I was feeling kind of seasick, but the crowd called out for more

Annie Lennox: Medusa + Live in Central Park

Annie Lennox is one of the great pop/rock vocalists of the past thirty years, perhaps the greatest. She possesses a strong and expressive voice that has such identity, such presence. Her androgynous persona was the perfect image for the eighties, an excellent point in the highly synthesized depersonalized art of that decade from which to explore the mores of sexuality and romance. In the nineties, with the reign of political correctness, Lennox pushed more to the feminine, first imaging herself as a glamorous, feather-bedecked Diva, then here, bare, as one of the classic emblems of threatening, anarchic female power, Medusa.

Medusa is for all intents and purposes a cover album, without any proposed thematic unity, merely songs that she loved and identified with. Most of the songs are contemporary to her Eurythmics days. “No More ‘I Love You’s’” by forgotten arty synthpop act The Lover Speaks sheds much of the original’s pretense for a warm, memorable rendition. Her version of “Take Me to the River” clearly patterns itself after the Talking Heads rather than Al Green’s original, with a harder-edged synthesizer-heavy sound and a vocal approach of fury rather alien to those other versions’ yearning sexuality. Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” disperses the proggy underpinnings of the original for a sweeping, orchestral elegance. Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Down” is less well-served by this syrup-thick arrangement, lacking the scarred, burnt-out power of the original. The Clash’s “Train in Vain” gets a Sesame Street-style funk singalong reworking which kind of works in spite of itself and serves as a logical enough lead-in point to a slick modern R&B version of The Temptations’s “I Can’t Get Next to You” which showcases Annie sounding at times eerily similar to Eddie Kendricks. Her swooning, breathy interpretation of The Blue Nile’s “The Downtown Lights” is spot-on, triumphant. Her drowsy, subtle take of The Persuaders’ “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” is great until the spell is broken by the somewhat overplayed final minute. Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain” is a peculiar choice, but is thankfully stripped of any trace of reggae (which really would not have worked in this context). She ends unfortunately on a rather dull run-through of Paul Simon’s “Something So Right” which she later re-recorded with Simon (this version is appended to the end of the Live in Central Park disc and is somewhat better).

As to the Central Park concert, recorded September 9th, 1995, it features primarily songs from Diva and old Eurythmics tracks. The airtight electronic sound that characterizes Medusa is also present here, and it seems kind of weird and off-putting in a live setting, nor does it help that Lennox is backed by a soul chorus, a live rock crutch that always feels clichéd and uninspired. The pseudo-rapping at the end of “Money Can’t Buy It” is as embarrassing as ever. The Eurythmics songs lose most of their sleek sexiness in such ponderous context, which is truly unfortunate (especially for “Here Comes the Rain Again”). On the plus side, the bouncy, electronic “Little Bird” is stellar and “Walking on Broken Glass” is fun. Still, on the whole, a thoroughly inessential addition to the album.

***1/2

~ by jshopa on October 13, 2008.