#ebtg

rockin’on 1987年1月号

Marine Girls, early 80's.

Surprise surprise i follow up a Billie Eilish review with an album you've likely never heard of. Told you.

Meet Everything But The Girl, made up of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn. They were a staple of 80s and 90s indie pop in Britain who never really did much here stateside until the late 90s. In 1995 they charted here with their hit "Missing," specifically a remix by Todd Terry, reaching number 2 on the Billboard charts here in the US.

Before this song, they were in a genre called "sophisti-pop," which quite frankly I am under-qualified to discuss and I encourage you if this album and songs and band sound interesting to you to explore on your own. I definitely plan to at some point.

Anyways, back to the 90s. Imagine you are EBTG. This is a band who was on the margins on the pop charts in Britain for more than a decade at that point. Suddenly you get a pop success off the coattails of a triphop remix of one of your acoustic songs off your 8th album. What would you follow up that album with?

If you said "with an electronic album," you were thinking just like they were. In 1996 they followed up their smash hit single with their first album departure from the more sophisti-pop style of their 80s and early 90s work to embrace the electronic scene of the time in Britain. This takes influence mostly from the trip hop and drum and bass scene.

This is where I enter the picture. For reasons I won't discuss, I've been trying to listen to more electronic music lately. Especially songs with a drum and bass or jungle vibe to them. I have a long history with electronic music, going back to the early 2010s with my interest in electronica, chiptune and dubstep music. But lately, since the turn of the 2020s, I've become more and more interested in late 90s early 2000s techno, jungle and drum and bass music. Or anything that would be classified as "Y2k" these days. Which this album definitely qualifies as.

Yesterday, I found this album at a Half Price Books while out with my girlfriend. I had known who they were before, but hadn't actually sat down to listen to a full album of theirs. And I'm definitely happy that I did. It's the kind of lowkey late 90s vibe that I am looking for right now.

Unlike the Billie review, I won't be dishing out the fawning praise that that album got. This album doesn't have the immediate punch you in the face quality to how good it is. And it's in a genre I'm not super familiar with. It's not a sweeping folk song nor is it a banger indie rock song, so I am a bit out of my depth. However, this album did really impress me and it felt like a natural album to give the spotlight on this blog.

I will say that it is a bit back loaded? The first half of this album kind of didn't really grab me, but the second half was really my style. And the first half is where the two big "hits" off that album are. Maybe my perspective on the album will change. Who knows? Here's my favorite song off the album:

This review feels a lot different than the last one. The Billie review came out of a need for me to unload about an album I thought was really good, but this review comes out more out of respect for this album and the artists behind it. I imagine this album isn't for everyone who follows this blog and reads this post, but I'm sure if you search their discography you might be able to find an album or song that does!