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With the release of Bare, an astonishingly direct and unflinching new album, she demonstrates this ability more clearly than ever before. Her first collection of solo, self-written material since 1992's Diva, its 11 tracks show her to have reached a new level of maturity both as a singer and as a writer. The voice, undoubtedly, has grown yet more thrilling in its colours, scope and power. And the songs? "They're about negative emotions. I have to admit that. There's simply no getting away from it." And then she smiles, adding, "In a way, this album belongs more on the Self Help shelves of a book shop, than in the record stores." Produced by her frequent collaborator Stephen Lipson, and the long-awaited follow-up to Medusa, 1995's collection of interpretations, it leads us through the painful, sometimes despairing territory of a relationship breakdown with insight and a rare originality of expression. Anyone who has ever been heartbroken will know at once that this is the real deal. "I always believed that artists had to suffer," Annie says. "I knew they had to have some dark shadow, carry some cross, in order to gain the stamp - the certificate of autheniticy, as it were. And I tell you, I have it now. I've earned it. I'm there." Fans will be left in no doubt of that, whatsoever. Wholly contemporary and yet timeless in its sound, and with all of its various stylistic moods traceable back to black American roots, Bare is a soul record in the most basic sense: it speaks right from the soul. "Whenever I feel the need to understand a situation, or to try and articulate my feelings, my instinct is to write. Well, I've been doing a lot of writing over these past four years, much of it for no-one else to read but myself. But out of that process have come these songs. Yes, of course, they're intensely personal, but they're fictitious as well as factual in that they're metaphoric and applicable to many different situations. I have a suspicion that a whole generation of people are going to identify with what I'm saying here. "The break-ups, the personal tragedies, the this, the that ... I don't know many people beyond a certain age who haven't experienced what I'm singing about. These feelings aren't unique to me. They're symptomatic of what it is to be an adult human being in this world." Such is Annie's belief in the new work, and her eagerness to bring it alive for her audience, she will tour this spring and summer for the very first time as a lone performer. "I've got all these wonderful songs - so many wonderful songs, looking back - and I want to stand there in my own shoes for once and just be myself, singing to people, without feeling intimidated." Comprising material from across the years, the Annie Lennox 'Solo' tour opens in the US later this month (March), then will move to Europe. The highlight for British fans will be performances at London's Sadler's Wells on 6 and 7 June. "Listening to music that touches you is a very cathartic and healing thing. I know it is for me. At this point in my life, I feel that my real capacity on this planet might be to connect with other people on that deep level through my songs and, therefore, that I should get out there and do it. It's not entertainment. It's something else. It's about a real exchange of energies. And already, it's so uplifting for me. When we started rehearsing, I realised that I felt more confortable standing there in front of the musicians than I ever had done before." The album's striking cover, and all other related imagery, has been created by Annie herself, working with the graphic artist Allan Martin. "I love the visual aspect of things, and have worked with so many photographers over the years," she says. "Although the results can be stunning, the fact remains that you meet them for the first time, work with them for a day, and are 'done' by them, without any input from yourself apart from your presence and cooperation. I didn't want to be that passive thing any more. I wanted to create all the imagery myself, without any filtering through or interfacing with other people. And it's been so immensely satisfying, all this experimentation. There's been a real sense of freedom." Challenging, yes. Uneasy listening, even. Yet despite the relative darkness of its subject matter, Bare is an uplifting and ultimately triumphant album - within it, there is acceptance, progression and an opening up again to the future. It is also uplifting and triumphant in the way that it shows one of the popular music world's most beloved and accomplished artists to have reached new heights of creative self-expression. Annie Lennox is a peerless singer, writer and performer, and Bare is the most complete articulation of her unique talents to date. Now, here, she guides us through its songs .... continue to: Annie describes Bare, track by track |
One
of the finest musical voices of the age, Annie Lennox is celebrated
as an innovator, an iconoclast, and
a symbol of enduring excellence within a culture too often fixated
on the lightweight and the new. Her songs, both with Eurythmics
and alone, are part of the soundtrack to our collective lives.
They have touched listeners as only the work of the most gifted
and intuitive artists can, articulating the emotions that each
one of us feels, and turning the highly specific into an expression
of the universal. In short, she is one of her medium's greatest
communicators, capable of speaking directly to and of our hearts.