"Savage" by EURYTHMICS – November 1987 Seventh Album on RCA Records featuring Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (November 2005 UK Sony/BMG 'Special Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster with Five Bonus Tracks, Deluxe Artwork Digipak Packaging and Ian Cooper Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Eloquent With Rage..."

 

I was a huge fan of the EURYTHMICS and their sassy Synth-Pop - Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart hitting it out of the album/hit singles ball park more times than people cared to count.

 

They had hooks, cool, choruses and lyrics. In fact I wallowed in May 1985's "Be Yourself Tonight" (with guests like Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers) and July 1986's follow-up "Revenge" with its 'Thorn In My Side' and 'The Miracle Of Love' melodies that swooped and moved. But man November 1987's "Savage" tested my patience - and if I'm totally honest and even on re-hearing the record via this fabulous 'Special Edition' CD Remaster from 2005 - it still does. 

 

"Savage" has always been described as their 'difficult' album, Annie on the cover looking like a darker trollop version of Kelly Reilly's 'Beth Dutton' from the Yellowstone TV Series after a night out battering poor chancer-men at the bar hoping for some love action with a babe way past their buckle belts. The slightly disheveled lipstick smeared Stepford Housewife vibe of the front cover continues with photos on the inside - Lennox all cleavage but her look - dead inside - and worse - hating what kind of woman she has become. And therein lies the anger that fuels the whole album, a woman who feels she shouldn't have arrived at this place of dancefloor compromise - ranting against unfaithful lovers with more than a few sinister thoughts in her weary head. Eloquent with rage...

 

This 'Special Edition' CD reissue and Expanded Edition Remaster (like all the others in the series) comes in Digipak 'Deluxe Packaging' with a beautifully presented 24-page colour booklet, five bonus tracks (B-sides and 12" mixes) and a muscular IAN COOPER Remaster done at Metropolis Studios from original master tapes. There's much to get Beethoven over...

 

UK released 14 November 2005 - "Savage" by EURYTHMICS on Sony / BMG Music Entertainment 82876 561192 (Barcode 828765611923) is an 'Special Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster with Five Bonus Tracks (Two Unreleased) and Expanded Packaging that plays out as follows (70:44 minutes):

 

1. Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) [Side 1]

2. I've Got A Lover (Back In Japan)

3. Do You Want To Break Up?

4. You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart

5. Shame  

6. Savage 

7. I Need A Man [Side 1]

8. Put The Blame On Me

9. Heaven

10. Wide Eyed Girl

11. I Need You

12. Brand New Day

Tracks 1 to 12 are their seventh studio album "Savage" - released November 1987 on RCA Records PL 71555 (LP) and PD 71555 (CD) and in the USA on RCA Victor 6794-1-R (LP) and RCA Victor 6794-2-R (CD). Produced by DAVE STEWART - it peaked at No. 7 in the UK and No. 41 in the USA. 

BONUS TRACKS:

13. Beethoven [Extended Philharmonic Version] - Taken from the 12" Version

14. Shame [Dance Mix] - Taken from the 12" Version

15. I Need A Man [Macho Mix] - Taken from the 12" Version

16. I Need You [Live] - PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (no recording details)

17. Come Together - PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

PHILL SAVIDGE provides the new liner notes in the colourful 24-page booklet that pictures the 45-single artwork for the album's four singles - "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)", "You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart", "Shame" and "I Need A Man". Shame there are no lyrics, but it does look substantial and the IAN COOPER Remaster is fabulous - really clean and not too ramped up for the treble sake of it.

 

Can't say I ever dug "Beethoven..." but I did warm to the jaunty and fun "I've Got A Lover (Back In Japan)" and the spookily upbeat "Do You Want To Break Up". Faith is restored with three wickedly good Eurythmics tunes in a row - first being the strangely uplifting "You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart" (I recall I bought the CD single in some kind of tin packaging) and then "Shame" where Lennox name-checks the cinema, TV, theater and dancehalls - girls feeling the emotional longing and whiplash that follows. "All mockery is laughing, all violence is cheap..." are the lyrics printed on the cover of the booklet - taken directly from the album's title track "Savage". This is where their greatness come through - channeling all that hurt into riffage, techno beats and drum whacks (dig that brilliant guitar solo that lingers like the song does). You savage...brilliant.

I hated Side 2's "I Need A Man" - something not quite right about the way it's presented - all falsely upbeat that doesn't work. And they were clearly channeling their inner Prince with the flick-guitar funky "Put The Blame On Me" which might be one of the album's hidden gems. But my heart has always been with the whispering "Heaven" - a typically soothing Synth-Pop groove that hooks you in and won't let go. And it finishes on two I wasn't too enamored with either.

 

While I have major reservations about the album being a cohesive whole - bizarrely the five bonuses add loads to this reissue and punch up a 3-star release to 4. The 'Extended Philharmonic Version' of "Beethoven" runs to 4:31 minutes as opposed to the LP cut of 4:53 minutes. The less is more approach allows this wildly different almost Frankie Goes To Hollywood version morph into (for me) a more successful song. The 'Dance Mix' of "Shame" is just extended a tad (5:38 minutes as opposed to 4:28 minutes), echoes on the vocals and more Slapstick punches and Piano solo - but again I prefer it. Same goes for the 'Macho Mix' of the "I Need A Man" 12" single rather than the LP cut - it features more Stewart Guitar flourishes, more Lennox wild vocals and whacks that beat with a vengeance (5:55 minutes as opposed to the LP cut at 4:21 minutes). 

 

They then do an acoustic duet live on "I Need You" that strips down the menace of the song to two people sparring - it draws roars of approval from the audience. Then out of the blue - we get a Previously Unreleased cover of The Beatles' 'Abbey Road' opener "Come Together" done in a 'Beethoven' type Synth-Pop. Frankly I would have dug this on the album way more than the irritating 'bored audience' version of "I Need You". 

Annie may have been too tired to think about the dirty old dishes in the dirty old kitchen sink, but spare a thought for the good 'love' on this 'I just want someone to hold' Eighties brute. "Savage" has its admirers I know and this is the temple version of it they need to attend...