plorentz's Full Review: Savage [Bonus Tracks] [Digipak] [Remaster] by Eury...
Released in 1987,Savage is the Eurythmics' most crystalline creation, not just due its electronically-induced clarity, but also in its hardness, its dryness, its fragility - the way it goes from crisp, beveled colorlessness to moments of radiant, kaleidoscopic beauty with a mere tweaking of the light source or a simple shift in the viewer's (listener's) angle - and, finally, in the wholeness of its vision.
This is the Eurythmics at their most conceptually pure, and this record, however flawed, finds the Eurythmics creating and sustaining a set of sonic and thematic constants. Savage is unique in the Eurythmics' body of work as an album whose songs all sound as if they were written to be together. Ironic then, that, for the first time, the album found Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart writing their songs separately.
In some ways, it doesn't even feel, necessarily, like a Eurythmics record at all, and it's interesting (and not all that far-fetched) to listen to it within the context of Annie's solo career. As with her 1992 solo album Diva (and to a lesser extent 2003's Bare), Savage finds Annie creating a complex, multi-dimensional persona - something like a Marilyn Monroe female impersonator playing the part of an upper middle class desperate housewife (or is it vice versa?) - and fully inhabiting that character in all its facets. (Dave's face, meanwhile, is nowhere to be found, even in this reissue's generous booklet.) The results are variously playful and psychotic, beautiful and base, crude, and unglued.
Also, while the Eurythmics were always a very visually oriented group, they took the visual element of their art to its logical extreme with this album, producing a video concept album to accompany it, which included a video clip for each of the disc's 12 tracks. As with almost all of the Eurythmics' previous work, these videos were my introduction to this new album. And frankly, they were raw, ugly things - Annie looking willfully hard and frazzled, all dressed up like a glamorous 1950's movie star, and no place to go - except, perhaps to an appointment with her therapist - alternately curling up into herself and lashing out at the viewer with a frightening ferocity, like a caged beast.
I had been a fan of the group since the first time I'd seen and had my mind boggled by the "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" video five years earlier. But with the exception of the album's lead single "Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)", this record was utterly lost on me at first. I wasn't alone. None of the record's four singles charted Top 40 in the U.S., and the album sunk away without too many people noticing.
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The record opens with a thump-thump-thump that could signify a dance floor just as easily as it could a mid-afternoon, talk-shows-and-boredom-induced throbbing in the temples, before launching into the almost industrial, minimalist groove of "Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)", whose verses are spoken narratives which Annie delivers in a heavily accented, Joan Collins type voice - all whispery gossip and delicious conjecture - while the chorus is a simple repitition of the titular mantra - I love to listen to Beethoven - broken into three distinct equi-syllabic parts with three distinct tones, so that the effect is something like an automated message voice: I love to. *LISTEN TO* Beethoven!. It's one of those songs that just has to be heard to be believed, and its choice as the album's lead single was probably a major factor in the album's eventual doom. But I loved it, and it was the sole reason (because it was left off the group's 1991 Greatest Hits compilation) that I eventually purchased a vinyl copy of the album in the mid-90s (along with a Tourists LP and the 12" of "Missionary Man", the only Eurythmics vinyl I currently own).
But while "Beethoven" sets the tone for what's to come and effectively establishes Annie's middle-aged-prisoner-of-material-dependence persona, musically, much of the album is far less challenging. Songs like the lovely single "You Have Placed a Chill In My Heart" (one of the album's most matter-of-fact moments) and "I've Got a Lover (Back in Japan)" pay homage to the group's teutonic synth pop origins while songs like "Put the Blame On Me" and the deceptively cute "Do You Want To Break Up?" have clearly been inspired by the Minneapolis R&B sound of Jimmy Jim and Terry Lewis, and Prince (whose slinky "Kiss" licks, Dave Stewart cheekily pilfers for the latter).
Calling out all the artificial constructs by which we define physical beauty (and then, ironically embracing them), "Shame" is nevertheless relentless in its wintery prettiness. On the gorgeously jaded title track, Annie's character invites a gentlemen caller in - these are my guns, these are my furs, this is my livingroom - and finds that she barely has the energy to care to seduce him. But rising out of that song's epic ennui is "I Need A Man", a terrifying expression of feral desire set to a simple beat and minimal blues riff. Here, Annie calls her bourgeois lover to the carpet, and in no uncertain terms, demands that he butch it up - Don’t powder puff! Just leave it rough! I like your fingers bare! - all with the sexual-objectifying swagger of Mick Jagger.
The insular bathroom mirror drama of it all culminates with an unlikely acoustic guitar driven song called "I Need You", which is placed in the context of a hotel lounge, full of clinking glasses, a collective rumble of conversation and momentary bursts of out-of-context laughter. It sounds live, but it feels very much in Annie's character's head (a distinction clarified by the inclusion of an actual live recording of the song as a bonus track) - the vivid and painful imaginings of someone who feels both trapped and utterly alone, struggling against the din of her neglectful audience and she pours her soul into a line like "I need someone to listen to the ecstacy I'm faking." Then, somewhat unconvincingly, the album closes with the hopeful and almost greeting-card-saccharine "Brand New Day", the first half of which is performed a capella. It's a technically brilliant track, but its hope seems impossibly facile.
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It may just be that the Eurythmics' audience was caught off guard by all this. I was 14 when Savage came out - I probably wasn't even ready for something this conflicted and complex. But then, time has been kind to this record. The day I picked up all the Eurythmics reissues, the guy at the counter somewhat sheepishly confessed that Savage was his favorite album, and I found myself nodding somewhat sheepishly in agreement. Because, for as nightmarish as it often is, the record is also uniquely moving. It was also the group's last truly great record. From here on out, Dave and Annie's working relationship would begin to deteriorate so much that they were often not even on speaking terms. In the next two years, Dave would increasingly find creative outlets elsewhere - as a producer and film scorer, but most significantly (in terms of the Eurythmics' eventual separation) leading a new band called the Spiritual Cowboys.
Like all of the other reissues in this long-awaited and most welcome series, Savage comes in a glossy tri-fold digi-pak with a generous booklet featuring lots of photos (here, they're mainly stills from the Savage video album - very cool) and Phil Savidge's historical liner notes (and art direction by longtime associate Laurence Stevens). It also included several nifty bonus tracks - mainly 12" mixes of the record's singles, but also a quirky, unreleased cover of the Beatles' "Come Together". All told, a highly rewarding disc, but one that requires time and patience.
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RATINGS:
Original album: 4 1/2 stars
Reissue: 5 stars
Total: 4.75 stars rounded up
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Savage" [deluxe edition] by The Eurythmics
RCA / Legacy Records
Originally released 1987
Reissue released 11/15/2005
Produced by Dave Stewart
Remastered by Ian Cooper
71 min.
SONGS: Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) - I've Got a Lover (Back in Japan) - Do You Want to Break Up? - You Have Placed a Chill In My Heart - Shame - Savage - I Need a Man - Put the Blame on Me - Heaven - Wide Eyed Girl - I Need You - Brand New Day /BONUS: Beethoven (Extended Philharmonic Version) - Shame (Dance Mix) - I Need a Man (Macho Mix) - I Need You (live) - Come Together
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