Everything But The Girl Album Poll

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Yay Eden! I didn't know this poll was gonna end tonight, but ended up playing Eden on the bus today anyway. I was trying to come to a conclusion about the songs that got left off the US version and vice versa, and I still think the US version does a magnificent job of culling the most memorable tracks on the UK version, aside from "I Must Confess" & "Bittersweet". My only complaint with the US version is the tacking on "Native Land" & "Riverbed Dry" at the end. Not only are they of a lesser quality than the rest of the songs, but they have a different sound to them and feel incongruous on there. And hell, I didn't realize the lovely "Easy As Sin" didn't make it on the UK version, that's terrible! So basically you have to have both of the damn things or make sure you've downloaded all the tracks!

Temperamental -- mmmm

Baby, The Stars Shine Bright is better than I thought

would have voted 1984 s/t or Love Not Money.
favorite song: Easy As Sin

boy, is Worldwide good! It's gotten flak for its 1991-era production, but the melodies are gorgeous, the songs fully written, and Watt has never sung better on record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1__auymS9OA

1988 Idlewild 0

:|

i turn to walking wounded often, also a GOAT album cover

Br@d, you'd like Worldwide if you love Idlewild: it's a Technicolor representation of that acoustic sound.

EBTG mean so much to me that should anything happen to Thorn or Watt I'd mourn them like I would Madonna or Ferry.

yeah i was gonna say my love of idlewild probably proved that i'm here for ebtg records that've gotten flak for their production, i'll check out worldwide soon

I think we now need a poll for Tracey Thorn’s THREE volumes of memoirs. She’s rivaling Peter Hook at this point

The first one is SO sharp.

i love ebtg, but worldwide is a stinker.

i would've voted idlewild.

worldwide is great. "old friends" is so good

The lack of love for Idlewild is indeed disgraceful, so:

Everything But the Girl - Idlewild (1988)

i love ebtg, but worldwide is a stinker.

i would've voted idlewild.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, August 18, 2020 11:47 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

worldwide is great. "old friends" is so good

― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Heh. I was wrong:

Everything But The Girl Album Poll

1990 The Language of Life 0

:|

I've had "Frozen River" stuck in my head since August 2020.

can we talk about the language of life though???? perfectly recorded sophistipop

"Driving" and its remixes are fabulous. "The Road," "My Baby Don't Love Me," "Get Back Together" (that solo!), and "Imagining America" too. It's got some dull things that remind me of the Najee and Hiroshima-esque stuff my dad foisted on me in the car.

lol i was just about to bring up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY01LLo3lo

i think this is my favorite EBTG album so far but in another way they're all my favorite. this just kinda nails how crisp and sharp the city looks after you walk out of a smoke-filled lounge at night

ha -- that's what I imagine with Temperamental but with a slight nip in the air

Have you read Thorn's memoir? She sounds bemused years later by the cost of the studio musicians and being slotted into New Adult Contemporary, despite the affection deejays had for "Driving."

i haven't yet, her books have been on my list for ages

omg worldwide

"old friends" is like minimalist adult-contemporary, remarkable

wait till ya get to "Talk to Me Like the Sea."

alfred you already know this is my highest compliment, but wow worldwide is like ebtg's heart in motion

get to "Frozen River" first

i have! it’s so gorgeous

A song that sounds like the album sleeve.

I'm very fond of Idlewild despite the production and the nice-but-not-my-thing Danny Whitten cover. Someone on the other EBTG thread rightly complimented Tracy Thorn for writing lyrics to and for other women -- these small but emphatic gestures of solidarity. "Blue Moon Rose" is in that category. And "Oxford Street" is just lovely.

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, March 7, 2009 This makes me think of my Top Ten pick Record, which unselfconsciously takes as a given the need to think out loud, to confide, in a way not too navelgazey, self-absorbed (some singer-songwriters cam make me wonder, "Whatta they need me for?"
Will have to check her books, also ETBTG albums, having only heard a few singles, back in the day.

worldwide and language of life are missteps by this band and anyone else who made records like it.

for that sort of big budget overproduced and "schlocky to the point of detriment" thing by this school of bands, aztec camera's dreamland is far superior and still a complete disappointment of an album.

nothing but respect for ben and tracey —i would rate them as an alltime favorite— but ebtg's catalogue began with an immediate slew of highlights, hit a deep and cheesy valley of disappointment, and then careened ever so consistently back up to the heights of their early records (with a completely different vibe, obvs).

i will never be convinced otherwise and i am suspicious of anyone who tries to push a different narrative.

I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you. Keep your suspicions high and your stubbornness reaching for the stars.

btw the albums before TLOF are as uneven, i.e. three or four tuneful or attractively sung non-entities per album

be suspicious of me i don't give a shit. the songcraft fucking sings

Plus, what makes those albums' arrangements "schlock" and the 1984-1988 stuff okay?

nothing but respect for ben and tracey —i would rate them as an alltime favorite—

― the beginning of the end of discourse. (Austin), Tuesday, November 16, 2021 11:42 AM

yeah i know, you're disrespecting us instead lol

i also do not understand singling out language of life which sounds to my ears like a refinement of idlewild

mid period EBTG is my favorite too! it has a nice sort of end-of-history post coldwar anomie that suits the band. 'idlewild' is the best. some clunkers on 'language' and 'worldwide' admittedly

in any event 'tears all over town', 'old friends', 'talk to me ...', 'driving' all slap

hold up, wait a minute, "take me" is a womack & womack song????

the language of life is the best album ever

no disrespect intended. i can be suspicious of someone and still respect what they have to say.

it's just puzzling because idlewild sounds like an actual record that was made by people who cared about what it sounded like, while everything that followed (until amplified heart) sounds like the coked out producer making sure all of his best bud sessions players (who are all amazing musicians, btw) get in on the action. the term "overproduced" was created for that kind of music. it's nightmarish vaporwave twenty years before the fact. deeply unsettling and creepily contrived music.

to bring aztec camera back into the discussion, i feel the same way about his post-knife albums (he also worked briefly with tommy lipuma, who was heavily involved on the language of life). it's very forced music and i just don't buy it.

(despite my militant stance here, i do like songs from this period and i will concede that "driving" is easily one of their best songs and a mini-masterpiece, of sorts. i have to apologize; i have been experiencing more frequent dissociative episodes and sometimes i say things a little more aggressively than the situation calls for while in those moments. sorry if i upset anyone. certainly not my intent. ebtg rules. aztec camera rules. tommy lipuma doesn't, but that's okay too. anyway.)

I happen to love the Dreamland album by Aztec Camera. It's probably my favorite AC album. It's definitely polished and schmaltzy, but i like it.

it's just puzzling because idlewild sounds like an actual record that was made by people who cared about what it sounded like, while everything that followed (until amplified heart) sounds like the coked out producer making sure all of his best bud sessions players (who are all amazing musicians, btw) get in on the action

Austin, I like you, but, with respect, this is the review I'd read in AllMusic guides in the late '90s by kids flummoxed by the idea of studio rock production. What makes you think Thorn-Watt weren't in charge and didn't get what they wanted?

I own Aztec Camera's Love, also produced by the fabulously named Tommy LiPuma: same sound, different chords and sounds.

Ok

I missed this but would have voted for Amplified Heart

Because I am basic

Sry

amplified heart is an amazing album

still sounds like no other '90s album: a John Martyn or Richard Thompson album with bossa nova influences but with space.

Tim’s Listening Party happening now with many Ben/Tracey tweets.

okay, I'm pretty fusin' blown away

had never really listened to ebtg til this year, but they've kind of taken over my life.

when they hit, they hit hard and become an integral part of life. so much depth.

can't really begin to answer the question in the poll. temperamental was my initial fav but idlewild and amplified heart both snuck up on me.

hadn't heard one of their albums before this year, but i'm impressed with how natural of a next step 'fuse' feels despite the big gap.

I've had pretty much the same experience as voodoo chili: barely listened to them, verging on ignorantly avoiding them, and now am astonished by the variety and emotional depth. At the moment, I love the mid-period from *Baby, the Stars Shine Bright* to *The Language of Life*. Been too busy to listen to the new one.

https://forumrecords.bandcamp.com/music - two live EBtG collections, no source/provenance given. The 13-track Walking Wounded set is more varied, catalog-wise. Name Your Price is a bonus.

The strength of their latest album (and particularly "Nothing Left to Lose") has spurred me to finally take this band seriously, and go on a buying spree into their back catalog.

First to arrive in the mail was "Love Not Money", and wow, this is so much better than I was expecting. I had mentally filed early-period EBTG in the same bucket as Swing Out Sister, not jangle pop with horns.
I'm still not 100% on songs with Ben on vocals, and the lyrics sometimes wander into sixth-form poetry, but it all just works together. This is gonna be fun.

Don't be rude about Swing Out Sister now or there will be a knock at the door (I totally know what you mean about underestimating/misrepresenting early EBTG, though).

The first SOS album is better than the first couple EBTG albums -- and EBTG are the better artists.

Actually I was imagining early EBTG sounding more like Kalima (bossa jazz pastiche, incongruously released on Factory records), but I thought that reference was too obscure.
(there can't be any Kalima defenders around here, can there?)

i find that people think there is a line that jazz-pop or sophistipop crossed where it becomes as unbearably cheesy as smooth jazz or whatever but ime this line is so subjective as to be practically imaginary.
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson)

I just tried the first SOS album, and it's over my line.
Maybe if I work my way up through Language of Life and Worldwide first, i'll be more open to a redrawing of the borders.

I like the Swamp Child album! Not actually made it as far as Kalima yet.

Swamp Children, ffs.

If you have trouble with SOS, prepare yourself for The Language of Life and Worldwide.

Not sure I ever checked out Kalima, but Antena also fits that description

i thought it was sad that only one person picked love not money and then i see that it was....me. good going 14 years ago scott.

the fairest of them all
mirror mirrorball

Hmmmmmm

EBTG At Maida Vale EP out tomorrow ❤️ https://t.co/aEUngPThM0

— Tracey Thorn (@tracey_thorn) August 8, 2023

Sounds good, if you like them stripped down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErI-YfGmj8g

had never really listened to ebtg til this year, but they've kind of taken over my life.

― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili)

I've going on a deep dive, chronologically.

So starting with Eden:

If I had heard Eden first, it would sound like they just came out fully formed. But they had a few tracks on the Pillow and Prayers compilation from 2 years earlier, and they didn't quite have the songwriting worked out yet in 1982.

"Each and Every One" - The first time i heard this song, i figured that little horn tag on the front must be a sample. But I guess it's just Ben Watt establishing his jazz bona fides up front.

"Tender Blue" - Is there a thread for songs where it starts with a lesser vocalist, then the lead singer swoops in to take over vocal duties and kickstart the track? It's such an effective trick, and there are definitely some fun examples out there ("Coffee and TV", "We Still Need More", U2 "Numb")

"The Spice of Life" - if the album was just a bunch of stripped-down indie guitar songs like this, I'd probably still have it on repeat.

"Crabwalk" -- this is the part of their portfolio where they're like "we can also go full Horace Silver Quintet on you." Is this considered "cod jazz"? I love it. It's a bit pretentious and also entirely necessary. the album definitely needed this intermission.

And then "Even So" has castanets!

"Frost and Flowers" - this feels like early EBTG at their broodiest. I wonder if they were tempted to add some 12-string rickenbacker to this and try to appeal to the Echo and the Bunnymen fans.

"Soft Touch" - I feel like Ben Watt on lead vocals might be an acquired taste...

BTW, it's like the indie labels in the mid-eighties were trying to cut manufacturing costs to stave off the inevitable death of vinyl... my copy of Eden (looks like a French pressing) must be in the flimsiest record sleeve in my collection.

Or maybe this is just a European thing? (another flimsy sleeve in my collection is a German pressing of Movement)