Ragazzo + Ragazza = ♂❤♀: Annie Lennox ~ Diva™ (1992)

Annie Lennox ~ Diva™ (1992)
Annie Lennox | Format: Audio CD

Diva (Annie Lennox album)
Diva is the first solo album by Scottish singer/songwriter Annie Lennox, released in 1992. The album entered the UK album chart at no.1 and has since sold over 1.2 million copies in the UK alone, being certified quadruple platinum. It was also a success in the U.S. where it was a top 30 hit and has been certified double platinum.

In 1993 the album was included in Q magazine's list of the "50 Best Albums Of 1992". Rolling Stone magazine (6/25/92, p. 41) described the album as "...state-of-the-art soul pop..." and it is included in Rolling Stone's (5/13/99, p. 56) "Essential Recordings of the 90's" list. Several songs from the album were released as singles with "Why", "Walking on Broken Glass" and "Little Bird" being the most successful.

The song Keep Young and Beautiful was included on the CD release as a bonus track (the original vinyl album had only ten tracks). Another bonus track, "Step by Step", appeared on the Mexican and Japanese editions of the album and was also included as the B-Side on the single "Precious". The song was later recorded by Whitney Houston for the 1996 film soundtrack The Preacher's Wife and subsequently became a hit single.

The album won Best British Album at the 1993 Brit Awards. That same year, it was also nominated for the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Studio album by Annie Lennox
Original Release Date: 6 April 1992
Recorded: Mayfair Studios, London
Format: CD, Album HD, Bonus
Genre: Adult/Alternative, Electronic/Synth-Pop, Downtempo
Label: RCA|Arista, BMG|Ariola
Catalog #: BMG – PD 75326, RCA – PD 75326
ASIN: B000002VMH
Barcode: 07822-18704-2
Producer: Steve Lipson
© RCA Records | © Arista Records
© BMG Records UK | © Ariola Muenchen GMBH.

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Tracklist:
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1. Why |4:53
(Annie Lennox)

2. Walking On Broken Glass |4:12
(Annie Lennox)

3. Precious |5:08
(Annie Lennox)

4. Legend In My Living Room |3:45
(Annie Lennox, Peter-John Vettese)

5. Cold |4:20
(Annie Lennox)

6. Money Can't Buy It |4:58
(Annie Lennox)

7. Little Bird |4:48
(Annie Lennox)

8. Primitive |4:16
(Annie Lennox)

9. Stay By Me |6:26
(Annie Lennox)

10. The Gift |4:52
(Annie Lennox, The Blue Nile)

11. Keep Young And Beautiful |2:17
(Al Dubin, Harry Warren) (CD bonus track)

12. Step By Step |4:46
(Annie Lennox) (bonus B-side LP)

Total Length: 55:06
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Recorded at Home, Mayfair Studio, The Church Studios. Mixed at Mayfair Studios, London. Written by – Annie Lennox (tracks: 1 to 3, 5 to 9, 12), Annie Lennox / Peter-John Vittese (tracks: 4), Al Dubin / Harry Warren (tracks: 11), Annie Lennox / The Blue Nile (tracks: 10)

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Personnel:
Annie Lennox – keyboards, vocals (all voices)
Paul Joseph Moore – keyboards
Marius de Vries – keyboards, programming
Peter-John Vettese – keyboards, programming, recorder
Edward Shearmur – piano
Kenji Jammer – guitar, programming
Steve Lipson – guitar, keyboards, programming, producer
Doug Wimbish – bass
Gavyn Wright - violin
Dave Defries – trumpet
Keith LeBlanc – drums
Louis Jardim – percussion
Steve Jansen – drum programming
Laurence Stevens - design (sleeve)
Heff Moraes - engineer, midi controller (midi manager)
Simon Fuller - management
Ian Cooper - mastered by (mastering engineer)
William O'Donovan - mixed by (mixing assistant)
Anton Corbijn - photograph
Satoshi - photography by (front cover)
Ian Silvester - technician (digital)

Production
Produced by Stephen Lipson
Recorded and engineered by Heff Moraes (also MIDI manager)
Mixed by William (Bill) O'Donovan
Ian Cooper – mastering
Anton Corbijn – photography (inner cover)
Satoshi – photography (front cover)
Laurence Stevens – design

Track 11, 12 listed as Bonus Track, Available on CD only.

© RCA Records U.S.A. | © Arista Records U.S.A.

Annie Lennox performing at the Rally for Human Rights during the International AIDS Conference 2010 in Vienna as part of her SING Campaign.

The Rolling Stone commented:
State-of-the-art soul pop, Annie Lennox's solo debut is sonically gorgeous; it also declares her aesthetic independence. Ace sessionmen polish Diva's gloss, and producer Stephen Lipson (Pet Shop Boys, Propaganda) operates in hyperdrive, but these eleven songs are fiercely those of a sister doing things for herself. Three years after her last outing with Dave Stewart, her cohort in Eurythmics, Lennox voids any notion that he was her Svengali and she merely the MTV beauty with stunning pipes. Writing nearly all of Diva, she manages a whirlwind tour of mainstream R&B and retains her singular persona – an ice queen thirsting to be melted by love.

Amazon.com Reviews:
Although traces of her synthpop roots certainly showed through, Annie Lennox's solo debut, Diva, made it abundantly clear that her new material would veer away from gender-bending robotics of the early Eurythmics sound and continue toward the more emotionally grounded soul of later releases. On Diva, Lennox infuses each song with tenderly perceptive lyrics, hypnotic rhythms, and irresistibly soulful wailings. Her arrangements are clean and simple, utilizing bare instrumentation and sometimes-languid chord work. The singles "Walking on Broken Glass," "Little Bird," and "Why" became radio mainstays, while gems such as the Eastern-influenced dream ballad "Primitive," the hauntingly autobiographical pop-lament "Legend in My Living Room," and the cheerfully satirical "Keep Young and Beautiful" gave the album a plump maturity.

Annie Lennox Biography!

Birth name: Ann Lennox
Born: 25 December 1954 (1954-12-25) (age 56)
Origin: Aberdeen, Scotland
Genres: Pop, Rock, Blue-eyed soul, New Wave, R&B
Occupations: Singer-songwriter, activist, humanitarian ambassador
Instruments: Vocals, piano, keyboards, guitar, accordion, harmonium

http://www.annielennox.com/

Annie Lennox, OBE was born on 25 December 1954, born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A. Stewart she achieved major international success in the following decade as one half of Eurythmics.

Lennox embarked on a solo career in the 1990s with her debut album Diva (1992), which produced several hit singles including "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". She has released five solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection (2009). She is the recipient of eight Brit Awards, three Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award; the highest accolade from Billboard Magazine. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, notable for raising money and awareness for HIV charities in Africa. She also objected to the unauthorized use of the 1999 Eurythmics song "I Saved the World Today" in an election broadcast for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in 2009. In 2011, Lennox received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for her "tireless charity campaigns and championing of humanitarian causes".

Known as a pop culture icon for her distinctive contralto vocals and visual performances, Lennox has been named "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. She has earned the distinction of "most successful female British artist in UK music history" because of her global commercial success since the early 1980s. Including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox is one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 80 million records worldwide.