Eurythmics - Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)

[C’est la VoR]

What an utterly bewildering, yet fabulous choice of lead single from an act then still somewhat in an imperial era. I'm amazed nobody from the record label stepped in to veto it.



I also love the callback in Annie's Little Bird video with the return of the DEMENTED HOUSEWIFE

 

[funky]

I haven’t listened to this in an age and it’s just suddenly dawned on me that it sounds a lot like an early house tune (the euro stuff not the American house that was taking off at the time). It’s very similar to Pump Up The Volume or some of the Hardcastle stuff in its use of use of early keyboard effects and the spoken word oddities and driving industrial beats.

I mean it’s not like the likes of The Pet Shop Boys weren’t doing it too, but Annie and Dave were more known for their American R&B and Rock n Roll influences by this point.

I love their genre bending and boundary pushing, it must have been quite the ride to be a fan of them in the 80s

 

[octophone]

This was a supremely odd lead-off single. I remember hearing it on Radio 1's Round Table and one of the guests asked if it was definitely the A-side. The Eurythmics had more experimental chops than most but, needed no buckets to hold a tune, they could do something like this or the 1984 soundtrack one minute and then make an album like Be Yourself Tonight which was a straight-up pop/soft-rock album of the era.

 

[lolly]

This was a supremely odd lead-off single. I remember hearing it on Radio 1's Round Table and one of the guests asked if it was definitely the A-side. The Eurythmics had more experimental chops than most but, needed no buckets to hold a tune, they could do something like this or the 1984 soundtrack one minute and then make an album like Be Yourself Tonight which was a straight-up pop/soft-rock album of the era.

You really do have to applaud it as a statement of intent, don't you?

I guess if you look at their history it's not like you'd be surprised they had it in them from their first three albums, but like you say, they appeared to have quite determinedly gone more stadium pop/rock with both Be Yourself Tonight and Revenge.

To then decide to rip all that up for Savage took some nerve from a commercial stance, if nothing else. And then to decide to lead with Beethoven really is a WTF moment for the ages for an act experiencing the stadium filling success they were. I Need A Man would have made more sense from a transitional perspective, and I refuse to believe You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart wouldn't have been a massive hit, had it been the lead.

It really is an astonishing song, made only more so by the video. And as I've said before, it's one of those songs I'm afraid I judge people slightly on. If you just don't GET it, I feel like we're going to have some sort of incompatibility issue.

 

[octophone]

Oh, it definitely harmed the whole album era - they were deemed to have "gone weird" but, like you say "...Chill..." would surely have been a much bigger hit from another album. The Jesus And Mary Chain took to encoring with "I Need A Man", another duo who could deliver a tune but chose less traditional sonic avenues.

 

[Say Sheena-na-na]

It’s their FINEST HOUR!

 

[VV]

It's one of my absolute favourites of theirs. Why it wasn't on either of their Greatest Hits' I've never been able to fathom!

 

[Shirley]

ONE MILLION OUT OF TEN

See also:
Where are you tonight?
Are you sleeping on your own?
I need to know where you are tonight
Are you sleeping on your very own?
Tell the one that's lying with you
TO GET RIGHT UP
AND GO BACK HOME

 

[Suedehead]

TAKE A GIRL ——

 

[jivafox]

 

[C’est la VoR]

I had a listen walking back from work just now and I swear I found myself unconsciously replicating this STRUT.

 

[Christian]

I was just thinking about something SLEEK
To WRAP AROUND my TENDER THROAT

 

[Christian]

It's actually brilliant, but the fact they put it out following their stadium rock ascendance and with much more hit friendly fare available on the album really does make it a perfectly incredible pop moment.

I agree with @VoR that I can't believe someone at RCA didn't put their foot down. I guess they were too big to say no to at that point.

 

[lolly]

Just looking at Wikipedia, it wasn't released in the US. Neither was Shame - they went for I Need A Man as a double A side with Beethoven, at the same time we had INAM as the third single.

Also from Wikipedia

The song was not initially the preferred choice as lead single from the album by their record label, RCA Records, however, at this stage of their career, Eurythmics had full control over which songs were to be released as singles from their albums. Stewart claimed that "imagine, I delivered this video as the first single to the record label, they [RCA Record executives] all sitting in a room, I put it on, and there's Annie going, I was dreaming like a Texas girl". Stewart imagined the response from the record label would have been along the lines of "what the hell is this?" or "she's got a wig on and knitting".