THE SONGS
1 WHY
Opening with that immediately recognisable soulful vocal refrain, it’s a curiously understated start to the album, finding Annie soul-searching. “Why is a deep dialogue with myself in a funny way,” Annie told the BBC. “A song about communication, or lack of communication.” As it builds into a rapturous crescendo, the mood shifts from questioning and personal doubts to a fierce and emotional call to arms, what Lennox calls, “a denouncement of things that have been applied to me that I feel are not me.” She is righting the wrongs, challenging the preconceptions of her character, by affirming what she isn’t rather than declaring what she is: only she knows the real Annie. Stereogum aptly referred to Why as the five stages of grief set to music. The single reached No.5 in the UK charts, kept at bay by Shakespears Sister’s Stay (whose haunting video, incidentally, was directed by regular Lennox collaborator Sophie Muller).
2 WALKING ON BROKEN GLASS
From that jaunty piano riff and baroque programmed strings onwards, Walking On Broken Glass is an instant hit. Deliciously catchy and immediately familiar, it’s the type of track that every self-respecting pop star would give anything to have in their arsenal. There’s a wicked juxtaposition between the heartache of the lyrics (sample phrase: “every one of us was made to suffer”) and nagging groove. Her broken heart may well be battered and bruised, but it’s throbbing to a funky beat. The greatest question, though, is why it only reached No.8 on the UK singles chart? And what megaliths were standing in the way of this juggernaut? (Culture Beat’s Mr Vain as it happens).
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