Anyone who remembers the UK at the end of the ‘seventies, with The Tourists’ version of I Only Want To Be With You blasting out of Radio One at regular intervals through the day, will know The Tourists were a hard act to follow. And initially, when Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart from the disbanded Tourists formed a rather more modern duo, it seemed they would struggle to recapture the momentum.
Heading down a new road into synth-driven electro-groove, Lennox and Stewart at first looked to have dumped their pop sensibilities in exchange for the style statement of the day. Electronic music had attractive ingredients, but it was extremely competitive, with market-leading groups like the Human League eminently capable of delivering catchy output. Just adopting the style was not enough.
The newly-formed Eurythmics took a back seat to the “New Romantic” groups in 1981 and 1982. But early in 1983 the duo struck gold with the track Sweet Dreams – fusing the popular synth-pop format with Lennox’s showstopping new image. Her short, fire-orange hair created a new fashion icon that set Eurythmics apart from the New Romantic groups, who were rapidly heading towards the more “salespersonly” image of sophistipop.
On record, Eurythmics broadly stuck to their original electro-groove brief until autumn 1983, when they prized themselves away from the minor key sequences and began to play less restrictive pop music again. The bright and cheerful single Right By Your Side served as a turning point.
On 28th October 1983 the group appeared live on Channel 4’s Friday evening youth show The Tube. It was the first episode in the groundbreaking show’s second series. Interviewing Annie Lennox before the appearance, Tube presenter Leslie Ash – debuting that night – made a special point of stressing that she genuinely meant it when describing the new single (Right By Your Side) as REALLY good. It was one of those “I know people always say this, but in this case it’s for real” kind of moments.
That evening’s joyous, televised performance of Right By Your Side was a first listen for me. Lennox mesmerised the crowd, while Stewart played a Roland G-505 guitar synth controller – as a straight electric guitar rather than as a synth. I’d have thought it was a Telecaster in a blindfold test. The new song also featured The Specials’ former brass master Dick Cuthell, alongside saxophonist Martin Dobson – for whom it would have been quicker to list the top artists he hadn’t played for than those he had. I’d never bought a Eurythmics record before, but I couldn’t get my hands on Right By Your Side quickly enough – and I nearly wore it out.
Forward from there, Eurythmics broadly switched to a song-first approach, as opposed to a style-first approach, and were much better for it. Subsequent tracks like There Must Be an Angel, It’s Alright, Missionary Man and You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart were undebatably pop classics. They remain 1980s musical landmarks, far surpassing the precedent set by The Tourists, and unlike I Only Want To Be With You, all were the creative work of the duo themselves.
All of the tracks I’ve mentioned appear on the depicted audio cassette Eurythmics – Greatest Hits, which appeared in England in 1991 on the BMG (UK) record label. The tape, which also carried RCA branding, featured 18 numbers in total, spanning the 1982 to 1989 period.
The cassette is fairly typical of ’91. High fidelity but not chrome, and heavily level-saturated without causing danger of distortion. There’s no paper label – the details are screened directly onto the cassette casing. By this time, the industry had been able to pare down the cost of the media without any noticeable reduction in quality. It was a time when the music industry could really cash in, sustaining high prices for pre-recorded cassettes, whilst paying next to nothing for the tapes and packaging.
But the digital age was fast approaching. They were wise to cash in while they still could.
Tape Tardis 