CLASSIC ALBUM
DIVA ANNIE LENNOX
THIRTY YEARS ON, CLASSIC POP TAKES A DEEP DIVE INTO ANNIE LENNOX’S MULTI-AWARD-WINNING SOLO DEBUT, THE 90S ALBUM THAT REAFFIRMED HER STATUS AS A SOUL-POP DIVA, PROVING SHE NEEDED NOBODY TO PROP HER UP
FELIX ROWE
Annie Lennox in 1992
© Shutterstock
Anyone who’s ever been branded a ‘bit of a diva’ will attest it’s not exactly a compliment, let alone a label that you’d choose to describe yourself. Larger than life, bit of a show-off, maybe harbouring ideas above your station. Yet if anyone has ever had the right to claim that epithet – in its truest sense – it was Annie Lennox at the turn of the 90s.
Indisputably the UK’s most successful female artist at that point, Annie had topped the charts the world over as one half of Eurythmics – with four BRITs, a Grammy and three Ivor Novellos already to her name. The perfect marriage of style and substance, her peerless, pioneering image was matched by soulful powerhouse vocals.
While some of her 80s A-list contemporaries were rather unceremoniously cast aside at the turn of the decade, Annie’s 1992 solo debut Diva shored up her position. The self-assured collection – positively stuffed with hits, from the irresistible Walking On Broken Glass to the gospeltinged Why – cemented Annie’s status as a timeless star for any era. A truly formidable diva (and yes, that is a compliment).
But what you see isn’t always what you get, especially with Annie Lennox. As she explained in a BBC2 special to accompany the album’s release, the diva image was loaded with irony. “It’s quite an arrogant thing to take that name and put it on yourself. It’s like taking a crown and putting it on your head, in a way. But I do it with a smile because the diva that you see, the person in performance, is not necessarily the person that I am.”
Leggete l'articolo completo e molti altri in questo numero di
Classic Pop
Opzioni di acquisto di seguito
Se il problema è vostro,
Accesso
per leggere subito l'articolo completo.
Singolo numero digitale
Jul/Aug 2022
Questo numero e altri numeri arretrati non sono inclusi in un nuovo
abbonamento. Gli abbonamenti comprendono l'ultimo numero regolare e i nuovi numeri pubblicati durante l'abbonamento.
Classic Pop
Abbonamento digitale annuale
€51,99
fatturati annualmente