Ultimate Collection

Eurythmics

2005: 82876737992


  1. I’ve Got a Life
  2. Love Is a Stranger
  3. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
  4. Who’s That Girl?
  5. Right By Your Side
  6. Here Comes the Rain Again
  7. Would I Lie to You?
  8. There Must Be an Angel (Playing With My Heart)
  9. Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves
  10. It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back)
  11. When Tomorrow Comes
  12. Thorn in My Side
  13. The Miracle of Love
  14. Missionary Man
  15. You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart
  16. I Need a Man
  17. I Saved the World Today
  18. 17 Again
  19. Was It Just Another Love Affair?

Now this is an interesting experience, for me…I’ve long felt far less interested in Eurythmics’s hit singles and more in their other album tracks, and on top of that (or because of it) I never bothered to get a copy of their Greatest Hits CD, and now I have this. Granted, the two new tracks are enough of a bonus to justify getting it, under the circumstances, but still it was a bit awkward for me to jump into.

My initial reaction to what I heard is equally surprising: I was all set to be blown away by the new remastered classics and to be astonished by the improvements, but in reality I seemed to hear pretty much what I’d always heard (and loved) and yet I found myself enjoying the tracks just a bit more than I ever did before. Whatever augmentation/cleaning has occurred here is so subtle that I simply cannot pinpoint it, yet I’m delighting in these tracks more than I ever did before. Maybe it’s the grouping—after all, as I never had the Greatest Hits CD, I’ve never listened to these particular tracks back-to-back where they’re arrayed so capably armed (as they are, individually).

Well, yummy is yummy—I need not dwell on that nor on how delicious it was to rejoice in each of these classic singles as if for the first time. What I do want to emphasize is that the two new tracks—“I’ve Got a life” and ”Was It Just Another Love Affair?”—are both solid additions to the Eurythmics catalogue of songs, yet completely unalike and therefore even more fabulous to explore. “I’ve Got a Life” I’ve been able to consider at some length in advance, as the hype campaign anticipating this sequence of releases touted it very well indeed, complete with video, and hearing it in full audio quality for the first time is absolutely fulfilling, and its self-referential tapping of the “Sweet Dreams” elements is a slickly powerful fillip; “Was It Just Another Love Affair?” is unlike any track Eurythmics have done before and yet conveys the essential Eurythmics styles…my initial reaction was that this is what Eurythmics would have done where Everything But The Girl produced “Walking Wounded,” and yet it’s beyond even that hyperbole. It’s classic, it’s modern, it’s timeless, and above all it’s EURYTHMICS—a splash from a wellspring one can never predict yet always delivers with electrifying results…and, in response to those cynics who characterize this new stuff as being just a continuation of Annie’s solo career, I want to emphasize how marvelous this track is as an example that disproves that allegation: it’s Eurythmics work, with excellent Annie-ness as an element (although she does buzzsaw one note into a wail that I don’t think was meant to sound quite that graceless), but fundamentally the impression is that of Eurythmics.

And I am VERY glad to be able to write that, because I’m beside myself with the delight of it all. D&A are delivering again; “there is no bad here,” as Trixie Speed Diva says, and I am terribly grateful for this unexpected treat (AND the remastered albums and bonus tracks, but that’s another review…).


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