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Released:
19 Oct. 1999 |
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| PEACE |
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- submitted by Eurythmistan visitors
- Sophie Scott from United Kingdom wrote on Dec 7. 1999:
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I know this is meant to be reviews of 'Peace' but I'm going to be naughty and submit my review of their concert at Wembley the other night. It was a really great night, as it was the first time I've seen them in concert (well, I'm only 13.)
They stuck to the setlist almost exactly, except for they missed out 'When The Day Goes Down' for some reason.
It still doesn't seem real, that I was in the same room as two of the people I admire most in the world. OK, it was an incredibly big room, and there were at least 10,000 other people there as well, but still.
The atmosphere was briliant, despite the depressingly middle-aged audience. Whent they played 'Sisters...', that was when the atmosphere really picked up.
Just a quick word about the support act, joi. They were kind of like Asian dance music with guitars. I really liked them. Anyway, back to Dave and Annie.
When they played '17 Again' and they had all these images of them on the screen, I thought that was really cool.
When they went off for the first time and all the Christmas trees appeared I thought it was really clever the way they had the Internet progress bar to signal the time until they came on.
The acoustic stuff was good but I thought it should go near the beginning, not the end.
Then they did 'Peace Is Just A Word' and 'Sweet Dreams...' And then it was over. I could have stayed there all night!
If one more person comes up to me at school and goes "oh, my mum\dad\aunt\uncle\GRANDPARENTS went to see Eurythmics the other day" I swear I am going to scream.
I've just looked back at this and seen how long and boring it is so I'm going to stop now. EURYTHMICS RULE!!!!!!!!
KT Mankawski from Europe wrote on Dec 7. 1999:-
Peace os r'anol-esur CD on re venule viae vorula!!! O tean re s'sone ere erear ana r'vuniae uf Ann os lie i'evuneruge te l'fisic-al. O luve r'sone uf "I Saved the World Today". Ven o e'ear ir furot r'MTV, E e'os ell su e'surunise rear rev iven er aai ro-ere, su e eress ir os e ena s'nev a'anor reir n're-ron. O irusur vanur ro taie reis ninur rear o e'an-nure-aiarec vor s'euruv eara vori ro taie reis CD nossia-le!!!
Zhen De Mah from China wrote on Dec 7. 1999:-
I really not a Eurythmics fan, but my cousin borrowed me Annie Lennox's DIVA album for listening and I feel mad in love. I have also MEDUSA and now very happy I have a very expensive copy of PEACE. This music/voice make me sleep and wake up me in early morning. So sweet this rock and roll !
Andrew Ritchie from Canada wrote on Nov 26. 1999:-
Much more than a come-back or revival album rooted in nostalgia and re-hash, Peace continues the Eurythmics musical legacy of evolution, progression and professional excellence.
This album has something in it that is so utterly magical. It has the lyrical energy of Savage and the informed musical sensibility of each of their previous albums. Peace makes it clearly evident that Dave and Annie have both learned so much as songwriters and producers in this decade of superb solo work.
From what I've gathered, Peace is a fairly bleak summary of existence with momentary flickers of optimism and hope. Even the most seemingly positive songs are tainted with just a streak of darkness and foreboding. "Beautiful Child," for instance, has a line explaining that the human race is running out of space but that it's the only place we've got and we're stuck with it; a touch of apology, perhaps, to the 'beautiful children' who will one day inherit this troubled earth.
In contrast, "Power To The Meek" is a free-spirited rendering of blind and furious devotion to seize the day - I'm alive! And that's enough to make you want to shout and be heard.
Annie's golden voice carries "Peace Is Just A Word" to glorious heights of melodrama and on a track like "My True Love" it paints a coy, tragic lullaby. On "Lifted" she finally tackles all of the gospel and soul that had been slowly mounting throughout the album, rounding out the record on a rich and focused note.
The weakest track on the album, in my opinion, is "Anything But Strong" whose lyrics venture into somewhat simplistic and cliched territory, drawing upon bland and obvious lyrical imagery. Musically and vocally the song is incredibly strong, but it's lyrical content is too rudimentary and flat for my liking.
In contrast, "I've Tried Everything" bristles with brilliance! It works on so many levels to achieve possibly the most poignant moment on the album, dredging up all that nameless pain we've all struggled with. Similarly, "Forever" is alive with enthusiam and has a historical charm about it that would make Lennon proud. Dave works incredible magic on this song and Annie sings it with true, scratchy soul, bringing the finale of the song to a spine-tingling climax.
"I Want It All" is the "I Need A Man" of Peace - an unmittigated, unrelenting demand for everything - done with a twist, of course.
"17 Again" is a marvelous way to open the record. It is a brief, warm and honest catalogue of the duo's history and their time together in the plastic worlds of media and stardom. The inclusion of a verse from "Sweet Dreams" was an ingenious maneuver; a haunting, truthful mantra that adds so much to the song's powerful arrangement. Indeed, some things never change.
"I Saved The World Today" with all of it's overstated irony, is brilliant for its lush vocal arrangements and its dark effervescence, sung with a naive, inverted sort of joy.
Peace is a musical masterpiece that enjoys a high rank among my favourite Eurythmics records.
James Mitchell from United Kingdom wrote on Nov 25. 1999:-
We've all waited long enough...when I first heard 'I SAVED THE WORLD TODAY', I thought THEY'RE BACK! But just like other reviewers I can't help thinking there is something missing... Don't get me wrong the album itself is fabulous!, it is following 'WE TOO ARE ONE' after all! But, there is nothing ground-breaking...maybe I've been spoiled since 'BE YOURSELF TONIGHT' when I first fell in love with EURYTHMICS and the joy of discovering 'FOR THE LOVE OF THE BIG BROTHER','TOUCH' and 'SWEET DREAMS' albums that had gone before. Even 'REVENGE' had it's moments and the best tour! {so far?}
Then a return to form with 'SAVAGE', with those dark lyrics and striking images...although a very personal album, it is very focused and captures the dynamic aspects of BOTH personalities of EURYTHMICS. Then the lowest point 'WE TOO ARE ONE' with the exception of 'DON'T ASK ME WHY','ANGEL' and 'WHEN THE DAY GOES DOWN', what a disappointment! Completely lacking in any character and feels almost drained of ideas...'KING AND QUEEN OF AMERICA','REVIVAL' I think sums up the worst features of this functional album.
'PEACE' falls somewhere in-between these: the VOICE still gives us goose-bumps particularly 'PEACE IS JUST A WORD' and 'MY TRUE LOVE'; the MUSIC is generally mellower than before but reflects the mood and emotions of the lyrics, especially the enchanting 'I SAVED THE WORLD TODAY'...the fantastic 'DIVA' and also 'MEDUSA' both contain a similar collection of songs. But just what is missing? Maybe I'm too demanding! To catch up on ten years I was hoping for something to knock me off my feet...instead I'm just tapping them! Maybe that'll change after the concert in Glasgow on Monday...keep you posted!
Kasper Michelsen from Denmark wrote on Nov 25. 1999:-
Peace is an excellent album - and more than this, it is absolutely fantastic.
When I heard it the 1st time I thought "well, 'I Saved The World Today' and '17 Again' are nice, but the rest isn't that interesting!" - BUT the more you listen to this album, the better it gets - you just can't deny it.
'17 Again', 'Saved the world...', 'Anything but Strong', 'Peace Is Just A Word', 'I Want It All, and 'Forever' are all outstanding, and the rest of the material is fantastic, too (though I find 'Lifted' strange, it is nice as ending of the album).
I think Peace is an absolutely excellent album, and recomment it to everyone who likes 'Saved The World'.
Ernestine Plath from Puerto Rico wrote on Nov 23. 1999:-
I had been waiting for a new album, either by Annie Lennox or by a reunited Eurythmics, for a long time. Obsessively, for little more than a year, I visited this amazing website for any news about them; then, at last, it happened: they were BACK!!!
Needless to say, I rushed to buy the album the day 'Peace' was released. When I played it, and heard the melody exactly before La Diva starts singing the first verse of '17 Again', I thought to myself, 'This doesn't sound like Eurythmics'. Then, five seconds later, I said, 'Anyway, none of their albums sound alike.' And I was totally right. This is a great album, one of their best. Although, at first listen, it sounds mellow at times, if you listen carefully to the way Annie delivers and phrases the lyrics, the rage is there. I would say it is implosive rather than explosive.
I have never been able to describe what Lennox's voice (and the concise intelligence behind it) has done and does to me. I think that, although a respected artist and vocalist, she is undeservedly buried under the ephemeral flashiness of some pseudo-artists (who shall remain unmentioned for fear of commiting sacrilege!) Few singers/interpreters have the ability of singing a song like 'I've Tried Everything' the way she does: with rage, frustration, anger, childlikeness, weariness, and trembleness, without being overwrought--all at the same time!
And, as I have written elsewhere, it seems to me that this is Eurythmics' most pessimistic album (don't get me wrong! My favorite album is still 'Savage'.) But, at the end of that album, the promise and reality of a 'Brand New Day' was in response to the sequence of songs as waking from a dream/nightmare, opposed to the fact that in 'Peace', she is still stuck in the other "nightmare" that is life, which she cannot get out of, except through the act of suicide--a theme she has written about in the past; only, this time, she doesn't have the willingness to do it. (For a deep analysis of this, rent Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece film 'Persona'.)
If you don't agree, I beg the people reading this review to listen to the whole album, listen closely to the way she interprets the lyrics, and it is impossible not to see that most of the album is filled with pessimistic messages. The 'positive' ones feel forced out of her, not to say that 'Lifted' means, in the context of the whole album, being finally free from being alive (once again, ignore the 'uplifting' lyrics. Remember '...you're a bird in the sky...now you can find peace at last'? Don't tell me this isn't a song with oximoronic, mixed messages about life and death!)
Anyway, that is my review. Any comments, please send E-mail to veronikableu@hotmail.com
Postscript: Take this album seriously! It's no sugar-candy kid's stuff!
Mauricélio Avelino Alves from Brazil wrote on Nov 22. 1999:-
Eu sou um grande fan deste brilhante grupo desde os bons tempos de sweet dreams, fiquei desapontado com a separação que interrompeu por alguns anos o precioso desempenho desenvolvido por estas verdadeiras almas gemeas. quando vi que voltara disse pra mim mesmo que bom o mundo musical está salvo para depois de algum tempo tomar nota de I Save The World Today verdadeiramente o mundo musical está invadido de coisas fúteis sem inovações e estilo e eles inteligentemente não caíram na onda do patético techno dance! aqui no Brasil vemos chegar e sair muitos grupos instantânes mas com a volta dos Eurythmics isto será diferente, pois sabemos que quando um grupo desativado a muito tempo retorna pode ser uma operação caça-níqueis eles são uma notável excessão, pois fizeram um dos melhores albuns pop dos últimos tempos
com competência e criatividade, não exibiram o mesmo brilho em carreira solo, mas juntos muitos horizontes serão alcançados.A voz de Annie está mais forte e expressiva do que nunca é prezeroso ouvi-la apoiada pela gutarra de Dave, como que a separação trouxe amadurecimento para ambos. Eurythmics é definitivamente um grupo classe A.
Ugo Coppola from Italy wrote on Nov 16. 1999:-
I am not sure if I'm the right person to review an Eurythmics album because I don't have any of them (!!), only the Greatest Hits and the Live (which is after all another kind of Greatest Hits). But all the same I honestly have to say that my only reason for buying the album, initially, was the fact that "I saved the world today" simply hypnotized me in the literal sense of that word, i.e. I played it continuously for about three hours the first day,three hours the second... anyway,after a while I got tired and pressed the FORWARD key on my player. "Lifted".
Well,I got hypnotized again...
So,I thought: what is there in these new Eurythmics songs so hypnotizing? Is it Annie's unearthly, wonderful, magical, spine-chilling voice? Is it Dave's elegant guitar work? (Glad he's finally returned to the real guitar playing!) Is it the elegance of the surrounding strings/keyboards arrangements?
There was only one way to discover it: buy the album. And of course I bought it and got hypnotized another 11 times... especially with "Peace is just a word" (to understand what I mean by "unearthly voice", just listen to the starting lines...), with the open-sky, open-heart, open-arms melodic construction of "Forever" (even better than their original source,i.e. Lennon/McCartney) and with the caressing sweetness of "Beautiful child". Also when the rhythm builds up (without exaggerating: this is exactly the key that makes this album have its magic), for example in "I want it all" and "Power to the meek", the mesmerizing spell remains intact, for reasons I cannot really explain because I cannot even explain them to myself.
What more can I say about this disc? Well, nothing, really. What I know is only that, since I bought it (Oct. 15) and up to the end of October, it completely obscured all my other CDs, and I have hundreds of them, i.e. it was the only thing spinning on my player.
Then,between October 31st and now (Nov. 16), some other nice things have come out, but I must admit that "Peace" is still #1 on my very personal "Top 10 Most Frequently Played CDs" chart.
Steve from USA wrote on Nov 12. 1999:-
So many of us wanted another "Sweet Dreams" or "Touch." We wanted to dictate that Eurythmics should only return only as the brilliant techno band of yore we first knew and loved. The have not returned that way. The world changes. We change. And so have they. With "Peace," they've reinvented themselves once again. But isn't that really what this duo has always been about? Dave and Annie are having fun on this album, and they deserve it. On the first few listens, it perhaps seems they are a little too comfortable in their worldwide success --but listen more and you hear some very creative, moving statements being made, lyrically and musically, with fun, touching references to their past work sprinkled throughout. And the themes -- bitterness and regret, heartbreak and moving on, salvation and tenderness -- bless this album as strongly as any prior Eurythmics work. Contrary to many reviews, I feel "My True Love" is one of the album's most powerful songs -- Annie's voice loud and clear and mournful over Dave's subdued but beautiful music. A bitter, bitter ballad that is the best of their many sequels of comeuppance to "Who's that Girl?" (Did you get the broken "china cup" connection?). "Forever" rips off the Beatles, granted, but does it so bombastically, with such verve, it stands on its own as a new Eurythmics masterpiece. My only criticism is that Annie doesn't use her voice to the fullest on this album. I saw them in LA and know she still has the voice that "There Must Be An Angel" and "I need a Man" are made of. She's warming up on this album. To newcomers, her voice is as amazing as it was when we first heard her sing "Sweet Dreams." But for old-timers, we know she is capable of so much more. With Eurythmics together again, that will come.
Earlier reviews