Track Listing

1. Five Fathoms
2. Low Tide of the Night
3. Blame
4. Hatfield 1980
5. Temperamental
6. Compression
7. Downhill Racer
8. Lullaby of Clubland
9. No Difference
10. Future of the Future (Stay Gold) - Deep Dish, Everything But the Girl

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80826 in Music
• Published on: 1999-01-01
• Released on: 1999-09-28
• Number of discs: 1

Album Details
Japanese Version featuring Bonus Tracks

Amazon.com's Best of 1999
Cool but not chilly at all, Everything but the Girl's Temperamental is the sound of the sweetest melancholy. Tracey Thorn's lyrics and vocals here are among her most affecting, tracing patterns of loss, loneliness, and a slightly unsettled happiness. This electronic pop makes for the perfect winter sound, as warm and bracing as a sip of cognac. --Rickey Wright

Amazon.com
Temperamental is ample evidence of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn's continuing evolution from an acoustic-guitar-based pair of comfortably suburban love griots to acoustically accomplished soundscape explorers who still have a weakness for a pleading melody. After Todd Terry's remix of "Missing" (from Amplified Heart) revitalized the duo, Watt took the opportunity to open their sound up to the clubs, all the while managing to retain the sense of warmth against which so much anonymously ironic dance music actively rebels. In doing so, Watt managed to create a bed of music that mirrors and complements Thorn's impossibly expressive, flat vocals. Though it carries EBTG's sound farther away from their deep roots, a good half of the songs on Temperamental still sound right at home next to their earlier acoustic work ("Hatfield 1980," "Low Tide of the Night," and "Lullaby of Clubland," which straddles the gap)--and those that don't ("Blame," the instrumental "Compression") are more than enjoyable on their own terms. --Randy Silver

Customer Reviews

Everything But The Girl is everything but defunct
In the early 1980s, American music was hit by a sort of second British Invasion. Instead of bringing rock and pop, the Brits brought new wave and techno. Not surprisingly, a great deal of these bands had only one or a few hits, then vanished (anyone remember Haircut 100?). Others like Duran Duran and the Police (or at least Sting in his solo career) still manage to maintain some of the following they originally started off with, and if possible, continue to win new fans. One band that fits into the latter category is the duo of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt: Everything But The Girl. Although they have been releasing albums since 1984, it took more than a decade for Everything But The Girl to receive the recognition that was their due. Then in 1995, "Missing", a song off their AMPLIFIED HEART (1994) album was given a dance remix. After an astonishing 28 weeks on the charts, the song finally reached its peak of #2. After coming up with a follow-up to AMPLIFIED HEART with 1996's WALKING WOUNDED, Thorn and Watt took a break. They have since come up with probably their finest album ever in TEMPERAMENTAL. Before they hit it big with the dance version of "Missing", Everything But The Girl had sort of an acoustic, jazz-based sound that was the perfect vehicle for Tracy Thorn's sultry voice. Since then, most of what they have released has been tailored for the dance clubs, and TEMPERAMENTAL is no exception. The album opens with the deceptively upbeat "Five Fathoms". At first listen, this sounds like a re-recording of "Missing". But this song is representative of what is contained on TEMPERAMENTAL. At six and a half minutes, it's one of the longest songs on the album. The other nine are also quite lengthy, with only one song under four minutes. Next comes the R&B groove of "Low Tide Of The Night". This song has that appropriate feeling of a ship sailing across the sea with its catchy, almost wave-like sound. If you want to bump and grind, this is the perfect soundtrack. Another song in an R&B mode is the hip-hop-flavored slice of life "Hatfield 1980". The lyrics are quite enigmatic, which is made all the same by the disembodied voice of Thorn. In an odd change of styles, there's the percussive style of "Blame". A hypnotic ballad, the drums on this track threaten to overtake the entire song because of Thorn's practically ghostlike delivery. Only rarely is there a song of the singer actually admitting their guilt at the break-up of a relationship. There's no finger-pointing at all on "Blame". Of course, Thorn isn't the only star of TEMPERAMENTAL. Ben Watt could best be described as the musical director of Everthing But The Girl. Most of what they stand for would not be complete without Watt's ethereal musical backgrounds. It's on songs like the title track, "Blame" and "Five Fathoms" that give them their deserving reputation of creating dance music with a heart. While a majority of the songs on here break down several time-length barriers, they never become boring, and almost seem shorter than they actually are. Before you know it, the album is half over. Even after nearly two decades of also-ran status, Everything But The Girl soldiers on as if they didn't care about their lack of success. "Missing" may have been a lucky fluke, but TEMPERAMENTAL is the perfect document of a band staying together for reasons of music and creativity, not money and success.

Quintessential EBTG
After a long, successful career (in Europe, anyway), it seemed Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt had run out of steam with the bland jazz/pop of "The Language of Life" and especially "Worldwide," albums that made Kenny G sound like Roni Size. So it came as a pleasant surprise that they would go on to release three of the finest albums of the decade..."Amplified Heart, "Walking Wounded," and now "Temperamental."

After the Todd Terry remix of the "Amplified" single "Missing" became an enormous success, and perhaps inspired by Tracey Thorn's brilliant collaboration with Massive Attack on their "Protection" album, EBTG turned its attention to the dance floor. "Walking Wounded" was one of the best albums of 1996, and "Temperamental" offers more of the same. It kicks off with the fabulous "Five Fathoms," while Tracey Thorn's exquisite vocals soar over Ben Watt's groovy beats on ballads like "Low Tide of the Night" and "No Difference." "Temperamental" is not ballad-heavy, however...."Five Fathoms" has already become a huge hit in the clubs, while "Blame" has the potential to do the same. Although the album does contain one dud (the unnecessary instrumental track "Compression" could really have used Tracey Thorn's vocal to lift it above the ordinary), "Temperamental" is an absolute treasure. (As a bonus, the album also contains "The Future of the Future," EBTG's masterful collaboration with Deep Dish.)

Lovely, Haunting
EBTG's last album Walking Wounded must rate as one of the 90s' top-ten cruising CDs. If, like mine, your copy's suffered from ricocheting around the front seat of the Honda, never fear, a back-up's available: Temperamental. But the new EBTG album isn't just WWII; it's a continued journey into a trippier, more electronic sound for the group-and, with Tracey Thorn's lovely, haunting vocals leading the way, it's a journey through darkened streets and late-nite London nightscapes.

"Low Tide of the Night," "Blame," "Hatfield 1908," and "The Future of the Future" are all lovely tunes, but in "Lullaby of Clubland," when Tracey sings plaintively, swaddled in the gurgle of nocturnal dance music, "I'm on the dark side of the street, not the light side of the street; It's packed at 2 a.m.; I've got no coat; Are you on your own? When are you going home?" your heart will break along with her voice at the beauty and loneliness of the song.

"I'm not immune; I love this tune," she sings on "Fathoms Five," the album's first single. I found Temperamental's elegant come-down beats catching too. - Robert Stribley