As an eighties kid, synth pop has been pumping in my blood ever since that first day I turned on my MTV. There’s some debate as to who’s considered a synth pop band and who isn’t. For this September Music Twitter challenge – #SynthPopSeptember – I’m focusing more on what’s considered synth pop, not who. The songs I’m featuring on Mental Jukebox this month aren’t solely composed of synthesizers. There may be drums, bass, and dare I say, electric guitars. But each of these songs were picked because the synthesizer is core to its being.
One of the most talented and versatile voices of our time is Annie Lennox. Throughout her time with the Eurythmics, her vocals spanned all kinds of genres, including rock, new wave, motown and soul. VH-1 once went so far as to name her "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive”. A natural contralto, Lennox pushed up to the upper octaves with this falsetto that seemed to come down from heaven. She made good singers seem mediocre, most evident in vocal range-stretching tracks like “There Must Be An Angel”.
Be Yourself Tonight, as a full body of work, was quite different from the earlier Eurythmics synth-heavy aesthetic. It had much more rock, much more soul, even some Motown. I liked those songs, but “There Must Be An Angel” is still my favorite track off the album because of Dave Stewart’s production mastery and synth hooks. A second movement to the song begins about halfway through the track with this soul-infused approach that culminates in a mind blowing harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder.
“This must be a strange deception. By celestial intervention. Leaving me the recollection. Of your Heavenly connection.”