Eurythmics Inducted Into Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame

Eurythmics are a duo who exceeded everybody’s expectations — maybe even their very own. Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox took their first shot at musical fame with a band known as the Vacationers within the late ’70s. The five-piece scored two small hits within the U.Okay. charts however had little success anyplace else, and by 1980, they broke up. Stewart and Lennox shaped Eurythmics on their very own a yr later, with little success. Nonetheless, 15 months later, all the things modified.

It was January 1983 after I grew to become conscious of the band. As one-half of Ramondo and the Blade, the Los Angeles morning-drive workforce on the brand new wave-leaning KROQ, I had been enjoying their tune “Candy Goals (Are Made from This)” and getting requests for it. Nonetheless, it was solely after I noticed the music video on MV3, the syndicated music-TV present hosted weekday afternoons on L.A.’s KHJ Channel 9, that I noticed this was one thing particular. The video had no coherent story — a cow wandering round a convention room? — nevertheless it was Lennox’s managed, pitch-perfect vocals, paired together with her putting, androgynous appears and depth, that made it so memorable. The person’s swimsuit and tie and brutally quick, bright-orange crew reduce contrasted with the femininity of her vibrant crimson lips and engaging eyes, making her an unforgettable determine as she pounded on a cultured desk to the driving beat of the tune. I wasn’t the one one who thought so: The night after the video’s first airing on MV3, whereas I used to be DJing on the 321 Membership in Santa Monica, I used to be bombarded with requests for “the tune from the lady in males’s garments.”

Lennox and Stewart stood out from their contemporaries not solely with their look, however with their sound. The layers of music on “Candy Goals,” and subsequently, “Love Is a Stranger,” are lush and hypnotic, offering the right backdrop for Annie’s vocals to soar over. It’s uncommon that the music can survive and thrive over such an overwhelming look, however theirs did — and nonetheless does.

Eurythmics undeniably deserve a spot within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame. Although they’re typically credited with opening up America to British new wave, they have been, in actual fact, innovators and musical chameleons. The pair altered their sound repeatedly, switching from synths (“Right here Comes the Rain Once more”) to R&B (“Would I Deceive You?”) to experimental different (“Beethoven”) to a feminist anthem that includes Aretha Franklin (“Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves”) to heartbreaking ballads (“Miracle of Love”) to, sure, straight-up, in-your-face, Grammy-winning rock (“Missionary Man”). It is going to be a few years earlier than we see and listen to the likes of Eurythmics explode from our radios once more.

Richard Blade could be heard on SiriusXM 1st Wave.

This essay is a part of a sequence — in partnership with the on-air expertise of SiriusXM — to pay tribute to the performers being inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame on Nov. 5 in Los Angeles. Catch the whole Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame 2022 Induction Ceremony on HBO Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. ET, together with a simulcast on SiriusXM’s Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame Radio (channel 310). SiriusXM listeners can even catch reside, backstage protection and commentary on Quantity on the SXM app and on Faction Discuss (channel 103).