Revenge
Eurythmics
1986: RCA PCD15847-2
This album came out right before I saw Eurythmics in concert for the first of two times, and it was a gas. As has been said elsewhere, for this album and tour they were truly in “rock monster” mode, rocking stadiums in a grand piss-take of the shameless tradition of lighter-waving supergroup perma-tours (but clad in European black-leather-and-white-dress-shirts). To really appreciate this album beyond its audio entertainment value you should get ahold of a copy of the Eurythmics Greatest Hits video album, the only place to see “Missionary Man” and “Thorn In My Side.” (It also has “When Tomorrow Comes” and “The Miracle of Love,” but the less said about those videos the better.)
On this my favorite track is unquestionably “Take Your Pain Away,” but “Missionary Man” and several others grabbed me right away. My friend Lucy took exception to “I Remember You,” the closing track, because Annie was on the sour side of flat on the bulk of the soaring chorus notes, and although I hear what offended her I still can’t dismiss the song outright because of it. Actually there are a few songs I just do NOT like on this album because they’re too damned peppy, and they are the dreadfully overproduced “A Little Of You” and the well-intentioned “When Tomorrow Comes,” with “The Miracle Of Love” just being too swoopy emotionally for me to even listen to most of the time.
But back to the delights here: “Let’s Go!” is probably the most unabashadly fun song Eurythmics ever slipped into their arsenal: “Right By Your Side” may have been joyful (albeit with a tinge of darkness to accentuate the brightness), but “Let’s Go!” is both playful and ever-so-delicately nasty, and it’s still a smirkfest to listen to as well as imminently danceable. I used to enjoy “The Last Time” more than I do these days, but I’m totally O.K. with that; seasonal shifts in taste don’t necessarily cast negative assessment on the things sometimes enjoyed. And I’m to this day surprised that Eurythmics never turned “In This Town” into the stadium-swayer that it seemed ready to become in its debut…hell, she was delivering a tour-worthy vocal track there, I would have sworn it was going to become the centerpiece of their tour….
One track I kinda liked at first and then lost interest in is “Thorn in My Side;” and now, nearly 20 years later, I’m happy to say that I’m enjoying it again as I originally did. Its video is enough reason to be amused by the song anytime you hear it, but overall it just sounded so generically Pop/Rock that it was almost a joke, and any joke gets old if told the same way over and over again. But what I’ve come back to loving is the dangerously-inserted reminder that Eurythmics aren’t just offering a jangly/twangy period piece, that they’re fully in command and know how to balance the schlock with the grit (even with a little vocal candy thrown in Just Because). And that reminder is what comes just before the first two choruses: first, the chord progression shifts into a zone that would lose three-chord-wonder bands in a cloud of consternation while ratcheting up the melodrama stakes; second, the “oo-woah-oo-woah-oo-woah-oo-woah” backing-vocals (multitracked Annie, natch) response, a beautiful arpeggiatiated extension of its cue, which whooshes right through the stream of this straight-ahead rock song like a computer-generated apparition. If you’re at all attenuated to nuances of production and aural play, that latter bit of seeming fluff can tell you a lot about how deftly D&A can flick their magic wand.
By the way, I mentioned that “Take Your Pain Away” was my favorite track on Revenge, but I didn’t comment any further initially. While I don’t wish to go into great detail about my love for this track, I do want to say that what I love about it is a combination of its lyric theme and its closing harmonics, the latter in particular being a joy to sing along with on the omitted notes of the vocal chording.
Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.