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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-10
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REVIEWS, Page 69MUSICAngst for Art's Sake
By RICHARD CORLISS
PERFORMER: Annie Lennox
ALBUM: Diva
LABEL: Arista
THE BOTTOM LINE: In this superb collection of searingly
sad songs, she has found her authentic, artistic self.
The album's title is completely ironic," Annie Lennox says
of Diva. That sounds about right. From the moment 10 years ago
when the young Englishwoman in the orange crew cut emerged as
half of the hitmaking Eurythmics, artifice has seemed her form
of art. Like David Bowie before her and Madonna just after,
Lennox brought a chameleonic theatricality to pop music. Each
new Eurythmics video presented a new Annie: the vamp, the
gigolo, the ambassadress from another planet. So why not, for
her first album without longtime partner Dave Stewart, the diva?
In the videos she can wear beaded gowns and Victorian hats,
feathers and angel wings, white tie and tails. Another opening,
another dozen roles. Ironic, no?
No. She must have meant iconic. For what is a diva but a
singer -- Callas in opera, Garland on the screen -- whose
mission is to suffer, and to interpret suffering, for her
faithful? Last we heard, Lennox was agreeably married, but
that's not our business; besides, it's irrelevant to the
authenticity of the pain in her strong and subtle alto pipes.
What she has done in Diva is to marry that voice to a sheaf of
memorable songs that map the doleful soul of a modern woman.
This is angst for art's sake, something she can believe in and
make believable while the mike and the camera are on. At home,
if it pleases her, she can watch TV, eat ice cream, be happy.
True to its title, the album contains no guest duets by
visiting pop royalty. All the voices -- the doo-wopping backup
singers, the chanting imam, the heavenly choir -- are Lennox's.
And in seven of the eight videos made of songs in the set,
Lennox is seen alone; her only company is her image in the
mirror. There's plenty of variety in Lennox's music (long-lined
ballads, driving Euro-pop, plaints in the French style), but the
tone is consistently, nicely rueful. The sunniest tune, with a
piano chirping in a Caribbean accent, is called Walking on
Broken Glass. With self-absorption comes the dramatizing of the
diva's ego. No one has experienced or endured what she has; no
one has been so mad, bad or sad. The woman in these songs is
"blind, viciously unkind" (Why), "cynical, twisted" (Precious).
If Emily Dickinson were to show up at the Betty Ford Center, she
might testify, as Lennox does in Legend in My Living Room, "I've
shed my tears in bitter drops/ Until the thorn trees bloomed/
To take the spiky fruit to crown/ Myself the Queen of Doom." The
whole glorious album plays like an atonement for the excesses
of the '80s. The punishment is remembrance.
The woman in these songs drags her notorious past around
as if it were a fur coat worn too long in the rain. She is
someone who has done everything and now wants to feel anything.
Each disappointment is a station of the cross leading to a
Calvary with no payoff: "Ashes to ashes, rust to dust, this is
what becomes of us" (Primitive). At the end she is withered,
regretful, a little wiser, like a Samuel Beckett creature on her
deathbed. She knows this last journey will be a vacation: "Dying
is easy. It's living that scares me to death" (Cold).
The vision is bleak; the achievement is cause for
celebration. In producer Stephen Lipson's pristine settings,
Lennox's voice is encouraged to capture passion with precision,
and her songs are given room to grow. The best of this exemplary
batch, Money Can't Buy It, ricochets through five catchy musical
themes: taunting, exhorting, elegiac, cynical (an urgent "rich
white girl's" rap) and finally inspirational. "I believe in the
power of creation. I believe in the good vibration." It's a
bromide that, after all the bad vibes in its wake, rings like
a good truth. In creating and fulfilling the new role of diva,
ironically or dead serious, Annie Lennox has found her artistic
self.