Temperametal

English duo Everything But The Girl hit big when "Missing", a track from their 1994 album "Amplified Heart", was given a dance remix and peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1996. On this 1999 album "Temperamental", fully embracing this house/electronica sound, the duo created an excellent album that spotlights that sound. This music is low on emotion and high on technical details of the music, and it lends itself to repetition and extended development of musical themes, perfect for night time activities. The duo adds other flavors to the basic mix. The title track "Temperamental", "Five Fathoms" and "Lullaby Of Clubland" are good examples of standard house tracks. "Low Tide Of The Night", "Downhill Racer" and "No Difference" lean toward soul music. "Hatfield 1980" has a bit of glitter sprinkled throughout. "Compression" is a long (7:11) instrumental. It is my least favorite track, because the lack of a vocal and the repetition of the same musical line make it rather flat for me. The final track, a collaboration with Deep Dish, is "The Future Of The Future (Stay Gold)". It is quite a fugue (7:52), with pounding beat, prominent and varied percussion, rippling techno arpeggios and odd background voices, electronically enhanced. The album vocals of Tracey Thorn are clear and restrained. Sometimes they make me think of the quiet soul vocals of Sade, and sometimes they are like chanting. Ben Watt - co-writer with Tracey Thorn, instrumentalist and chief producer - backlights her vocals with arrangements which subtly reflect evening expectancy.The music serves as a good setting for the lyrical content of the album's songs. The action of many of the songs occurs at night, in and around "night life". The first line Tracey sings is "I walk the city late at night", and in the next song she is "...inside in the daytime, outside in the night time". In "Lullaby Of Clubland" she declares, "I want it if I know it's out there everywhere", then spots someone "...standing at the bar, don't know your name or who you are...I'm into you/When are you going home?/Get into me." In "No Difference", her partner at home is being difficult, and she says "You watch the phone like it was the TV...Well me, I'm going out, with or without." There are sketches of relationships, usually works in progress, some beginning, some ending ("I'll take you home and make it easy", "I don't know what you want from me", "I know how hard it is to watch it go.") Another reality of urban life is related in "Hatfield 1980": "...scary at night time...I'm seeing my first knife, my first ambulance ride." Regardless of the weighty things happening, the general mood is rather detached. It is almost as if life in this world occurs in a perpetual fog where things remain safely vague for those who dwell inside. As the final track ends, the fog lifts a little: "Tomorrow will never come...What you gonna do about me NOW? It's so bright tonight." It sounds hopeful.

Well to start off.... im listening to it right now. Its what i listen to at work.. then i take it out of the player and right into my car it goes... strange thing is it never gets old.I found this group initially because of Tracy Thorne from massive attacks "Protection." Then i realized they hosted the song Five Fathoms from this CD on the Hitch movie with Will Smith. It was the song on the second club theme in the movie. Its a good mix of low tempo to mid-high tempo beats, mellow vocals, with unique electronic sounds. Since my purchase, I started to hear their music everywhere... most recently in JCPenny's. Needless to say, i stayed in that same section until the song went off.If youre fighting yourself on this one. fight no more! make it the music choice of the day/week/month, whatever!

I've realized that pretty much anything from Everything But the Girl is a must buy! Just buy 3 more of these CDs and I instantly loved each of them as I'd had them for years. Highly recommend this CD!I've recently discovered Tracey Thorn's (lead singer of this band) solo music too. She's just as brilliant on her own as with her husband in Everything But the Girl. Highly recommend her music too!

Is it just me, or does "Temperamental" sound less innovative and fresh compared to "Walking Wounded"? For the first time since jumping into dance/D&B. our dynamic duo sound a little tired and out of ideas: "Blame" and "Compression" are practically instrumental. Still, with "Lullaby of Clubland", "No Difference", "Low Tide of the Night", the result is a sonic send-off until Thorn and Watt both reinvent their sounds releasing solo albums and DJ master mixes in the years to come.

Continuing in the territory of Walking Wounded, the beats and melodies are excellent throughout. Highly recommened.

Still put this on frequently along with Walking Wounded when I'm looking to have good music to do work to.

Product arrived on time and in great condition.

I was expecting this to be better. I have other albums by Everything But The Girl that I love. This one only had a couple of songs I like. They are still an excellent musical group.

Sou suspeito prá falar dessa banda, adoro tudo que eles fazem e com esse cd não foi diferente. São como vinho, só melhoram com o tempo.

Great!

Es ist Geschmacksache, natürlich, aber ich persönlich verstehe gar nicht, warum dieses Album insgesamt so „schlecht“ bewertet wurde. Ich liebe an EBTG, dass sie ihre Musikproduktionen stets so abwechslungsreich und vielfältig gestalteten. Wer auf Downtempo, Chill, Lounge und Drum‘n‘Bass in der Lightversion steht, kommt bei diesem Album voll auf seine Kosten, eine bunte Mischung... hinzu kommen wirklich schöne Melodien. Insgesamt sind es für mich einfallsreiche und gelungene Kompositionen, ich bin total begeistert. Bestes Album für mich!

I only became a EBTG fan after the release of the Todd Terry re-mix of their fabulous song Missing, which I bought as a CD single version - containing several different versions of the same song because I knew, or thought I knew, I wouldn't like any of their other songs on the original Amplified Heart album. I waited for "Walking Wounded" to be released as I had heard this was to be in the same style as Missing, and loved every minute of that CD - playing it over and over. There were no less than four hit singles taken from Walking Wounded, of which I enjoyed the Todd Terry remix of the adultery-themed "Wrong" the most.After Walking Wounded everything seemed to go quiet on the EBTG front and I lost interest. I bought The Best of EBTG because it included Protection and Better Things - Tracey Thorn's collaboration with Massive Attack, and the Todd Terry remix of Driving. I didn't like any of the early songs on that album initially, but grew to enjoy their covers of Rod Stewart's I don't want to talk about it, Paul Simon's Only Living Boy in New York, and EBTG's own early song Each and Every One. The problem with this earlier material, for me, is lack of song hooks and sense of energy. This problem was completely resolved by their dance-orientated material, which also managed to remain lyrically consistent with their themes of romantic alienation, regret and loneliness - striking a chord with many of us.I was surprised and delighted to discover this one later album by EBTG called Temperamental, as it had completed bypassed me at the time of release. In style it is a direct successor to Walking Wounded, and I would argue that its strongest songs - especially the title song, but also Five Fathoms, Lullaby to Clubland, Future of the Future (all released as singles but only reaching the lower reaches of the chart) are definitely equal to the heights reached on Walking Wounded.There is, at first listen, a lack of variety in sound and tempo - unlike Walking Wounded which included ballads like the exquisite Mirrorball alongside the dance tracks. I assume this was the cause of its comparative lack of commercial success. There is so much to enjoy here though that this album deserves much more attention, and perhaps - in this age of relentless dance albums - was ahead of its time. The lyrics invariably hit the nail on the head, and the vocal quality of Tracey Thorn is outstanding, as ever.

「悲しみ色の街」に続いてハウスにどっぷり浸かるフルアルバムです。もうこうなるとどの曲も同じに聞こえてきます。つまり単独の曲としてではなく、延々と続くドラムンベースとしてＢＧＭにしましょう。全編がテンパラメンタルです。輸入ＣＤでしか発売されていませんが、「テンパラメンタル」と「ララバイ～」のミックス違いを収録したド迫力のミニアルバムがあります。またまた、子守歌にして今夜もおやすみなさい！