Everything But The Girl – Walking Wounded
Tracey Thorn is the best lyricist, maybe ever! This album is so moving, but so pop; so lyrically direct and detailed, but so hooky – literally, this is the paradigm. This is as good as it gets. There's nothing better, to my mind, than the production on 'Mirrorball' and the story she tells on that song. It crushes me and makes me smile ear-to-ear at the same time. Tracey Thorn and I both have September birthdays, if that means anything to you. On one hand ['Mirrorball' is] a really clear story, and some of the details are ridiculous, where she's describing something very literally: she's saying that she's murdered her best friend; it makes you think – what? As in, the envy was so extreme that it would make you want to do that? It's given as a very odd detail. The whole vibe of the song, musically, sonically is the same – it's really clear and really simple. You start to get into the monotony of it and the repetition of it, there's this really high frequency, like, "Ding ding! Ding ding!" that keeps happening. It almost distracts you from when something slightly odd happens – you end up going along with it. It gives you this really intense emotional payload.