walking upstream…
Eurythmics
sourcesWikipedia23 · Salon · MusicRadar
Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart met as bandmates in the short-lived Tourists before reinventing themselves as Eurythmics in 1980, trading jangly power-pop for a colder, more exploratory sound they worked out on a portable synthesizer during a stalled Australian tour. Their 1981 debut, 'In the Garden,' recorded in Cologne with krautrock producer Conny Plank and members of Can, taught Stewart to treat the studio itself as an instrument — a lesson that paid off on 1983's breakthrough 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),' a home-recorded fusion of icy sequenced bass and Lennox's gospel-trained belt. They spent the rest of the decade restlessly genre-hopping across soul, rock, and pop before splitting in 1990, reuniting occasionally since, and entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
the sound in question
1983
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)Eurythmics
walk the tributaries ↓
Can1970s · krautrock / experimental rock / art rock
Eurythmics' 1981 debut 'In the Garden' was co-produced by krautrock architect Conny Plank at his Cologne studio, with Can's Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit brought in as session players — Czukay adding French horn and tape treatments, Liebezeit his signature motorik drums, across several tracks including 'Never Gonna Cry Again.' Stewart later credited Plank and Czukay with teaching him to 'record all different kind of sounds and mix them into the actual track,' a studio-as-instrument philosophy that carried straight through into 'Sweet Dreams' two years later.
listen: upstream & here
1972
Vitamin CCan
1981
Never Gonna Cry AgainEurythmics
listen forSet Can's hypnotic, bass-driven 'Vitamin C' against 'Never Gonna Cry Again' — the very track Czukay and Liebezeit played on — and listen for the same interlocking, trance-inducing repetition, Liebezeit's light, rolling groove sitting under Lennox's vocal.
Aretha Franklin1960s-70s · Soul / R&B / Gospel
Lennox has named Aretha Franklin among her formative vocal heroines, and critic David Gates once summed up her style in Esquire as 'one of the great white soul singers: out of Aretha by way of' disco. The admiration turned into direct collaboration in 1985, when Lennox and Stewart wrote 'Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves' and brought Franklin in to duet on it, pairing her thundering gospel testimony with Lennox's own soul-trained belt.
listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone ↗
1967
RespectAretha Franklin
1985
Sisters Are Doin' It for ThemselvesEurythmics
listen forPlay 'Respect' beside 'Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves' and listen for the same shape: a vocal that starts strong and keeps building over a horn-driven backbeat, refusing to let a declaration of self-worth go unpunctuated.
David Bowie1970s · Art rock / Glam rock
Stewart has described first hearing Bowie's music as a 'mind-blowing experience' growing up, and critics have long grouped Eurythmics with the wave of early-'80s synth-pop acts — alongside Gary Numan, OMD, and the Human League — who inherited the icy electronic textures and gender-bending theatricality of Bowie's Eno-assisted Berlin period. Lennox's severe, androgynous crop and men's suit in the 'Sweet Dreams' video extended the same instinct Bowie had spent the '70s exploring: pop stardom as a costume to be tried on and discarded.
listen: upstream & here
1977
HeroesDavid Bowie
1982
Love Is a StrangerEurythmics
listen forPlay 'Heroes' next to 'Love Is a Stranger' and listen for the same clipped, glacial synth pulse wrapped around a vocal that stays oddly composed even as the lyric describes losing control — coolness as its own kind of drama.