1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)

1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)
Soundtrack from Eurythmics
Publication (s)	November 1, 1984
Label (s)	Virgin Records , RCA Records
Genre (s)	Synth pop , electronic music
Title (number)	9
running time	39min 5s
production	David A. Stewart
chronology Touch Dance (1984) 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) Be Yourself Tonight (1985)

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)   DE 23 12/17/1984 (12 weeks)   CH 18th 01/20/1985 (5 weeks)   UK 23 11/24/1984 (17 weeks)   US 93 05/01/1985 (14 weeks)

Singles

Sex crime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)   DE 3 12/10/1984 (16 weeks)   CH 6th December 16, 1984 (12 weeks)   UK 4th 11/03/1984 (15 weeks)   US 81 11/24/1984 (4 weeks) Julia   UK 44 January 19, 1985 (4 weeks)

1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) is a music album by the British pop duo Eurythmics . It is part of the soundtrack for the 1984 feature film and received gold status in the UK .

Emergence

Although the Eurythmics have always expressed an interest in composing film music, they turned down various offers (e.g. for Die Zeit der Wolfe ). As a consequence, they initially turned down Virgin Films' request to contribute the music for the remake of George Orwell's 1984 novel . After David Bowie was also not available, those in charge of Virgin Films and director Michael Radford intervened again, so that Lennox and Stewart finally agreed. Within 20 days, the Eurythmics recorded the music for the film and the rest of the album at Compass Point Studios in Nassau ( Bahamas ).

Music and lyrics

The production of the album is described as unusually good, only Annie Lennox's vocals are not as cleanly produced as usual. For the compositions and the lyrics, the duo was inspired by Orwell's novel, some of them used Newspeak , a version of the English language modified by Orwell .

The album begins with the slightly bluesy I Did It Just the Same , whose simple electronic groove is accompanied by bluesy piano sounds and Lennox's vocals alternating between pain and joy. The piece is used in the film to provide background music for an execution scene and a scene in which the protagonist Winston Smith has sex with an aging prostitute . The second song Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four) is a dance song whose funky synthetic rhythm is enriched with samples . After these two fast and danceable songs, For the Love of Big Brother follows a quiet piece, the basic theme of which comes from the Bhangra . Annie Lennox's singing shows parallels to Sade . The instrumental Winston's Diary leads to the last title on the A side, Greetings from a Dead Man driven by a tribal rhythm , also an instrumental piece.

The B-side starts with the second single Julia . Julia is the main female character in the novel and the film, a young rebellious woman and a member of the youth league against sexuality . The song is a moody and sad ballad that with a long acoustic guitar - solo ends. The title of the following song, Doubleplusgood, comes from Newspeak and means something like "very good indeed". It begins with a televised address announcing a great victory in South India, accompanied by drums and maracas . At the end of the song, the speech goes over to a countdown with a loud “Attention!” , But the female voice of the announcer never reaches one. The following instrumental Ministry of Love is based on just three notes , a techno- like bass line and the occasional Ha! -Call. The piece ends with a fadeout and the repetitive words "Ministry of Love". The instrumental is used in the film where Winston does something forbidden. The last track on the album is Room 101, dominated by psychedelically distorted guitars .

controversy

In August 1984 director Radford commissioned the composer Dominic Muldowney to compose a classical film score in view of the approaching completion date for the film . He had not been informed how far the Eurythmics had come with their work and therefore did not know that a finished soundtrack already existed. In view of two complete film scores, producer Simon Perry and director Michael Radford decided that Muldowney's music suited the film better than the pop version of the eurythmics. In their opinion, such music ruins the sense of the film, director Radford criticized that the decision in favor of the eurythmics was neither commercially nor artistically justified. The version that was shown at the film premiere contained only fifteen seconds of the music of the Eurythmics, otherwise only Muldowney's compositions could be heard.

The management of the Eurythmics then demanded that the film contain more of the group's music. As the financier , Virgin Films then decided to take the film out of the cinemas a short time after the premiere and to republish it in a version whose music was mainly from the Eurythmics. For scandal occurred in the award of the Evening Standard British Film Awards for 1984 as "Best Film of the Year". In his acceptance speech, director Radford attacked both Virgin Films and the Eurythmics, accusing the group of “interfering” and that “their music was not good enough for the film”. As a result, the Eurythmics saw themselves forced to present their view of things in a press release in which they rejected Radford's statements as damaging to their reputation.

As a result of this controversy, two versions of the film were released, a theatrical version with the music of the Eurythmics and a director's cut , which included more of the orchestral music of Muldowney. The album itself was not released as an official film soundtrack in November 1984 , but appeared like a regular studio album with the note "Music derived from Eurythmics' original score of the motion picture 1984" ("Music from the original music of the Eurythmics for the feature film 1984") .

Track list

1. I Did It Just the Same - 3:28
2. Sex crime (Nineteen Eighty-Four) - 3:59
3. For the Love of Big Brother - 5:05
4. Winston's Diary - 1:22
5. Greetings from a Dead Man - 6:13
6. Julia - 6:40
7. Doubleplusgood - 4:40
8. Ministry of Love - 3:46
9. Room 101 - 3:52

reception

Allmusic's William Ruhlmann points out that the album was not viewed as a regular Eurythmics studio album, but as a side project of the band for marketing purposes. The music goes well with the science fiction theme of the film, especially in the songs with vocals , but the album is below average both as an unofficial band release and as a soundtrack. The Billboard Magazine wrote in a contemporary review that the album, with its focus on electronic music, was hardly suitable for radio, not unintelligent, but less interesting for fans of the duo. The NME characterized the album as "exceptionally good" and called it "one of the most experimental studio works by Dave Stewart".

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Release date
2. ↑ Charts DE Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
3. ^ Justin Lewis: Eurythmics . In: Peter Buckley (Ed.): The Rough Guide to Rock . Rough Guides, 2003, ISBN 978-1-84353-105-0 , pp. 346 .
4. ^ Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 233.
5. ^ Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 232.
6. ^ Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 234.
7. ^ Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 235.
8. ^ Nick Robertshaw: Eurythmics '1984' Music Ignites Virgin Controversy . In: Billboard Magazine . December 1, 1984, p. 9 .
9. ^ Reviews: Eurythmics - 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) . In: Billboard Magazine . December 15, 1984, p. 72 .

literature

• Bryony Sutherland, Lucy Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography . Omnibus Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7119-9192-7 , pp. 228-237 .

Web links

• 1984 with Allmusic (English)