''Love and Its Opposite'' is the third solo studio album by former
Everything but the Girl
Everything but the Girl (occasionally referred to as EBTG) are an English musical duo formed in Kingston upon Hull in 1982, consisting of lead singer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, producer and singer Ben Watt ...
singer
Tracey Thorn
Tracey Anne Thorn (born 26 September 1962) is a British singer. She is best known as being one half of the duo Everything but the Girl from 1982 to 1999. She was a member of the band Marine Girls between 1980 and 1983 and since 2007 has been ...
, released on 18 May 2010.
The album was released on Thorn's husband
Ben Watt
Benjamin Brian Thomas Watt (born 6 December 1962) is a British musician, singer, songwriter, author, DJ and radio presenter, best known as one half of the duo Everything but the Girl.
Early life
Watt was born in Marylebone, London, and grew u ...
's label Strange Feeling in the UK, and on
Merge Records
Merge Records is an independent record label based in Durham, North Carolina. It was founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan. It began as an outlet for music from their band Superchunk and music created by friends, and has expande ...
in North America. It was produced by
Ewan Pearson
Ewan Pearson (born 1 April 1972) is an English electronic music producer/remixer who works under various aliases including Maas, Sulky Pup, Villa America, World of Apples, and Dirtbox. He is also in Partial Arts with Al Usher. He has remixed ...
, who also produced tracks on Thorn's previous album ''
Out of the Woods''. The album peaked at number 51 in the UK Albums Chart.
An EP of remixes, ''Opposites'', was released digitally on 24 August 2010.
Background
''Love and Its Opposite'' was recorded in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, and features guest contributions from
Hot Chip
Hot Chip are an English synthpop band formed in London in 1995. The group consists of multi-instrumentalists Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin. They are occasionally joined by former member Rob Smoughton for ...
's Al Doyle,
The Invisible's Leo Taylor, Swedish singer-songwriter
Jens Lekman
Jens Martin Lekman (; born 6 February 1981) is a Swedish musician. His music is guitar-based pop with heavy use of samples and strings, with lyrics that are often witty, romantic, and melancholic. His work is heavily influenced by Jonathan Ric ...
, Nashville musician
Cortney Tidwell
Cortney Tidwell is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Personal life
Cortney Lara Tidwell was born on December 2, 1972, in Nashville, Tennessee to country singer Connie Eaton and Cliff Williamson, music producer at A&R. Her ...
and
Los Valentinos' guitarist Jono.
It contains eight original songs and two
cover version
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...
s:
Lee Hazlewood
Barton Lee Hazlewood (July 9, 1929 – August 4, 2007) was an American country and pop singer, songwriter, and record producer, most widely known for his work with guitarist Duane Eddy during the late 1950s and singer Nancy Sinatra in the 1960s ...
's "Come on Home to Me" (a duet with Jens Lekman) and "You Are a Lover" by
The Unbending Trees The Unbending Trees are a musical project that hail from Budapest, Hungary. They specialize in sparse chamber ballads and slo-core pop.
History
Kristóf Hajós-Dévényi (vocals, words) was involved in various musical projects before founding The ...
(with whom Thorn collaborated in 2008).
The album's opening track, "Oh, the Divorces!", was made available as a free digital download on 17 February 2010, along with the confirmation of the album's track list.
"Why Does the Wind?" and "You Are a Lover" were released as singles later in 2010 and 2011, respectively, accompained by several remixes. The remix EP ''Opposites'' included versions of the album tracks "Late in the Afternoon," "Swimming," and "Kentish Town," and in 2011 Thorn released the ''Night Time EP'' with a cover version of
The xx
The xx are an English indie rock band from Wandsworth, London, formed in 2005. The band consists of Romy Madley Croft (guitar, vocals), Oliver Sim (bass guitar, vocals), Jamie Smith, also known as Jamie xx (beats, MPC, record production), a ...
's "Night Time" and new mixes of "Swimming."
Thorn has described the theme of the album as "a record about the person I am now and the people around me ... about real life after forty."
The cover art was designed by John Gilsenan.
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 77, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
[
]
Track listing
Charts
References
External links
*
Merge Records
Tracey Thorn official website
{{Authority control
2010 albums
Tracey Thorn albums
Merge Records albums