunts anyone who takes on the creative world — are gathered into a sort of religious mantra charged with a cold, detached, no-frills anger. Dave, for his part, contributes one of the stickiest synth riffs ever, drum-machine rhythms as merciless as whip-cracks on a marble slab, and constant melodic stops punctuated by the piano, framing the nervous jolts of Annie's voice. In a word: perfect. The audience is bewitched, the track's sound is dazzling, and the Eurythmics happily show it all off — the machine Dave is fiddling with in the iconic accompanying video is none other than the Movement System Drum Computer, pampered like a child, as if it were the band's third member.

With the tremendous success of the new track, the dazzling "Love Is A Stranger" is immediately re-released too — reaching the Top 30 in America and a solid No. 6 in the UK — and all that's left for the wider public to do now is discover the rest of the album, which had already been sitting in shops waiting for them since January 4th of that year. No disappointment there: inside Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) you'll find all the remaining pieces of a fascinating, enigmatic puzzle, exactly as promised by the mysterious cover art that illustrates it.

The great thing about "I've Got An Angel", for example, is that it's basically a track built on a dub skeleton — here Adam Williams of The Selecter's influence is obvious — but the ultra-modern production transfigures it into an apocalyptic synthetic charge, while Annie delivers a piercing chant over the top and even plays flute on it. And that's not even mentioning the reworking of "Wrap It Up", featuring guest Green Gartside of Scritti Politti, which once again shows off the full potential of the MSDC when combined with unconventional songwriting (compare it with the original version, written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter in the Sixties for the famous vocal duo Sam & Dave). Here our Dave lets go of the bass pedal and sets up a booming rhythm section, enriched by finely calibrated little funk guitar inserts in the bridge, while Annie literally splits herself into four different people: she skips around with the excited energy of a kid who's just discovered the sound of her own voice through a microphone with monitor feedback, then plays with cacophony, turns into a serious singer, and finally transforms into the most serene of soul singers while giving an amused little wink to Aretha Franklin and the vocal harmonies of The Supremes. All of it packed into just three and a half minutes of dazzling, hugely enjoyable song.

The urban dash of "I Could Give You (A Mirror)", set to the rhythm of a nervous car horn, instead casts Annie once again as a frustrated, disillusioned chanteuse, but this time her voice is almost always left alone to lead the melody, showing off at the height of its diva splendour, amid velvety tones, slides and falsettos, while in the background Dave's keyboards advance with the cumbersome force of an assembly line.

On the more introspective side of the record, meanwhile, it's impossible not to be captivated by "Jennifer", a sort of cold-wave stroll that picks up the poetics of Lou Reed and dips them into a "Blade Runner"-like atmosphere — the wall of acidic guitars rising up in the epic, tear-jerking finale is simply stunning. And after the mysterious "Somebody Told Me", a track that once again moves along a winding synth line and Annie's paranoid, cacophonous introspection, comes another atmospheric noir moment to close the record: "This City Never Sleeps", six and a half minutes of shadowy urban dub steeped in alien noises and the sound of a distant train — the perfect setting for hearing Annie describe the silence and loneliness felt deep in the night when you're lost in the big city and all you can hear is the hesitant beat of your own heart (though in its own way the performance also carries a fair amount of sensual charge that won't be lost on anyone: three years later the song would be featured on the soundtrack of "9 ½ Weeks").

With Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) one could fittingly close out the golden age of British synthetic pop music of the late Seventies/early Eighties in style, while at the same time opening a new chapter in the bombastic use of synths that would take hold for the rest of the decade. An album at once as cold as new wave and as warm as soul, as introspective as a lonely autumn evening and as wild as a banshee with phosphorescent make-up smeared across her eyelids, avant-garde to the point of abstraction yet exquisitely Pop at the same time — a quick glance at all the references made in this piece shows how such a work forces you to go fishing among the most disparate names just to give even a rough idea of it in words. Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox's gift lies precisely in this delicate balance: on one hand, the curiosity to wander off the musical beaten path of their time; on the other, the ability to bend even the cruellest synthesizer to the will of a witty, wildly original and consistently thrilling body of songs.

The best part is that for the Eurythmics the race doesn't end here at all — in fact, all things considered, it's only just begun. But even if their fate had turned out less brilliant than it actually did, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) remains on record for generations to come, forever ready to scratch at your ears with its sinister, sinuous digital smiles.

Of a memorable touch from the masters (and of remixes a touch too clumsy)

It's truly remarkable how quickly people realize they love you once the wind starts blowing in the right direction. Just a few months earlier, as far as Rca was concerned, Eurythmics were at the bottom of the priority list; now, fresh off a tidy No.1 in the US, they've suddenly become the absolute top priority. New funds are pumped into the project's coffers, on top of the already excellent, bargain-basement quality of their own mini home studio. After all, these are the golden years of dizzying revenues from physical record sales, the music business truly is a business, and record labels are all too fond of an easy win (we'll see more of this a little further on, still in this chapter).

For the moment, what matters to Rca is speed. The success of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" hasn't yet fully faded from the charts before the public is already being swept up (and soon reconquered) by "Who's That Girl?", a beguiling, soft pop song laced with tearful synthesizers and sung by Annie with all the anguish of a jealous, insecure woman - but which, in true passive/aggressive Aberdeen-Scot fashion, also throws in a cavernous, piratical refrain where her voice punches through decisively:

But there's – Just! One! Thing!

With a bigger budget now at their disposal, Eurythmics have fun shooting an accompanying video for their new hit that amounts to a veritable who's-who of the London scene of the moment: Kiki Dee, Bucks Fizz, Blitz-kid Marilyn and Bananarama all make an appearance, taking turns escorting ladies'-man Dave Stewart around the most exclusive clubs. But once again it's Annie who steals the show: first she plays a forlorn cabaret siren, then transforms into the male figure of that same cabaret's manager, and by the video's end the male Annie and the female Annie share a sly kiss. It's another iconic success for Eurythmics, with Lennox - by switching sex - anticipating the future drag king turns of Cher dressed as Elvis Presley in the days of "Walking In Memphis" and the male alter-ego of Lady Gaga - one Jo Calderone - met in the video for "You And I" (and how could we forget Mariah Carey taking the piss out of Eminem in the video for "Obsessed"?). Soon the gossip is in overdrive, with the public and the industry alike fixated on Lennox's gender presentation, and in a now-legendary performance at the 1984 Grammys she takes the stage dressed as a man, complete with beard and a rockabilly quiff, singing "Sweet Dreams" in a lower, rasping register. You wanted a man? Here he is.

But alongside the success of "Who's That Girl?" (No.3 in the UK) soon comes the gossip-column chatter too: during the shooting of the video, Dave only has eyes for the lovely Bananarama girl Siobhan Fahey, and the two soon embark on an intense erotic/artistic relationship that will culminate in marriage four years later. The couple's entry into Pop royalty is by now a done deal.

Even more disorienting, though, is the arrival of "Right By Your Side", a perky calypso nursery rhyme dressed up with the plasticky sheen of marimba, steel drums, tambourines and assorted whistles - by now Eurythmics are really pushing their luck with a track that today we wouldn't hesitate to call a "song of the summer". And yet once again this is a track that can't be dismissed out of hand. The first half of the 1980s, after all, coincides with a particular economic moment for the British public: the explosion in popularity of so-called package holidays, of low-cost travel and all-inclusive holiday resorts. From bathing in the grey of the North Sea, even a worker of modest means can now afford to take the family on a little holiday to Malta or southern Spain - and thanks to them, spots like Benidorm and Lloret de Mar would soon become destinations of the highest trash order: people glowing with drink, vest-tan lines on sunburnt skin, letting loose in ways they'd never dare back home (a practice that, incidentally, persists to this day - at the time of writing, Kavos in Greece is all the rage). But for the British, the fascination with the life of the rich, the sun, the swimming pools, the fruit cocktails and the "exotic" beauties is worse than any drug; alongside iconic videos/showcases of the average consumer's dreams like "Club Tropicana" by Wham! and "Rio" by Duran Duran, the sound of Eurythmics' "Right By Your Side" also enters the "tropical" imagery of the era, capturing with great precision the bizarre turbo-capitalist moment of a nation otherwise gripped by the class-ridden vice of Thatcherism. But once again, listening closely to Annie's delivery through the perky, bulletproof melody of a verse, one still suspects Eurythmics are subtly having us on (a bit like when, a few years later, a couple of serial manic-depressives like Michael Stipe and Kate Pierson would sing "Shiny Happy People", confusing the casual listener: it's actually one of the most depressing songs ever recorded by a pair of human beings).

But it's not all inflatable mattresses and tin whistles; the relationship between Annie and Dave remains constantly balanced on the edge between a perfect artistic rapport and the moody clashes of two personalities who know each other all too well. Add to the satisfactions of a career that's finally taken off the stresses that come with it, and it's easy to imagine that their studio sessions sometimes recreated the atmosphere of a pressure cooker. In their case, it seems every argument ends up dragging along all the emotional baggage of their old romantic relationship, with the usual mutual recriminations over things left unresolved since the 1970s - all of it, naturally, conducted through a series of gestures and expressions utterly unknown to anyone else in the room, who sit in stunned silence watching this folie à deux play out. During one of these escalating arguments, Annie looks disconsolately out the window, resigned to the idea that the situation will soon degenerate into the usual uproar, and murmurs to herself:

Here comes the rain again…

Et voilà: "Here Comes The Rain Again" is the true jewel in the crown of the new record, as well as one of the duo's best-known songs ever. A track with an everlasting melody and an elegant string section seasoning its whimsical yet rock-solid synth-pop stride, with Lennox's voice truly shining with a light of its own. This is the essence of Eurythmics' songwriting gift: the ability to turn the most frustrating inertia into a hit to feed the whole world - the enigmatic accompanying video, shot on the forbidding cliffs of the island of Hoy, in Orkney, helps the track climb back into the major charts worldwide, hitting No.8 in the UK and a solid No.4 in America.

Though recorded in just three weeks with Rca breathing down their necks, and released barely eleven months after the previous album, Touch (1983) is once again a massive success. The iconic cover image shows Lennox half-covered by a leather mask in S&M mode, but it's the phosphorescent orange of her hair that gives away the tone of the record: an aggressive, brash album, certainly less elegant and cohesive than its predecessor, but one that successfully combines the duo's trademark synth chill with ever more populist songwriting.

The three aforementioned singles are certainly the catchiest tracks on all of Touch, but Eurythmics still manage to build other moments of considerable melodic impact. Dave Stewart is by now a keyboard wizard, well versed in pairing his beloved Movement System Drum Computer with the other instrumental sections; witness the brash funk bass of "Cool Blue", played by Dan Garcia (soon of Curve), which recalls Prince's "1999" too, through its obsessive, synthetic keyboard ostinato. But "The First Cut" also works very well, successfully blending an all-American attitude in its (still immaculately clean) guitars with ruthlessly tight European production. With the smoky, martial stride of "No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts)" we seem to drift back toward Ultravox's "Vienna", with Annie's delivery reaching the lyrical tones of a contralto of tremendous emotional impact - a studio recording of the track would be included on the 1983 edition of "Pop Goes New Year".

Keeping the link to the previous album alive are the remaining three tracks: "Regrets" unspools slyly over an almost spoken-word cadence, "Aqua" perhaps loses a little of its charm in a repetitiveness where not all the instrumental parts manage to fully color the monotony of the rhythm, but the splendid closer "Paint A Rumor" saves the day regardless: a super-minimal electronic base seasoned with Middle Eastern interlocking patterns, Greco-Roman brass lifted from old-school disco, unruly guitars and assorted samples, all elegantly stitched together into a track that, followed from start to finish (especially in its eight-minute extended version), is simply a joy for the ears of any fan of electronic music and songwriting alike.

A huge seller (it goes straight to the top of the UK Chart), at first deemed a bit pricey by die-hard early fans but eventually judged irresistibly intriguing over the long haul by the rest of the world: after all these years, Touch remains a prime example of how to reinvent yourself without selling out, and Eurythmics bank yet another moment destined for posterity.

At Rca they're pleased with the result, but to further capitalize on the situation they come up with the idea of turning Touch into a remix album to feed to the clubbing crowd - an increasingly common practice at the time, as already seen with Soft Cell and Human League. Eurythmics want absolutely nothing to do with it: however pop their output may be at this point, the idea of going clubbing is still seen as far too commercial a move for the mindset of the era. The duo thus distances itself from the project and takes no part in it, but Touch Dance sees the light of day anyway in May 1984. For anyone running a record label, the music business is also dictated by competition, and Rca have no intention whatsoever of losing ground; at the time, over at rival Warner Bros. there's the red-hot Madonna, taking club dancefloors around the world by storm with her self-titled debut album. So they hire John "Jellybean" Benitez (who was also sleeping with Madonna) and François Kevorkian, in an attempt to give Eurythmics' tracks the necessary spin to make them work on the dancefloor. Touch Dance presents itself as a four-track mini-album of remixed versions, with three of them also reworked as instrumentals, theoretically ready to be chopped up and used however any given DJ sees fit.

But the project never really takes off. There are two main reasons: the first is certainly the very nature of the Eurythmics' songs, which, however rhythmic, still come from the rigid and conceptual Kraftwerk-ian tradition and weren't exactly conceived with dancefloor entertainment in mind (unlike Madonna's, whose sound is rooted in the embers of disco music). But the second is the lack of initiative on the band's own part, who could perhaps have gotten involved in the project by re-recording some parts to make them flow better for the dancefloor (just consider the dedication to the cause shown in the remixes of Mariah Carey, who in the early '90s completely transformed her languid ballads into fantastic gospel-house epics). Benitez and Kevorkian's work is therefore a very simple remix job that merely stretches out the tracks with no twists at all, no substantial additions of instrumental parts, and not even one of those ecstatic crescendos typical of house figures like Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan. A listen that's perhaps still pleasant because of the names involved, but ultimately pointless, and even a bit frustrating.

Contributing to the overall failure of Touch Dance is also the choice of songs selected, which in order are: "The First Cut", "Cool Blue", "Paint A Rumor" and "Regrets" (with the first three also reprised in instrumental versions). In short, with not even one of the original album's famous singles included in the tracklist, the project lacks from the outset the pull needed to spark the interest of the general public — the album will barely scrape just outside the Top 30 in the UK and will miss the Top 100 in America entirely. Touch Dance thus remains an episode largely forgotten by everyone (the Eurythmics themselves included); the idea would have been a good one in theory, but disagreements between the parties and a lack of imagination in the execution turn it into a fetish object reserved for a handful of genre collectors and enthusiasts. And to think that just three years later Madonna herself would land one of the best-selling remix albums of all time with "You Can Dance", while in '88 it would be the thoroughly English Pet Shop Boys who released the most unimpeachably brilliant one of all time: "Introspective".

The last electronic stronghold

We mentioned that the music business is also about competition? Here's a direct proof of that: in 1984, mogul Richard Branson's Virgin also makes a counter-move, asking the Eurythmics to score a film it has in production — a noticeably different project, then, but probably offered in the hope of later poaching them from RCA and adding them to its own roster. Annie and Dave accept the offer right away; the money isn't bad, but above all the film in question is "Nineteen Eighty-Four", then in production under director Michael Radford. It's a well-known drama based on George Orwell's dystopian story of the same name, set in a nightmarish totalitarian future that lays out the theory of the famous "Big Brother": themes that fit perfectly with the Eurythmics' rigid electronic atmospheres. How could they possibly say no?

To best immerse themselves in the work, this time Annie and Dave retreat to the studio for entire days and work exclusively as a pair, writing and playing everything themselves. The film adaptation obviously uses edited versions of the pieces to suit the viewing experience, but on record the result of their work is collected on 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother), an alienating, kaleidoscopic synthetic magma of eight tracks laced with tribal percussion and Lennox's icy vocals. There are only two properly pop songs typical of the duo; the oxymoronic "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)" is a sprightly moment of hi-tech synth-pop with the vocals filtered through a vocoder (released as the project's first single, it will also be a huge success across Europe and Australia, while in the UK it becomes the band's sixth consecutive single to reach the Top 10). Truly splendid, too, is the delicate ballad "Julia" — the film's female character — an old-fashioned melody unfolding over soft electronic layers, with painstakingly calibrated vocal treatment that makes the whole thing melancholically ethereal.

The rest of the album, meanwhile, offers soundscapes of various kinds, but always permeated by massive doses of synth. You can hear Annie's agitated vocalizing on the opening "I Did It Just The Same" and the relentless "Doubleplusgood", while "For The Love Of Big Brother" adds the arpeggios of a sampled sitar, and the martial march of "Ministry Of Love" is enriched with African vocal choirs (all of them, again, recorded by Lennox herself).

The shadowy ambient sketch of "Winston's Diary", built from just a handful of synthesizer filaments, hints — despite its brevity — at a theme that seems inspired by Vangelis, while the gorgeous backing of "Greetings From A Dead Man", with those pearly synths accompanying a cavalry-like gait, could well have become a great song on an album of originals. Closing it all out is "Room 101" (the room in the film where each person's worst nightmare lurks), with organ and a squared-off rhythm sketching the gash of a future emptied of all human emotion and steeped in a cold, detached aura, just like the film's ending.

A big controversy still accompanies the project, one that made headlines at the time: Dave and Annie hadn't been told, but Radford had already commissioned the score for his film and would declare himself unsatisfied with their work (which Virgin would impose on him regardless). As a result, the film exists today in two versions: the original one with the Eurythmics' music, and the "Director's Cut" with the orchestral score.

An album now forgotten by the general public and often overlooked by critics too, since formally it's a soundtrack, 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother) is instead a genuinely fascinating listen in its own way, one that shows the duo's ability to craft evocative, distinctive atmospheres even outside the song format, without losing their clear signature sound in the process — which is really no small feat for a band famous the world over and caught at the height of its popular success. With hindsight, this record can be seen as the closing chapter of the Eurythmics' electronic period, a more than decent way to wrap up their first five years sitting at the synth and start a new one with a guitar in hand.

A singles band?

Roaring guitars, blazing horns and a bluesy dive bar swagger, with an energetic bass-and-drums section firing on all cylinders: so who's this now? It's still the Eurythmics, who with the new single "Would I Lie To You?" head straight for the infamous American pivot, one that will be very warmly welcomed by RCA (which, in case it wasn't clear, is among the oldest and most influential American record labels ever). A truly unexpected leap, then, but after the synthetic detours of recent months, Annie and Dave now seem intent on once again being part of a full-fledged rock band, just like in their Tourists days — only this time they deliver finely crafted pop songs with a production that nonetheless remains elegant throughout. Annie Lennox's performance on this track is superlative: she shows incredible vocal control as she scales dizzying soul cliffs without ever overdoing it with empty shouting, and keeps her diction perfectly intact — to this day, in the Anglo-Saxon world of blue-eyed soul, Annie is the only true heir to Dusty Springfield, one of those rare vocalists capable of "adjusting" her timbre at will and making it all look so terribly easy. In America, "Would I Lie To You?" sails straight into the Top 10; with that bleached mop of hair and studded leather coat sported in the video, Annie may not be African American as many had initially assumed, but a voice like hers earns her all the respect regardless.

Around this same time, Dave Stewart is also busy co-producing "Southern Accent" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and co-writes a couple of songs with Tom as well, including the hit "Don't Come Around Here No More" (if you watch the video — inspired by the story of "Alice in Wonderland" — the bespectacled guy with the sitar sitting on the giant mushroom is indeed Dave). In short, we're looking at a full-blown stars-and-stripes hallucination.

The song marking the new pivot does brilliantly pretty much everywhere, but back home, still seduced by the synth-pop of "Sexcrime", the new single is received with less enthusiasm than the run of Top 10 hits from previous records (it will stop at No. 17). A seemingly insignificant detail, but one that illustrates the complicated relationship the English have with the notorious American dream. Every Brit who likes to call themselves a true Brit will always have mocking words for the former colonies and for anyone who in some way falls for their grandiose, "crude" charm — the thoroughly English Joss Stone will find this out the hard way many years later, when her reputation is put on the line back home over her alleged "Americanization". And yet, the moment the United States opens its doors, not that many can actually resist the temptation of making the so-called leap to popularity — the Anglo-Saxon press revels in the idea of a Second British Invasion, while in diplomatic circles people often speak of a Special Relationship between the British and American establishments, a practice that gets reforged with every new election on either side (the 2001 one between Tony Blair and George W. Bush being a famous example). There will be no shortage of sharp criticism aimed at the Eurythmics over this turn, but Dave and Annie press steadily on, eager only to follow a muse that has, for now, been seduced by rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll.

And the stars-and-stripes atmosphere is even more present on "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves", another hugely successful single originally conceived as a duet with the ever-resilient Tina Turner, who however won't be available to take part in the sessions (some rumors suggest a different version of events: Tina supposedly had no interest whatsoever in duetting with a pair of "pale Anglo-Saxons"). No matter, there's still the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, ready to step up, and the duet between her and Annie produces a catchy little tune bordering on the overblown, with a watered-down, off-the-shelf feminist lyric (Lennox will go on to provide far more substantial examples of female pride in the future, both lyrically and in performance).

Things go much better with "There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)", another enormously successful single and one of the duo's signature songs, with that famous harmonica riff played by the Maestro himself, Stevie Wonder, and a bulletproof little tune that's barely worth describing since even the rocks know it by now — it would also become their only No. 1 hit in England, a nice bit of revenge for the duo right at the moment of their supposed "betrayal". But "It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" also quickly becomes a tune everyone recognizes, with Lennox's voice as always soaring into full soul mode, like a '60s diva who's somehow landed, by chance, in the '80s.

Be Yourself Tonight (1985) is, in short, the record that marks the change of direction. Tracks like "I Love You Like A Ball And Chain" and "Here Comes That Sinking Feeling" still show that ironic/depressive streak so typically English in the lyric-writing, but this time the music is straightforward, direct pop-rock with horns and guitars right up front, engineered down to the last detail for radio stations across the planet. On the elegant melody of "Adrian" there's even Elvis Costello on backing vocals (another Brit famously seduced by the American dream), while on "Better To Have Lost In Love (Than To Never Have Loved At All)" the mood turns sadly seductive, though the rhythm section still refuses to let up. Looking back to the past, then, the only holdout is "Conditioned Soul", a track built on one of those repetitive melodic patterns typical of their earlier records, though still decorated with guitar flourishes and a delicate marimba interlude - one of the few moments of breathing room on a record of driving rhythms and ever-foregrounded choruses.

Among the band's studio albums of new material, Be Yourself Tonight is the bestseller, an immensely popular record that reforges the duo's image from sophisticated synth nerds into millionaire popstars and poster children of glittery 80s excess. And as a casual listen it certainly works without a hitch, the songcraft is often textbook perfect. Undoubtedly, though, with this record much of that cross-cultural sheen also disappears - the quality that had made Eurythmics a "case" worth discussing not just on the charts but for the more demanding listener too. If much of rock criticism to this day grants Eurythmics little beyond the usual "great singles" and Annie Lennox's "lovely voice", the reason lies exactly in the radio-friendly turn of Be Yourself Tonight and the obvious shift from experimenters to "mere" hit-makers.

Unfortunately Be Yourself Tonight cannot be taken out on tour because of some issues with Annie's voice, which in truth had never really stopped for a good decade, and doctors ordered her a forced rest so as not to permanently damage her vocal cords (one can only imagine what further success the support of a world tour could have brought the record). So the duo head straight back into the studio on RCA's suggestion, and just a year later they're back assaulting the world's charts with Revenge (1986). The new batch of four singles advances like a tank; "Missionary Man" is once again a raw, energetic blues riff delivered with style - a sharp contrast to its accompanying video, in which a series of special effects (extremely sophisticated for the time) literally "build" Lennox's body out of the debris of original sin. But with "Thorn In My Side" and "When Tomorrow Comes" Eurythmics come close to brushing up against the pantheon of classic songwriting pop in the style of ABBA and Beach Boys; the former boasts a memorable sax hook so dear to the 80s and a structure where verse and bridge are every bit as catchy as the chorus, while the latter rides on a deceptively simple yet magically, unbearably emotional chord progression, with Lennox coming in on the counter-beat for the verse and delivering one of those melodies that truly never ages.

And then there's "The Miracle Of Love", a gorgeous ballad launched against a wall of orchestra and effects-laden guitars in a proto-shoegaze vein - by rights one of the most beautiful songs the duo ever recorded. No complaints so far: Eurythmics may have built their reputation on being odd, visionary experimenters in the past, but they also know how to write flawless, textbook pop songs.

On the rest of Revenge, however, there's also plenty of run-of-the-mill radio pop with no particular flair, which is unfortunately often the norm for anyone building a long-player while really aiming at crafting the perfect pop song - something made even more obvious by the fact that all the standout tracks are crammed onto side A, leaving side B somewhat neglected. So the energetic but hollow "Let's Go!" is followed by a track that smells of a jam session, "Take Your Pain Away", or a kitschy, almost Christmassy little tune like "A Little Of You", or yet another sleazy, sweaty dive-bar moment, "In This Town". Only the nostalgic closer "I Remember You", with its string section, vaguely conjures up the good old days.

With Revenge, in short, it's hard not to think of Eurythmics as a singles band, and indeed the record's overall sales don't match those of the previous effort - perhaps partly because the public was by then somewhat saturated with their presence, despite Lennox's constant reinventions. Still, there's time for a world tour, which takes the duo's songbook around the globe to great success. We're right in the heart of the 80s, the era of the big benefit gigs and oceanic crowds, of Live Aid and the stadium rock of U2, Guns N' Roses and Bon Jovi, and while on record Eurythmics might be too pop for rock crowds, live the band plays tight and aggressive, Lennox has a voice and a stage presence that need fear no comparison with her male peers, and their shows are a guarantee that helps cement the band's name among the great protagonists of the 80s.

Of course, from a strictly discographic point of view, Eurythmics could almost now end up like their colleagues Culture Club, another multi-platinum band that, after two stunning albums, lost its inspiration amid the stress of fame and Boy George's drug problems. But Annie and Dave are made of sterner stuff.

Can you feel the shame?

Just imagine the audience's surprise when - in the rainy October of 1987 - Eurythmics reappear with this:

More than a song, it's a psychodrama scored with every sonic and visual effect needed for maximum impact: the cold, detached electronic backing, the vocal hook that burrows into your head like a sick thought, and Lennox's magnetic presence as she moves in front of the camera with the ease of a professional actress, acting out the mad scene of a bipolar housewife planning her own suicide - she wants to strangle herself with an expensive silk scarf! A theme as dark as death itself, then, but also one of the most disconcerting, original and fascinating portraits of a troubled psyche ever set down in a pop song.

On returning from the grueling "Revenge Tour", Eurythmics are reduced to a shadow of themselves, and after all those months on the road they can barely even look each other in the eye; Annie is in the grip of (another) nervous breakdown after giving everything of herself on stage in front of thousands of people night after night, while Dave is not only shattered but also has to find time to marry his now ex-Bananarama girlfriend Siobhan Fahey, who's waiting for him at home with her hands planted on her hips. So their paths split: Annie goes back home to Aberdeen, and Dave - once he's fulfilled his duties as a good husband - escapes to France (a place very dear to him, as we'll see later on during the early part of his solo career). And it's here, in the quiet of a country cottage, that Dave returns to his roots as a fervent, curious digital experimenter and lays down the foundations of what will become Eurythmics' new, miraculous studio album: Savage (1987).

Once again, at the heart of the matter we find a cutting-edge piece of machinery: a sophisticated Synclavier, to be precise, which Dave bought from Buffy Sainte-Marie and is learning to program with the help of friend and collaborator Olle Romo. It's a massive synthesizer capable of recording and processing hundreds of sounds, provided you have the patience to spend your days erasing all the circuits that still carry Sainte-Marie's voice. But between oscillators, keyboard, buttons, speakers and cables, the instrument is also so bulky that it fills an entire room, leaving practically no space even for a tambourine - which works out just fine, since Annie is in exile on the other side of Europe. Dave works alone, records everything onto a cassette tape - yes, you read that right, a cassette tape - and then sends it to Annie. At first she can't quite make sense of the strangeness of certain passages and the coldness of some particularly harsh sounds, and admits she's less than enthusiastic about the work. But soon the words come pouring out of her like a river in flood, and once she lands in Paris at the Grande Armée studios, she helps write a series of songs among the most intimate, oppressive, emotional and aggressive Eurythmics ever recorded. Savage is a truly wild, jagged record - born, after all, out of correspondence, but the folie à deux afflicting its two authors helps them communicate even through cassette recordings, two souls interpreting each other's darkest feelings in an almost telepathic way.

The brisk forward march of "I've Got A Lover (Back In Japan)" gives rise to a crisp, gleaming synth-pop tune, with guitars accenting the break in the chorus, as Annie tells of various relationships scattered around the world, which may well stand for who-knows-what other obscure personal allusions:

I was bitter when I met you

I was eloquent with rage

Like honey from a poisoned cup

I flowed from stage to stage

But this is nothing compared to the lyrics of "Do You Want To Break Up?", which essentially demand the end of a relationship via a demented little tune straight out of a detergent commercial, as the most mocking of put-ons - the rhythmic backing devised by Dave doesn't come from a drum machine: it's a reprocessed Synclavier recording of him and his friend Conny Plank beating on bamboo poles in a forest during a trip to Japan. But there's also room for "You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart", a beautiful and fairly successful single that harks back to the pop songs of the recent past, unfolding over a crystalline melody and a deceptively simple but highly effective arrangement.

The heart of Savage offers up two true heavyweights: "Shame" glitters like silver in the sun, an electronic flower steeped in melancholy and resentment that blooms phrase by phrase over a stirring chord progression. The majestic, electronically treated guitars of "Savage", meanwhile, set out to paint the most beautiful sunrise ever seen, standing in sharp contrast to the sunset of the lyrics, which once again give Annie the chance to vent, at her very best, all the unspoken frustrations and pain she carries within.

From here on, Savage is a riot of ideas and sounds as disparate as they are idiosyncratic, making it unquestionably the most eclectic and controversial record in the catalogue; fun, brash and utterly raucous, "I Need A Man" is Annie Lennox's true feminist anthem, light years away from the usual do-gooder platitudes and steeped in an irony and self-possession that make her truly her own master (see also the outrageous accompanying clip, where the platinum-blonde alter ego of the desperate housewife from the video posted above shamelessly gives herself to the camera with the air of a mad, intoxicated Diva). With "Put The Blame On Me" we get a synth-funk in the vein of Prince delivered with a Grace Jones-style performance, the impalpable synth-pop of "Heaven" is wrapped in a psychedelic haze and carried by keyboards tiptoeing in a manner reminiscent of Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls", and "Wide Eyed Girl" is another instantly gripping electro-funk moment, with an aggressive vocal performance and a booming synthetic rhythm section.

The album's closing stretch is a statement in itself: completely out of nowhere comes "I Need You", an acoustic voice/guitar sketch recorded live with all the background noises and voices still clearly audible, a genuine demo that turns its lo-fi atmosphere into its greatest strength precisely because the Eurythmics are studio wizards who have always delivered sonically flawless productions – within a sophisticated record like Savage, the track's disarming simplicity stands out immediately. "Brand New Day" delivers the final blow with an a cappella gospel passage soon swept by warm gusts of keyboards reminiscent of Yellow Magic Orchestra, with the rhythm section entering to accompany its coda – the perfect, surprising close to a record as eccentric as it is able to captivate the most curious and demanding listener, track after track.

But Savage is not the whim of two pampered millionaire pop stars, but rather the work of two skilled musicians who haven't lost their sense of communicative urgency and, above all, still have the courage to express it in their own way. Compared to previous albums, the new record obviously won't sell much, and above all it won't even be supported by a tour, since its atmospheres are hardly reproducible on stage. But the Eurythmics have another idea for giving shape to their work, and they call in an then-unknown aspiring director named Sophie Muller (who had already worked with them on the now-lost video for "The Walk" back in '82). Together with Lennox's magnetic presence, always perfectly at ease in front of the camera, Sophie turns Savage into a visual album in which every track is depicted through a simple but striking film, amid shifting personas and interconnected mini-stories (such as the tale of the platinum-blonde Diva also depicted in the stunning cover photo). To this day the full visual album has never been officially reissued and can only be found on videocassette, but thanks to this venture Sophie Muller earned a Grammy nomination in '88, officially kicking off what still stands today as the most stellar career in music video direction – the list of her works is truly impressive.

In audio form, Savage remains one of the most jagged, peculiar and fascinating works in the Eurythmics catalogue, a record that still divides listeners today for the way it stands apart both from the duo's usual blueprint and from the mid-80s musical landscape at large. For this writer, it's one of their finest, but Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox themselves still consider it their most accomplished work, and the one they're proudest of.

And saying goodbye...

A wash of blues-rock guitars mixed with a new jack swing groove, and a classic late-80s video shot in a studio full of choreographed extras like a film: that's "Revival", the new single that in August 1989 marks the return of a more radio-friendly, rock-leaning Eurythmics. Not a great song, it must be said, though it's still performed with the energetic yet controlled style typical of the duo. The other pop-rock single, "Angel", features a beautiful verse with Lennox recounting a suicide (the song is dedicated to her aunt), but the stadium-sized choral refrain somewhat dulls its emotional impact, leaving a faintly bitter aftertaste. Far better is the other guitar-effects bath of "(My My) Baby's Gonna Cry", which points toward the sound that would shape Dave Stewart's first solo album, released just a few months later with his new band, The Spiritual Cowboys. We're reaching the end of the road, then, and "The King And Queen Of America" is the penultimate memorable Eurythmics single, which bursts in with a cumbersome musical-style introduction before settling into a tireless Lennox performance reflecting on the duo's long, troubled and fortunate artistic history.

It's no coincidence that Annie and Dave call it We Too Are One (1989), a title meant to make clear their inseparable artistic bond even in the face of a farewell, and they pack it with almost everything that made the Eurythmics brand a success over a breathtaking decade-long career. The title track, in fact, is another bar-room blues with harmonica and a limping rhythm; "You Hurt Me (And I Hate You)" follows the usual bass/guitar/drums setup, giving Lennox room to vent all the frustration of a love gone to hell, and her vocal performance is sublime even against a not-exactly-inspired chorus. The sound of a drum machine seasons the groove of "How Long", another standard pop-rock track designed to be sung along by crowds at their concerts. Quite different is the splendid ballad "Sylvia", a track where the absence of a rhythm section leaves the keyboards alone to carry forward a baroque melody that wouldn't be out of place in the Lennon/McCartney songbook (a curious fact from the period: also in 1989, "rival" Madonna released a track curiously built on similar tones, "Dear Jessie"). The grand finale of "When The Day Goes Down" is a sunset by the sea, a slow burner with weeping guitars and a rhythmic/vocal emphasis designed to deliver the final blow and close the curtain with elegance, kisses and embraces.

Eight albums in nine years, a career that began in new wave and synth-pop and landed in r&b, rock and blues, threading together several excellent albums and a barrage of singles that cements their place in history as one of the UK's most successful musical duos. Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart have been through more than enough together, and the time has come to let go of the reins and focus on their respective solo careers – and they do so by mutual agreement, with great dignity, reminding the whole world: We Too Are One.

But the Eurythmics wouldn't be the Eurythmics if they left things as they stood; the ambiguity of their personal relationship still has to deliver one last swipe of doubt and bitterness, leaving the listener on edge, wondering why life can be so cruel at times. There's Lennox dressed in sequins, pirouetting with nonchalance on the stage of a jazz club, the band sitting composedly waiting for her, Dave accompanying her on guitar while glaring at her; "don't ask me why I don't love you anymore" she pleads, in a performance of glittering spite disguised as resignation, as she glides through the smooth flow of verses and chorus arranged with the grace of a Burt Bacharach and enriched by a series of small but crucial touches – the use of a double vocal on the word "why" creating an unbearably emotional echo, Dave caressing the six-string in the bridge with the heartbreaking delicacy of a Mark Knopfler. More than a simple pop song, this is a moment of lived experience captured with rare clarity and translated into four and a half minutes of music. It's never easy, nor entirely fair, to say with absolute certainty what "a band's greatest song" is, but in the case of the Eurythmics, the genuine inspiration, formal perfection and emotional languor typical of their songwriting converge like a river in flood within the grooves of this rare and precious moment called "Don't Ask Me Why":

Miracle of miracles

Look what the night dragged in

It’s a pocket full of misery

And trouble on the wind

You spoiled the best years

Of your life

You took them all in vain

Now you think that you’re forgiven

But you can't be born again

And you say

Why?

You say why?

You say why?

Don’t ask me why

I don't love you anymore

I don't think I ever did

And if you ever had

Any kind of love for me

You kept it all so well hid

Promises sweet promises

You kept them from your mind

Like all the lost forgotten things

You never seemed to find

Like all the disappointments

You displayed upon your shelf

Now you’ve got no one to turn to

You’ve got no-one but yourself

And you say

Why?

You say why?

You say why?

Don’t ask me why

I don't love you anymore

I don't think I ever did

And if you ever had

Any kind of love for me

You kept it all so well hid

You spoiled the best years

Of your life

You took them all in vain

Now you think that you’re forgiven

But you can't be born again

And you say

You say

I don't love you anymore

I don't love you anymore

I don't love you anymore

I don't love you anymore

You say why?

Don’t ask me why

Revival

By the end of the “Revival Tour” in 1991, the prolific Dave Stewart had already recorded two (excellent) albums with his Spiritual Cowboys, while with the gorgeous saxophonist Candy Dulfer he scored a massive hit across Europe and America with the instrumental track “Lily Was Here“, one of the most famous “erotic themes” of the era, originally featured on the soundtrack of the Dutch film “The Cashier”.

The Eurythmics brand, meanwhile, could afford the luxury of releasing, again in 1991, the famous Greatest Hits, an eighteen-track collection (in its European edition) without even a single new song to lure buyers — such was the sheer quantity and quality of material they had at their disposal (the old single “Love Is A Stranger” was in fact reissued). Unfortunately the list leaves out the In The Garden period entirely, which would have been essential in giving a sense of the band's stylistic variety at its origins, but the duo still manages to squeeze in the single “Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)” from their Virgin catalogue, and although something may obviously be missing from the rest of the RCA output depending on taste, the run of singles lined up here is still remarkable, and the result was a smash hit in almost every corner of the world, spending ten weeks at the top of the UK chart and selling over six million copies worldwide — to this day the album remains their absolute bestseller, as well as the moment Eurythmics officially became part of the fabric of English music history, in spite of the '90s supposedly sweeping away every last trace of the previous decade's sequins and shoulder pads.

But things also went well for Live 1983-1989 (1993), a double CD that lines up, in chronological order, live performances of their best-known songs recorded around the time of their original release, recreating that sense of an “era” spanning each album — and live, the band always held up remarkably well. There's also a tempting deluxe edition of Live 1983-1989 on the market, which adds a third disc of six tracks recorded at the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome on 27 October 1989.

But for the rest of the '90s, Annie and Dave's paths run on parallel tracks; he would go on to launch a series of wildly varied projects (and score another minor hit in 1994 with the single “Heart Of Stone”), while she would reach new heights of popularity with two studio albums, the splendid “Diva” (1992) and the covers collection “Medusa” (1995).

But towards the second half of the decade came an unexpected tribute via constant MTV airplay: Marilyn Manson recorded a hugely popular cover of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)“, and the accompanying video made headlines as one of the most rotten and terrifying horror clips ever made in music, a fetish object capable of bewitching millions of fans around the world and launching the Reverend's career towards stardom.

Perhaps it was partly thanks to this unexpected boost that Eurythmics decided to get back in the game with Peace (1999), presenting themselves with a genuinely impressive lead single: “I Saved The World Today” is a delicate bossa nova with lush, velvety orchestral arrangements and a pure pop melody of the kind only they, at this point, could still pull out of their hat so far past their prime. Although these two forty-somethings obviously no longer tore up the charts, the track was warmly received pretty much everywhere, reaching no. 11 on the UK chart. “Seventeen Again” returns to a clean, nostalgia-tinged pop-rock, with lyrics harking back to the years of youth and early adventures, and that's the tone that runs through the rest of Peace: an elegant, mature album, at times admittedly a bit dated and overly comforting, but performed, played and arranged with their usual class. It's also curious to note that, in that very same year, fellow resurrected children of the '80s Culture Club also returned with a new album of original material — “Don't Mind If I Do” — and comparing the two records, they do in fact share quite a bit in terms of the mature, polished atmosphere that pervades them.

The straightforward pop-rock of “Power To The Meek” and the soft-rock ballad “Peace Is Just A World” certainly give a clear indication of the new direction, as advocates for charitable causes, that both Annie and Dave had by then taken on more or less full-time, and it has to be said that, amid all these new messages of peace, some of the charge that had made their music so electric even in its most calculatedly radio-friendly moments got lost along the way. The other heartfelt, motherly performances on “Anything But Strong” and “My True Love”, the semi-acoustic sweetness of “Beautiful Child” and a thoroughly skippable rock misstep like “I Want It All” show both the skill and the limits of these two Pop veterans, who have nothing left to prove to anyone, but who could, at the same time, still do a lot more.

There are still tracks like “I've Tried Everything”, which in its melodrama shows Lennox at the peak of her vocal powers, and “Forever”, with an epic melodic progression so '70s it brings to mind David Bowie, Elton John and Queen all at once. Even the grand finale of “Lifted” has its merits, between a slowed-down rhythm, lumbering keyboards, cascading guitars, a flute solo and long trailing choral vocals. But these are only small flashes — listening back to Peace today, it comes across as a coherent, if not exactly memorable, way for Eurythmics to truly say goodbye to the stage (at least as of this writing).

From here on, the two would appear together for the occasional award or celebration of their past, and in 2005, through Sony BMG, the entire old RCA catalog — meaning all the studio albums except 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother) — was reissued in deluxe editions with bonus B-sides and booklets packed with photos, original credits, anecdotes and assorted trivia (sources widely consulted in putting together this piece).

With its nineteen tracks, Ultimate Collection (2005) thus closes the story of Eurythmics — another compilation lining up all the duo's main hits, but adding two singles from Peace and a couple of unreleased tracks. Among the latter, the electronic-pop hybrid of "I've Got A Life" stands out, a kind of passionate and unexpected send-off for two unassuming giants of Anglo pop over the last forty years.

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