Everything but the Girl.

**shrug**

I'll talk about it. It's a nice album.

Everytime I turn around there's another EBTG rarity I can't find...I wish they would put out a collection of their singles and comps tracks

― iago g., Saturday, March 20, 2010 11:05 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

there's a great comp floating around the internets. whatsitcalled. ah yes, kitchen sink treasures.

― by another name (amateurist), Tuesday, May 11, 2010 5:10 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Surprised there's no discussion of the reissues...bonus discs of b-sides, demos. Bought the first 4, haven't listened yet but psyched they finally did this. Now only if they would tour!

they're not going to tour.

i haven't bought those reissues yet, just a lack of funds and the fact that i've heard a lot of the "bonus" stuff already. would love to read a good review though.

too bad, i'd never heard any of these demos, they're excellent. thanks for the reply!

The Ben Watt record is a bit weak on the lyrics but I like it nonetheless. It reminds me in parts of the Beyond The Wizards Sleeve remix of Midlake.

https://soundcloud.com/ben_watt/ben-watt-pearson-park-deep-folk-mixtape-4

I saw you standing at the bar
Don't know your name or who you are
It's packed at 2 a.m
I've got no coat

I still really, really like Walking Wounded, particularly the title track. I remember when they put that out as a single, and of course the remix of 'Missing' was a big hit and I knew about Thorn's work with Massive Attack, but even with all that in mind I couldn't believe it was the same band that put out songs like 'Driving' ... it caught my ear in a way that no Everything But The Girl song had done before.

Ben Watt's latest (Fever Dream) is even better than Hendra. It sounds a lot like Hendra —nice, strummy and modest— but just stronger overall songs. Some of the tunes even bare a strong resemblance to Amplified Heart. 'Women's Company' is a fantastic number. It's been out since the beginning of April, but I'm just now catching up to it.

Pitchfork's Britpop special got me thinking about their historical place. Here's a short appraisal and top ten.

Well, I certainly don't think of Everything But the Girl in terms of that stupid and meaningless word, but I do think of them as being very much part of the pop music landscape in '96 with singles like the remix of 'Missing' and 'Wrong' (although I thought that 'Walking Wounded' was the best track of them all) and I remember thinking how much of a surprise it was, both in the sense that they were now having big hits (I think many considered them to washed-up by the mid '90s), but also in the direction their music had now gone in.

wow that EBTG top 20 couldn't be more different than mine... band contains depths. super underrated

I should have known it would be a mistake to read the R Schreiber 1999 review of "Temperamental":

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2855-temperamental/

I should have known it would be a mistake to read the R Schreiber [year] review of [album]

every late nineties pitchfork review that mentions hearing certain songs in the context of some public place ("on the dance floor at the local sportsbar") make me feel like these people literally never left their dorms

or his parents' basement

But at the end of 60 straight minutes of this record, you feel like you've just spent half your life in an upscale women's clothing store.

"haha, that'll show them"

might be late to the game, but i just came across Ada's cover of Each And Every One today—still holds up incredibly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAYHbrcHMB8

"Missing" kills me. Revived my interest by finding an old cassette stuck in a player and this track was in the sequence. I know the feeling of this song to a tee, love this track

Alan Sparhawk guests on one of Ben's new tracks. Alan's interview with Ben is insightful: http://floodmagazine.com/70506/ben-watt-shares-new-single-irene-answers-questions-from-lows-alan-sparhawk/

interesting interview, thanks. the new song irene is quite wonderful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch? &v=XS3REGSWyd8

http://www.youtube.com/watch? &v=XS3REGSWyd8

ok then: https://youtu.be/XS3REGSWyd8

New song is nice and worth 3 posts :)

Just heard their "Birds" cover on the St. Giga archive (see ambient recommendations thread) and my God, so beautiful. Studying and stopped me in my tracks.

best ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vsMf1NQ1Q

"big deal" (1996)

biiiiiiig deeeal

would not be surprised if tracey has been side hustling in mental health the whole time because ... wow that's some insider info you got there, friend

sade also does this pretty well and of course she's easily tracey's equal, so.

this is a great live recording, btw. never heard it before—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLpqs2i7V84

"before today" live in tokyo, 1997 from the deluxe edition of walking wounded (which i am just now listening to for the first time. the extras are good! the album is forever classic.)

Several videos from this show are up on YT. Forum 1999, "Before Today"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YhnJFwriw8

sade also does this pretty well and of course she's easily tracey's equal, so

If I remember right, Sade was recording Diamond Life in the same studio where they were doing Eden.

...24 years later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOF2pjm9_IE

Whoops, missed that anticipation is over here:

Everything But The Girl Album Poll

What was this in response to? "would not be surprised if tracey has been side hustling in mental health the whole time because"

Is this (new album) being discussed elsewhere? Strangely, I really like seeing the photos of them draped over each other appearing on my Twitter feed, without not really being into what I've heard of their new recordings (very open to the idea that I'll realise I love the tracks, at some later date).

Everything But The Girl Album Poll

What was this in response to? "would not be surprised if tracey has been side hustling in mental health the whole time because"

― djh, Thursday, April 20, 2023 1:24 PM

hi.

umm, i think i meant her ability to get into hyper-specific narratives that simultaneously could apply to many different scenarios? "big deal" inspired that post and here's the first verse—

You spend four nights a week now looking for your inner child
What you gonna say when you find him?
Suppose you don't like him or he doesn't like you?
Suppose once you wake him up he won't go back to bed and wants to stay up late watching TV?
But you say there must be some reason why you feel this way

i have a lot of mental health problems, so these feel like questions from a therapist. tough, maybe even intentionally provocative, but ultimately coming from a place of compassion. and only posed in the first place to redirect and change unhealthy behavior. especially when she concludes, "big deal, that's the way we all feel." (with the implication that it's okay, she's not mocking you; the world is scary and we're all in it together)

more importantly: it's framed in that song as a relationship conflict ("first you doubt yourself and then you doubt her"), but most of the song is only about what's going on for one side — a biased narrative. if the psychoeducation i've received was worth anything at all, one of the main themes is that folks like me have an inherently biased, unhealthy narrative that needs questioning, needs correction. that she frames it in a seemingly specific relationship context, yet still manages to ask universal questions, is a pretty neat trick and what inspired my post up there. she does this a lot (especially on albums like temperamental love and its opposite). i could get into many other examples, "big deal" was just hitting with some extra heft that day i guess.

“Mirrorball” ftw

Might be of interest (Ben Watt's Private Passions on Radio 3):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001l4jf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NljK-sXaMtk