(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Synth-pop was one of the great inventions of the early 1980s, but it took Annie Lennox to give that invention a face and a voice. Groups like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell brought melodic electronics into the pop charts, but it was Eurythmics who married that studio-oriented genre (rather than a live one) to refined vocal artistry. The duo of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, formed from the ashes of the Tourists, debuted with In The Garden (RCA, 1981), but found the right balance with their singles from 1983–1985. The Eurythmics’ songs were poetic and exotic, melodically captivating, and superbly arranged by Dave Stewart, while Annie Lennox’s masculine, penetrating voice could shift from the detached hedonism of Sweet Dreams (1983) to the autumnal melancholy of Here Comes The Rain (1983).

The many albums of that period were unworthy hodgepodges of lesser material, but Sweet Dreams (RCA, 1983) contains their first timid hit, Love Is A Stranger (1982), and of course the title track.
Touch (RCA, 1983) features the Middle Eastern-style chant of Who’s That Girl, along with Here Comes The Rain.
1984 (RCA, 1984) contains nine rather anonymous songs.
Be Yourself Tonight (RCA, 1985) was the first album to show real personality, thanks to the unrestrained gospel energy of Would I Lie To You, complete with rhythm-and-blues horns and cutting guitars, and Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves, an even more visceral mix of gospel, soul, and funk (with Aretha Franklin).

Revenge (RCA, 1986) is perhaps their best album, thanks to Thorn In My Side (which grafts Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders-style attitude onto a Byrds-like jingle-jangle with a Phil Spector-style saxophone), When Tomorrow Comes (with a grand Jim Steinman-style melody), and Missionary Man (in which the gothic accents of their “synthetic” take on Black music break loose into a lake of noise).

Savage (RCA, 1987) and We Too Are One (RCA, 1989) are collections of generic cocktail-lounge soul.

Their fame rests almost entirely on two exceptional singles: Sweet Dreams (robotic beat, disco-diva moans, vaguely exotic chant, and a “bridge” of decadent frenzy) and Here Comes The Rain (with its almost baroque synthesizer intro, Lennox’s desolate, almost funereal whisper, and orchestral tolls that seem to herald the apocalypse). The fatalistic tone of those two singles was one of the most emblematic expressions of the post-disco and pre-techno nightclub era. Far from ecstatic, they evoked a preview of hell—yet were steeped in a kind of pathetic romanticism.

Lennox then began her solo career with Diva (Arista, 1992), in the style of soul and funk, but the single Why and other cocktail-lounge ballads (Stay By Me, Gift, Cold) were somewhat bland. It was Walking On Broken Glass that truly showcased her vocal talent. What was missing were good songs. Thus, the follow-up Medusa (Arista, 1995) merely consisted of cover versions.

Dave Stewart, who had been the true creative force behind the group, abandoned synth-pop to pursue a career as a rock guitarist with Lily Was Here (Eligible, 1989) and The Spiritual Cowboys (Arista, 1990). Vegas (RCA, 1992) was a duo with Terry Hall of the Specials. Greetings From The Gutter (East West, 1994) was another mediocre soul-rock album. He mostly devoted his time to film soundtracks.

Stewart released the solo albums SlyFi (1998), The Blackbird Diaries (2011), The Ringmaster General (2012), Lucky Numbers (2013), and Ebony McQueen (2022).