Eurythmics
' debut album,
In the Garden
, is the missing link between the work of
the Tourists
, who included both
Dave Stewart
and
Annie Lennox
, and 1983's commercial breakthrough,
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
. Co-produced by
Kraftwerk
producer
Conny Plank
at his studio in Cologne, Germany, it has some of the distant, mechanistic feel of the European electronic music movement, but less of the pop sensibility of later
. The chief difference is in
Lennox
's singing; even when the musical bed is appealing,
floats ethereally over it, and the listener doesn't focus on her. As a result,
wasn't much of a success, though when
streamlined their sound and emphasized
's dominating voice on subsequent releases, they found mass popularity. ~ William Ruhlmann