Revenge (Eurythmics album)

Revenge
Studio album by Eurythmics
Publication (s)	June 30, 1986
Label (s)	RCA Records
Genre (s)	New wave , pop music
Title (number)	10
running time	44min 22s
production	David A. Stewart
Studio (s)	Studio Grand Armée, Paris , Conny's Studio , Cologne
chronology Be Yourself Tonight (1985) Revenge Savage (1987)

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Revenge   DE 5 07/11/1986 (37 weeks)   AT 6th 08/15/1986 (36 weeks)   CH 7th 07/13/1986 (34 weeks)   UK 3 07/12/1986 (52 weeks)   US 12 08/23/1986 (33 weeks)

Singles

When Tomorrow Comes   DE 22nd 07/07/1986 (11 weeks)   UK 30th 06/14/1986 (11 weeks) Thorn In My Side   DE 26th 09/22/1986 (14 weeks)   AT 14th 10/15/1986 (12 weeks)   UK 5 09/06/1986 (12 weeks)   US 68 11/15/1986 (9 weeks) The Miracle of Love   DE 53 01/26/1987 (6 weeks)   CH 21st 11/30/1986 (9 weeks)   UK 23 11/29/1986 (11 weeks) Missionary Man   UK 31 02/28/1987 (4 weeks)   US 14th 07/26/1986 (16 weeks)

Revenge is the fifth official studio album by the British pop duo Eurythmics . It was released on RCA Records at the end of June 1986 and achieved gold status in Germany and the USA and double platinum in Great Britain . The single Missionary Man was awarded at the Grammy Awards in 1987 as best performance by a duo or group with singing - pop .

Emergence

The recordings for the album took place in the spring of 1986. The songs were written by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart within a week, and the recordings were completed within another month. Most of these took place in the Studio Grand Armée in Paris , only Let's Go was recorded by Conny Plank in his studio in Wolperath (district of Neunkirchen-Seelscheid near Cologne ). The songwriting was overshadowed by the death of Lennox's father, who died of cancer on April 8, 1986 . Annie Lennox dedicated the texts for Take Your Pain Away and I Remember You to him . The studio recordings should be as authentic as possible and depict the eurythmics as a band. So Stewart and Lennox selected a group of musicians to act as the backing band during the recording. These included drummer Clem Burke , keyboardist Patrick Seymour, background singer Joniece Jamison, saxophonist Jimmy Zavala and bassist John McKenzie. Unlike the previous albums, the Eurythmics rehearsed the songs together with their backing band before going into the studio. The orchestral arrangements were made by Michael Kamen .

Music and lyrics

The first piece Missionary Man is characterized by a sacred melody and is about the pursuit of money. It's a fast rocking track in 4/4 time. The second song Thorn in My Side is described as "an old-fashioned pop song with a sixties feeling in the vocals and arrangements". In the text, Lennox processes the relationship with her former husband Radha Raman. The album's first single , When Tomorrow Comes , was released in May 1986 . The Last Time is about a love affair that ends because of infidelity. The composition is carried by synthesizers and guitars, in the chorus Dave Stewart contributes the background vocals. The A-side ends with the ballad The Miracle of Love , which can be considered the highlight of the album.

The B-side opens with Let's Go , a song that should follow the tradition of the duo's first recordings with Conny Plank and was therefore recorded in their studio in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid - Wolperath (near Cologne ). Noteworthy is the song at the end of the title, which is provided with effects as later by the pop band Bros were used. Take Your Pain Away is one of the songs Annie Lennox dedicated to her late father. The fast composition is driven by a dominant bass line. Lennox's biographer A Little of You describes the weakest song on the album as an example of the cheap pop of the 1980s. The penultimate track In This Town was recorded at a party with sound engineer Manu Guiot, audience reactions and party noises can be heard in the background. The song is based on a Def-Leppard- like guitar riff . The album ends with I Remember You , with which Annie Lennox says goodbye to her father. Like the first song on the album, it is arranged like a march .

Track list

1. Missionary Man (Stewart, Lennox) - 4:40
2. Thorn in My Side (Lennox, Stewart) - 4:45
3. When Tomorrow Comes (Stewart, Lennox, Seymour) - 4:28
4. The Last Time (Lennox, Stewart) - 4:10
5. The Miracle of Love (Stewart, Lennox) - 5:04
6. Let's Go (Lennox, Stewart) - 4:08
7. Take Your Pain Away (Stewart, Lennox) - 4:30
8. A Little of You (Lennox, Stewart) - 3:53
9. In This Town (Stewart, Lennox) - 3:44
10. I Remember You (Lennox, Stewart) - 5:00

Reviews

William Ruhlmann from Allmusic writes that with Revenge the Eurythmics turned away from the pure synth-pop of earlier albums and used more influences from the pop and rock music of the 1960s. In comparison to the previous publications, he calls it a disappointment that it does not contain anything that the Eurythmics had not done before and better. Biba Kopf from NME characterized the album as being too commercial, the music was superficial and too focused on sales.

Sales figures and awards

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Germany (BVMI)	gold	250,000
Finland (IFPI)	platinum	48,885
Canada (MC)	2 × platinum	200,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)	platinum	15,000
Spain (Promusicae)	gold	50,000
United States (RIAA)	gold	500,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	2 × platinum	600,000
All in all	3 × gold 6 × platinum	1,663,885

Main article: Eurythmics / Music Sales Awards

literature

• Bryony Sutherland, Lucy Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography . Omnibus Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7119-9192-7 , pp. 268-273 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ release date
2. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
3. ^ Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 268.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 273.
5. ^ Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 271.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Sutherland / Ellis: Annie Lennox: The Biography , p. 272.
7. ↑ Biba Kopf: Eurythmics: Revenge . In: NME . July 1986.

Web links

• Revenge at Allmusic (English)