Sweet Dreams (Are Made of Puke)

Overall Album Score: 8.8 out of 10

Suddenly, the Eurythmics start making songs that people have HEARD OF before! … Forget that In the Garden baloney, this is what we really wanted!!!! … Or not … Actually, In the Garden is a better album… That didn’t have the total-filler track “In the City” in it and some other cool-but-inessential songs like “Wrap it Up” and “Somebody Told Me.”

But this synth-pop is still so awesome, contains so many fantastic (and welcome to listen to anytime) radio staples that … you’d just might as well call this baby a classic. And I don’t say that about a lot of things! (…Or maybe I do… I say that rather frequently, actually … but anyway …)

Why is this album so awesome, do you ask? Two words (and four in a parenthetical): “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” Awesome! One of the few stupid MTV-era songs that we actually like. Even old people like it. I think. Because it’s sweeeeet.

Oh, and there’s other cool pop songs in here, too. “Love is a Stranger” is a warm song with lucid, slick vocals from Annie Lennox … “This is the House” sizzles … “The Walk” is pretty awesome … “Jennifer” (the best of the atmospheric-type songs in here by far) is quite alluring … man! Forget everything you ever learned in life and get this album! … if you like synth-pop, that is. … I’d seriously not even be scared of Annie Lennox (who, understandably, probably scared a few 8-12 year old kids who flipped on MTV in 1983), because you can’t see her maybe-girl, maybe-boy looks! (SHE SOUNDS LIKE A GIRL!), and … yeah. Good album.

Overall Album Score: 8.8 out of 10 (Slick … cool … Sanfrantastic!)

Average Song Score: 8.9 (About four nearly-priceless synth-pop classics and general tastefulness among the other tracks ensures this album as one of the top pop albums of the 80s … and I really enjoy listening to it, too.)

Album Tilt: 9.0 (Coolness reeks from every corner of this album. Seriously, you can’t handle this much coolness.)

Artist Rating: 8.5 (Eh… It’s still pop. Trying to appeal to the mass audience, after all. They would only get a ‘9’ here if they continued in the same direction as In the Garden!)

Track Reviews

Love is a Stranger 10/10

Ooooooooooo!!!!! Listening to songs like this reminds me that the 80s pop wasn’t crappy! The instrumentation (using some half-conventional, half-eccentric synths) is fun and not as monotonous as synth-pop can be. The melody is smooth, catchy and not repetitive like other such songs. A minor masterpiece!

I’ve Got an Angel 8.5/10

Still kinda awesome, but not as unquestionably cool as “Love is a Stranger.” The song is very dark and, in a way, atmospheric. You know, you might conceivably picture the song to take place in the dark city streets. It’s well done … there’s nothing wrong with that!

Wrap it Up 8/10

A regular pop song … stylistically, it’s not much different than “Love is a Stranger,” except the melody isn’t so decidedly alluring! It’s awesome and cool, but … eh! This is an averagely good song.

I Could Give You (A Mirror) 9/10

…Dude… don’t give me a mirror. Someone should have given Annie Lennox a mirror when she got her haircut, because her bozo barber gave her a dude’s haircut! Whatever happened to gender identity, the very foundations of our society? … Another “I’ve Got an Angel”-like dark song … except it has a better melody this time. Pretty good. It ain’t no hit, though! … I mean, what’s the Eurythmics without the hits? … (I’m actually quite enthralled that their non-hits are pretty much works of art. How many synth-pop duos who 80s teenagers listened to ever did that?)

The Walk 9.5/10

This song is so cool it hurts. What’s more? It doesn’t particularly sound dated! … Sweet! … (Okay, we all know this was 80s synth-pop, but … dude … kids today can listen to synth-pop … they might even enjoy it.) Such a cool groove, Mr. Lennox sings a hooky melody, and the horn-solo at the end of this isn’t cheesy whatsoever. This is synth-pop for the ages. Dudes.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) 10/10

…Oh yeah… The BIG SONG! The SONG THAT PLAYS ON THE RADIO A LOT! The SONG THAT REMINDS US THAT YOU SHOULDN’T TRY RHYMING WORDS THAT DON’T RHYME. (This is the textbook example of trying to rhyme words that don’t rhyme … they couldn’t even use their British accent as an excuse … “Dreams” and “This” don’t rhyme no matter how weirdly you talk.) Despite that, this song is awesome and I could list about 10,000 songs that commonly play on the radio that are worse than theeeeeeisss. Hoooky song, cool synth-pop groove, Annie’s voice … clazzzzik.

Jennifer 9.5/10

Most commonly known as the song that comes after “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” … well, that’s what I thought when I bought this CD in the dark ages … back when I was a Styx fan and hated “Graceland” by Paul Simon. But just because I was (and still am) a total idiot, doesn’t mean I was wrong to like this song back in 2001. THIS IS A GOOD SONG! … This song is so weird that it takes me to an entire different planet where there is this extremely babelicious alien-woman name “Jennifer” walking around. The synth-scapes are quite unusual and awesome.

This is the House 9.5/10

…Okay, this song is 80s … and it sounds dated … but it’s still pretty freaking awesome! Danceable groove, good horn-stuff … um … nice drum machines … A good super-cool song. Seriously, nothing can be cooler than the Eurythmics on this freaking album.

Somebody Told Me 8/10

Kinda awesome … kinda half-baked … still cool. I don’t think any other decade in the future can measure up to the 80s in coolness. Won’t happen. The Eurythmics are even cool when they suck.

This City Never Sleeps 7/10

Um… Another one of those atmospheric dark things … Again, these guys are hardly boring, but … it’s not super-cool or anything … and at 6.5 minutes, it kinda overstays its welcome. Well, even the super-cool people don’t have everything going for them all the time. When I was in high school, the super-cool people had a lot going for them, but … nothing like knowing the inner-workings of programming languages and chess strategies (or RPG’s nowadays … I guess … dudes, I’m only 22 and I’m already out of date).

Hey. Eurythmics. They want to talk to you here.