Annie Lennox

An Evening Of Nostalgia with Annie Lennox captures one of music’s most popular and acclaimed artists in her only full concert performance of songs from her Grammy-nominated Nostalgia album…

No one will ever accuse Annie Lennox of being addicted to touring. Although she performed regularly in her days with Eurythmics in the Eighties, once the band took a break and she embarked on a solo career, her concert appearances almost totally ceased. She did quite well with her albums, as both 1992’s Diva and 1995’s Medusa performed nicely, but they didn’t move off the shelves due to her live work. She only played a few concerts in support of either record, as she did a few isolated gigs to promote Medusa.

October of 2008 already saw a Best of Annie Lennox hit the streets in Europe, and in early 2009 those of us Stateside get the Annie Lennox Collection, which boasts enough hit singles to keep the punters happy, as well as a few keen B-sides to make the late-coming collectors to Lennox's work pick this up as well. While ubiquitous hits such as "Walking on Broken Glass" and "Sing" are included here, it's great that the set's compilers thought to add non-full-length selections such as "Love Song for a Vampire" to this mix. Her stellar covers such as the reading of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and the Freeman-Hughes standard "No More "I Love You's" are in the mix as well, making this a very well-rounded collection.

Nostalgia: An Evening with Annie Lennox captures one of music’s most popular and acclaimed artists in her only full concert performance of songs from her Grammy-nominated Nostalgia album. Fronting a 19-piece band – including string and horn sections – and unveiling striking lighting and production elements created especially for this concert, Lennox demonstrates her distinctive vocal and performance talents on an array of classic American standards, ranging from “Summertime,” “Georgia On My Mind”, “Strange Fruit” and “God Bless The Child” to one of rock’n’roll’s most enduring classics, “I Put A Spell On You.” As she does on her Nostalgia album that spawned this one-of-a-kind concert, the singular approach Lennox brings to these classics enables them to resonate for a 21st Century audience. The artist concludes her extraordinary show with a four-song selection of her own hits performed solo at the piano, including “Here Comes The Rain Again,” “No More I Love You’s,” “Why” and “Sweet Dreams."

Medusa is the second solo album by the Scottish singer Annie Lennox, released in March 1995, and consists entirely of cover songs. It entered the UK Albums Chart at number 1 and peaked in the United States at number 11, spending 60 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart. It has since achieved double platinum status in both the United Kingdom and the United States and sold more than 6 million copies worldwide. Although no tour was held to promote this album, Lennox played a one-off concert in Central Park, New York City on 9 September 1995. This was subsequently released on videotape as Annie Lennox in the Park and on DVD as Annie Lennox Live in Central Park. In 1998, BMG International released Medusa/Live in Central Park, which contained two complete albums – Medusa (1995, originally released on Arista) and Live in Central Park (1996, also originally released on Arista) – by Annie Lennox on one compact disc.

Annie Lennox's 2014 covers collection, Nostalgia, finds the former Eurythmics vocalist soulfully interpreting various pop, jazz, and R&B standards. In many ways, Nostalgia works as a companion piece to her similarly inventive 2010 album, the holiday-themed Christmas Cornucopia…

Those expecting Annie Lennox to come out full-guns-blazing for her solo debut, Diva, with the high energy electro-Europop-meets-American- R&B of her Eurythmics work may be mildly disappointed. The enigmatic vocalist who made a career toying with different notions of gender plays on the concept of fame here – Lennox dresses up in the persona of a solitary Diva trapped by counterfeit glory. Although the music is strangely muted and understated, the framework offers an effective stage for Lennox's husky voice, showcasing her as much more of a chanteuse than in the past. In fact, the album almost works best as one integrated mood piece rather than a collection of individual songs. Lennox succeeds in carving out a personality distinct from her Eurythmics days with Diva.