How ToTP Made MTV Interesting
April 9, 2023 4:27 PM   Subscribe

The story of Sweet Dreams, and how Top of the Pops inadvertently created the Second British Invasion via MTV. Annie Lennox's appearance upset MTV, who pulled the video for Love is a Stranger mid way through it's US premiere because they thought she was a cross dresser. She later performed Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) at the 1984 Grammy Awards Ceremony in full male drag.

The Eurythmics was one of the few big British bands not signed to Sire Records in the early 1980's by Seymour Stein, who died this month.

The subject matter of Sweet Dreams only goes to reinforce my belief that highlighting the abusive nature of the music business is a core theme for 1980's synth pop bands. I don't know if being signed by Stein would have changed that.
posted by asok (25 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
Blog with cited sources about Annie Lennox video.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:04 PM on April 9, 2023 [4 favorites]


Aside: I've been following Trash Theory for a while now and their music history videos are really excellent.
posted by The Tensor at 5:38 PM on April 9, 2023 [4 favorites]


13 year old me was positively electrified by this song and transfixed by the video. It was probably earlier artists like Donna Summer and some of Blondie's music that first sparked my interest, but I'd say this song and the Dare album by Human League were formative in sending me on a specific musical trajectory that I've never quite recovered from. Every once in awhile I find a newer song that gives me echos of that rush I felt listening to music like this when I was young. Most recently, Tove Lo's No One Dies From Love really hit that cord for me. Great video asok. Thanks for posting.
posted by WhenInGnome at 5:50 PM on April 9, 2023 [15 favorites]


Also, as a side note, I've performed drag exactly one time in my life, and probably didn't do it well, but damn I looked good in a shimmery emerald-green dress lip-syncing to Love is a Stranger. Fond memories.
posted by WhenInGnome at 5:54 PM on April 9, 2023 [12 favorites]


that first (second actually) Eurhythmics album really did land fully formed. Singles like Sweet Dreams and Love is a Stranger cutting sharply, smoothly, coolly through all the sludge on the radio AND making the dance floors move. It all made perfect sense.

There isn't a bad song on it. But is anything better than the album's closer, This City Never Sleeps? I don't think so.

The rest of their catalogue isn't half bad either, of course. But you only get to make a first impression once.
posted by philip-random at 6:25 PM on April 9, 2023 [8 favorites]


Sweet Dreams was an amazing and magical album in so many ways. You're right, there isn't a bad song on it and I love them all but one song really captured me with it's mystery and slow build, slow fade: Jennifer.

But of course, Annie Lennox was the captivating star with her all-eyes-on-me approach. Young me definitely had a thing for her, no matter which guise she was in - blonde bombshell, S&M femme fatale, androgynous male, short-haired suit wearing brilliant redhead . She was making a point and even though young me wasn't sure what the point was, I sure wanted to find out!

But then again, take away the costumes and the videos and just pay attention to the music and more specifically, her amazing incredible voice. That's really what I fell in love with.

All times are interesting and the music and videos of those days certainly reflected the changing social mores. Me, I had no idea what was going on. I was just happy to listen to the music.
posted by ashbury at 6:45 PM on April 9, 2023 [17 favorites]


"Their music video is really great. They play cellos in a pasture with some cows, and then one of the cows becomes part of their psychodrama."
posted by ovvl at 7:23 PM on April 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


This song. And the video. I loved it and I still love it.

I was going through a break-up, K2*, and I do not break up well. This song, and the scent of vanilla candles (though I've not got sense of smell any longer) this song and that scent burned into me. I'd come in, and be alone, and then alone some more, alone for over 7 years every night, candle burning, MTV maybe on, and if it was on maybe get lucky and this video would come on. I loved Annie Lennnox and I still do but it wasn't just her, it was both her and Stewart, and the mystery of the whole thing, and the fucking cow for Jesus Christ sake -- what the fuck? I loved it.
*K2 is the second Kathy with a K that I've suffered behind, and I have not dated another Kathy with a K and I never will.

Up until watching this video I had no idea about the music, how totally off the wall it was. Pure creativity; that song is just rock solid gold. And that video is rock solid gold. I'm really glad you posted it, asok, and really glad I've given it an hour of my night. My heart is light, now, a small smile pulled onto me, a nice cap on a lazy Sunday.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:47 PM on April 9, 2023 [6 favorites]


Nice to see that that story focuses as heavily on Dave Stewart as it does Annie Lennox.
posted by intermod at 9:06 PM on April 9, 2023 [6 favorites]


Thanks for this post!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:54 PM on April 9, 2023


Annie Lennox was one my early, and still sort of remains, major crushes. Her voice is perfection to my ears.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 10:26 PM on April 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


that first (second actually) Eurhythmics album really did land fully formed
The video mentions, but I think slightly elides, the merits of releases prior to the Sweet Dreams Album - and that is fair enough in terms of their popular appeal. However - pre-synth "songs as good as "Its Good to Be Back Home Again" or, as you mention, the album In The Garden - should not be overlooked. Certainly I don't think anybody else was going from sounding like Blondie to sounding like Joy Division.
posted by rongorongo at 12:14 AM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]


The Eurythmics was one of

No “The.” Just Eurythmics. Like Talking Heads and Descendents and Scorpions.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:54 AM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]


I vividly remember the Saturday that Sweet Dreams knocked Every Breath You Take off Casey Kasem's American Top 40 #1 spot. The Eurythmics song had been "movin' up the charts" while The Police seemed like they were going to be at the top forever and ever. Not to sound too Bret Easton Ellis about it but it did feel like the end of an era, at least to teenage me.

A-and of course it's just a great song. (Though I hated it at the time.)
posted by chavenet at 7:11 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


No “The.” Just Eurythmics. Like Talking Heads and Descendents and Scorpions.

What? No, tha...

Huh. TIL. That's surprisingly surprising to me. It's very firmly in my head with the "The."
posted by Four Ds at 8:16 AM on April 10, 2023


"Ladies and gentlemen, the Roadhouse is proud to welcome The Nine Inch Nails!"
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:35 AM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]


For some reason, one of my most vivid Eurythmics memories is well after their heyday--listening to their greatest hits album while playing Escape Velocity Override in early graduate school. "Love is a Stranger" is top-five pop-song-metaphors-for-love of all time.
posted by praemunire at 10:10 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


"Love is a Stranger" is top-five pop-song-metaphors-for-love of all time.

Or as a typo once had it in my hometown newspaper, “Love is a Strangler.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:19 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]


By happenstance, I came across this relevant little pic today...
posted by Thorzdad at 12:46 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]


Similarly, it's not The The The, it's just The The.
posted by Crane Shot at 1:52 PM on April 10, 2023 [9 favorites]


YouTube threw me Dido's Lament a while back - Annie Lennox doing something a long way from Eurythmics' genre. Her voice still has that same showstopping character.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 2:06 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


Hit tip to ashbury for 'Jennifer' remembrance: My first job, making 'take and bake' pizzas, had me alone in a small shop all day, with only a crappy cassette player and slightly less crappy cassette of "Sweet Dreams" for company. I've heard the hits from it, but not the sublime and strangely uplifting 'Jennifer' which gets me through the prepping hours for a week until they both myseriously disappear again.
posted by Sparx at 2:46 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


It really is a fantastic album and Annie Lennox's presentation and voice was totally mysterious and electrifying to a young me. And that *sound*...

Also @philip-random - "This City Never Sleeps" is my absolutely favorite album closer of all time. So many albums sputter to a stop but this one goes out on a perfect mood vibe that trails off into echoes that haunt you long afterwards. And is there ever any better song for listening to on headphones and staring out the window from your train?
posted by allium cepa at 5:28 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


I've been going down an interesting rabbit hole about the reviews that The Tourists garnered from the British music press. The album "Reality Effect" - which leads with the joyous "Its good to be back home" as well as their equally upbeat cover of I" Only Want to be with you", was reviewed sulkily by Smash Hits:
"Plenty of lasting writing talent but as much character as an iceberg. ELO would have been proud of some of this, but it's SO depressingly sombre. Let down by po-faced lyrics about 'life'"
Its a reminder about how much sway the music press held at the time - and how they will randomly come to a consensus that such-and-such a band was worthless/derivative or lacking in some way. There is a story about the making of the video for Its Good to be Back home again - that the band had invited a large set of fans to be turn up for the filming. Apparently some music industry journalists also got word of he event - but the fans, knowing how shittily they had written about the group - conspired to make sure they never made it to the event.
posted by rongorongo at 12:32 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]


What? No, tha...
Huh. TIL. That's surprisingly surprising to me. It's very firmly in my head with the "The."


To be fair, it's a very common error, especially among journalists, including the narrator of TFA.
posted by desuetude at 11:58 PM on April 11, 2023


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