Everything
But the Girl:
Amplified Heart
This album is known for one thing more than anything else and I'll get to that thing in good time but I have to start this review with a pet peeve of mine. It annoys me to no end when recording artists put out records that amount to singles and filler. It's insulting when I put more thought into my bedtime playlist than a singer or band's team puts into their album. While I understand that this sort of thing is generally a result of the creativity vs. business cage-match, it still sucks.
Which brings me to Amplified Heart. Everything but the Girl are every inch the album artist. Their records are truly coherent bodies of work that hold together nicely. A mostly acoustic album, Amplified Heart features some of the best songwriting I've ever come across in my life. It is, of course, the album which yielded the duo's biggest hit. But that signature song is often remembered in isolation from the LP it was born into. I find that there is much more to it when considered alongside its siblings.
Rollercoaster opens the album with a languid and very British take on bossa-nova. The 'other' single from Amplified Heart, it's one of my favourite songs from EBTG. It sets the tone for the rest of the album with its combination of wistfulness and longing. Troubled Mind is a jaunty mid-tempo ballad with some jazz guitar popping in towards the end. It speaks about the inscrutability of other people. This desire to get inside the head of another and the anguish at not being able to recurs throughout Amplified Heart.
I Don't Understand Anything carries us into EBTG's trademark melancholy. Much slower and more deliberate than the previous two tracks, the song delivers a great deal of pathos. Walking to You is a duet with Ben and Tracy singing either side of a bittersweet reunion between two exes. Get Me wonders aloud about ever being understood, its mercurial lyrics going nicely with a brooding cello.
Missing is the song that EBTG are known for. In terms of commercial success, it eclipses everything else that they have done. One can speculate why "Missing" blew up the way it did, or why it was this song and not, say, "Driving". But I, personally, am not qualified to know what made it happen. I will say that it's the acoustic, album version of the track that I fell in love with and listened to endlessly through high school. The complicated guitar riffs, the dramatic strings and the ever so slight bounce of the bass guitar all adding up to a plaintive account of loss and longing. "Missing" fits perfectly at the centre of Amplified Heart.
Two Star gives us one of the more complex entries on this record. It narrates someone who can't resist commenting on another person's relationship. It's a wince-inducing character-study brimming with resentment and bitterness. We Walk the Same Line is a more rootsy song about adversity and difficulty. It takes the perspective of one person reassuring another that they are not alone in going through tough times. The lyrics are especially resonant for me given some of the things I've been through since the first time I listened to this song. 25th of December sees Ben Watt takes lead vocals on a simply arranged number with a haunting refrain. Disenchanted is a quietly low-key closer which seems to sum up the experience of Amplified Heart. Tracy Thorn's intimate vocals deliver contemplative lyrics in the second person. A saxophone takes on the role of a duet partner adding a level of sophistication and wistfulness to the track.
Amplified Heart to me represents Everything but the Girl at their apex. Obviously the Todd Terry Remix of "Missing" took over the world for a year and a half but the real triumph in my view, is the creative accomplishment represented by Amplified Heart. It is no less than one of the most beautiful albums I have ever listened to. Pop music that is truly mature is hard to come by. These songs touched me deeply when I was young and they still work for me to this day.
