Everything But The Girl : Releases >>
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Amplified Heart >>
Amplified Heart marked a number of changes in Everything but the Girl's career, the most obvious of which was their sudden popularity when a Todd Terry remix of "Missing" became a dance-floor hit. But before the album was even recorded, Ben Watt--who with Tracy Thorn is EBTG--was hospitalized for a life-threatening intestinal disorder (see his book, Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness, for a full account). His recovery invigorates Amplified Heart, making the love songs that much more passionate, the relationship songs that much more tender, and "25th December"--the one song in which Watt sings lead--that much more heartbreaking. Thorn's captivating vocals are the focus on the rest of the album, and she's as smooth as ever; combined with the focus that she and Watt share here, it makes for EBTG's best album. --Randy Silver
Walking Wounded >>
Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl have done their share of style-hopping, from jazz pop to Britpop to orchestral pop to contemporary R&B to jazzy R&B. Their seventh album, 1996's Walking Wounded, finds the duo landing, good as new, onto the dance floor with a batch of songs based around techno-derived beats. The shift toward electronics may seem extreme for a group that courted adult audiences, but given the huge success of their 1994 beat-driven remix single "Missing" and their fruitful collaborations on Massive Attack's breakthrough trip-hop record Protection, the rewards of embracing club sounds had already been well proven. Everything but the Girl's music has always focused on Thorn's lush, soulful voice--a tribute to its versatility, it weathered well through all the group's stylistic incarnations. Walking Wounded, however, introduces a second focal point in the insanely attractive, intricately sculpted beats of the jungle offshoot drum & bass. On cuts like "Before Today," "Single," and the title track, the interaction of a beat's minutely detailed rhythms and a voice that rides smoothly over the top makes for an elegant symbiosis. And even with the help of progressive dance specialists like Howie B. and Spring Heel Jack, Everything but the Girl retains a maturity that shouldn't alienate old fans. --Roni Sarig
Acoustic >>
Though they've worked with plenty of accompaniment, the heart of Everything but the Girl's music has always been simple: a voice (usually Tracy Thorn's), a simple melody, and enough emotion to keep Kleenex in business for decades. On Acoustic, Thorn and Ben Watt strip things down to the bone, and the starkness makes the music even more affecting than usual. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the material they've chosen to work with is pretty affecting to begin with. The five covers are fantastic (Mickey and Sylvia's "Love Is Strange," Bruce Springsteen's "Tougher Than the Rest," Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," Elvis Costello's "Allison," and Tom Waits's "Downtown Train"), but the five originals, all of which appear on other EBTG albums, hold their own; and three of them--"Driving," "Apron Strings," and "Me and Bobby D"--do much more that that. --Randy Silver
Like the Deserts Miss the Rain >>
Every now and then, a band releases a best-of album that makes the previously unimpressed see what they've been missing all along. On Like the Deserts Miss the Rain Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl have created a personal blend of big hits, obscure b-sides, album tracks, and remixes that amounts to the best record of their 20-year career. We may know that they began as lefty student bossa nova interpreters, grabbed unlikely success as Sade-for-bedsits with 1984's "Each and Every One" single and 1988's Idlewild album, and went successfully house and drum & bass with "Missing" and Walking Wounded in the mid-1990s. What we perhaps missed is how subtly and powerfully they've developed their style, how even the most MOR moments have contained some kind of edge--a vocal yearning here, a rhythmic muscularity there. Thorn's lyrics are a particular revelation--defiant, angry, funny and true--and her moving expression of sisterly love on "Protection" sounds more at home here than on the Massive Attack album of the same name. In short, this is a deep and entertaining pop record that shows exactly why they've survived and thrived for so long. --Garry Mulholland
The Language of Life >>
By the time of The Language of Life, Everything but the Girl had reached a point in their career where they could get accomplished jazz musicians Joe Sample, Michael Brecker, and Stan Getz to play on their album and not have it perceived as an affectation: the duo had already made five albums that showcased Ben Watt's ability to write a classic melody and Tracey Thorn's silky vocals. In working with producer Tommy Lipuma, they made an album of superficially perfect love songs--beautiful tunes all, but overproduced to the point where the feelings behind them are only rarely glimpsed. There are some great songs, though--"The Road," "Driving," "Me and Bobby D," "Imagining America" are some of the best in EBTG's distinguished catalog--and they manage to make Language a worthy album despite the shortcomings. Check out EBTG's Acoustic for more nuanced versions of "Driving" and "Me and Bobby D." --Randy Silver
Adapt or Die: Ten Years of Remixes >>
Vocalist Tracy Thorn and multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt began making music together as Everything But the Girl in the early '80s while students at Hull University in the U.K. By the '90s their spare-yet-sensual, jazz-inflected tunes evolved nito a richly textured fusion of pop and electronica-"Pop-Tronica"-that shimmered with diverse musical idioms. A favorite both in the clubs and with critics and aficionados, the duo's innovative sound has become iconic to the genre.
Idlewild >>
Everything but the Girl have always taken a languid approach to their music, but they were at their most sublime on Idlewild. Produced by the duo's own Ben Watt, the music is stripped down to the bare minimum--a rhythm, a melody, and Tracy Thorn's divine voice--yet somehow they make it feel lush. Some of EBTG's most affecting songs are on Idlewild: Thorn's adolescent reminiscence in "Oxford Street"; "The Night I Heard Caruso Sing," Watt's ode to father and (someday) son in which he explains that the great tenor is "almost as good as Presley"; the tale of friendship in "Blue Moon Rose"; and "Apron Strings," a song of love and loss. EBTG are just as touching on Amplified Heart and Acoustic, but Idlewild is a classic in its own right. --Randy Silver
Everything But the Girl >>
Temperamental >>
Cool but not chilly at all, Everything but the Girl's Temperamental is the sound of the sweetest melancholy. Tracey Thorn's lyrics and vocals here are among her most affecting, tracing patterns of loss, loneliness, and a slightly unsettled happiness. This electronic pop makes for the perfect winter sound, as warm and bracing as a sip of cognac. --Rickey Wright
Back to Mine >>
In a market saturated by mix albums of every description, Ultra Records' Back to Mine series glows like a beacon in a fog of mediocrity. The idea is simple: artists are given a free rein to compile sets that are both intuitive and personal to their tastes, resulting in mixtures of postclub textures chiefly designed for horizontal dancing and chilled-out bonhomie. Latest recruits Everything but the Girl take to the format like ducks to water, displaying a musical pedigree that touches on house, hip-hop, and light drum & bass. Although most people have warmed to the group's shift into dance culture, what will surprise is their sublime choice of tune. Kicking off with the drum-machine jazz of DJ Cam's "Friends and Enemies," the moody hip-hop noir of Deadly Avenger's "Bayou," and their own production on Beth Orton's "Stars All Seem to Weep," the mood is stoner-paced but never drab. Follow this with a little stripped-back ambience courtesy of Carl Craig and a rousingly sanguine finale featuring Donny Hathaway's "Someday We'll All Be Free," and you have the makings of a fine night in. --Paul Tierney