Walking Wounded
Everything But The Girl
1996
Album Summary
Walking Wounded is the ninth studio album by British musical duo Everything but the Girl. It was released on 6 May 1996 by Atlantic Records in the United States and Virgin Records in Europe. The album saw the group adopting a more electronic and dance-based style, following the success of the remixed version of "Missing" from their previous album, Amplified Heart. Four tracks from the album were released as singles, including the drum and bass-influenced "Walking Wounded" and the house-influenced "Wrong", which became top ten hits on the UK Singles Chart, as well as the downtempo track "Single", which set Tracey Thorn's emotionally direct vocal against breakbeats, organ and strings, and "Before Today".
WikipediaPerfect for when you want to feel what it was like to try on jeans at the Gap or Banana Republic in the late '90's.
Everything but the fucking will to live after listening to this God awful piece of shit. I don't understand how they're on this list twice...at least. I recognised track 2, so good for them. If this was a footballer, itd be Emiliano Sala.
Tracey Thorn's career is so varied and rich. I was surprised by the subtle, minimal electronica but it works really well. It's a satisfying contrast to her haunting vocals and leaves me feeling some kind of way. I'm really impressed with how such a drastic shift in instrumentation doesn't feel like a lark, but a fully realized vision that's also alive with a sense of discovery. I can hear how this record bridges singer-songwriter and British house music in a way that has influenced a lot of millenial pop music that followed. Favourite song: Before Today
Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young. 2/5
Never heard it before this but what a great glimpse into a special time in British music. Drum and bass mixed with trip hop and ethereal vocals. Immediately connects bands that I was listening to at the time such as Faithless (Dido's voice is very similar), Portishead, Tricky with this crossover album.
How lucky am I to have the opportunity to listen to all of this great music and appreciate artists that I may or may not have gotten to know if it was not for this 1001 list. The only number I think that I have heard from this duo is Missing - The Todd Terry remix, which is a classic dance hit in my mind. I like this album and it is very relaxing and for lovers of artists such as Air, Groove Armada or Massive Attack kind of music. If I was playing at Stella Polaris I would definitely play this.
Amazing record. Massively influential. It’s a proper night time-driving album.
29/10/2020 Listened in block room - talking to Jake Really enjoyed this album, way more than I thought I would. Early DnB influences mixed with vocals. Song repeatedly singing "are you happy being single?" attacked me personally. Almost a 5 but not quite.
Wow, this was a really nice change of pace! Very cool ‘90s music, the vocals reminded me a bit of Natalie Merchant, the overall sound reminded me of Massive Attack. Really dug this, very chill all the way through. Favorite tracks: Before Today, Single, Walking Wounded, Flipside, Mirror Ball. Album art: The picture is pretty simple, but the text elevates it significantly, especially the Japanese characters. I was expecting some kind of vaporwave type project based on the cover, and honestly it’s not too far off. 4/5
A very elegant album. I had their first (US) release from ’84 and while I liked the acoustic & jazzy feel, I think they were smart to move to this down-tempo, D&B sound which as all the rage in 95. The singles are good, the lyrics are bleak and I like the cover. It fades a bit after Walking Wounded and after two listens, I would have given 3 stars, but somehow, I managed to listen to the opening 6 tracks a third time.
Ok, so a few pages back I said "I also rate EBTG. None of their albums are a total smash, but there's always something interesting happening that I can enjoy". I retract my statement, because upon revisiting, this one is their smash. Within a few years, they'd got from folk, to jazz-pop, to indie rock, to synthpop. Now they slide effortlessly into the downtempo/trip-hop craze. Tracey Thorn had featured on Massive Attack's second album with great results. Cynical people might say they were just changing their sound to chase whatever seemed popular. But the results don't lie, and this album has a great carefully managed electronic palette that doesn't sound cheap and dated like the work of many other "pop turned synth" artists. Thorn's vocals gel so well with that sound. "Mirrorball" is a weak link, and the two remixes included on the original album are doing nothing for me.
This opens with a stunner, and stays highly engaging. That's something of a surprise given the DnB bones. Perhaps I'm biased against looking at anything from the genre as masterful, because this comes close. I get a lot of the same feelings I got from Jessie Ware's latest (and in that case I 100% have a positive disco bias). There's a gentle ebb and flow, but Thorn's vocals carry the record. Can't say, however, that they would sound as nice over any old beat. The third-act introduction of acoustic instruments is extra poignant: It reinforces the tone of the preceding songs while demonstrating the collaborative nature of the duo's sound. Lingering on that sound instead of turning to remixes would have been it for me.
Coffee table drum & bass with smooth female vocals over the top - what's not to like? I only really know that "Missing" song from EBTG, so this was surprisingly trip-hoppy. I really enjoyed it! Fave track - the title track I think. "Single" was also great.
EBTG basically pioneered the English downtempo drum and bass sound and everyone but EBTG were influenced by their lounging in the coffee shop style. Although this doesn't have anything as good as their big hit Missing you, the first three songs set the mood nicely. However I found my attention lagging for the rest of the album as the drum and bass in every song started to meld together.
Listenable 90s English techno with a nice vocal. Simple arrangements, lovely chord progressions, beats very much of that era. Tracey Thorn's voice here is as rich and lovely as ever. I don't think this phase of EBTG's career really touches the more jazz-pop stuff they made back in the 80s, which now seems a lot less dated than the techno. This album was pleasant enough to listen to, but overall unremarkable. Fave Songs: Wrong, Before Today, Walking Wounded
not a fan of 'easy listening' type music, I want my music to challenge me, hurt me, surprise me on a walk with a shank in the back etc. what's the point otherwise
Suena noventero y supermoderno a la vez. Avantpop y trip hop revolucionado, casi house en ocasiones. Para volver a él en cualquier momento, pega con todo y da muy buen rollo siempre.
I enjoy this quite a bit, I could really imagine vibing to this on a rainy drive.
Aw hell yeah. I love Everything But The Girl and just a few months ago they announced a new album (maybe tour??). I love trip hop and EBTG is one of the first bands that introduced me to the genre.
Yes! This was the first Everything But The Girl album I ever listened to and I still absolutely love it through and through. I don't even recall why I chose to play it in the back at work back in my HMV days, but on a whim I did and I've been glad ever since. Extra nice to have this one come up now as their latest single was by far my most listened-to song of January, and I still can't get enough. The opening trio of songs wins me over and draws me right in. "Wrong" and "Single" are probably my two favourite songs on the album. The only stumble for me is "The Heart Remains a Child" - I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. Makes the album more of a 4.5 for me than an outright 5.
Actually dug it a lot. Good beats and mood, nice to chill to. Give it a re-listen someday to favorite some songs.
I really enjoyed this album. Was not expecting it to be as synthy as it was but I liked that. Reminded me of some other bands currently so almost a timeless sound. My favorites were Before Today and Wrong. Interesting album cover. I'm assuming it's the lady who sings the songs but the band would indicate no women were involved so there is a paradox.
Remember my cousin listening back to this in like 2001... I was never big into DnB but this album is so sweet, it's like a mix of the chillest Aphex Twin beats or Shinichiro Yokata with some soft singing Annie Lennox. Fucking rules. And holds up.
Super fresh sounding when released, little bit of drum n bass bandwagoning but still a top drawer album
The combo of the rhythm and Tracey Thorn's voice via a pop record is pretty magical. Some great songs here, I look forward digging into this more after consuming the limited Marine Girls material. Fav songs: Big Deal, Before Today and Single.
90's Techno vibes in this British album. Downtempo and chill pop music that feels like it should be played at the end of a long night out. Glad I discovered this album!
I really enjoyed this album, I should start using the notes because I can never remember what to say
Hard to pick favs because they're all pretty similar. // Favs: Flipside / Big Deal Score: Decent 4
Vocals like Cher, but better music in the background. Actually really enjoyed this, good music to work to.
Some chill groovin so far. Definitely a breakup album, melancholy not angry.
Really enjoyed this album. I was familiar with the singles so it was cool to go through and listen to the less popular songs. Love the balanced use of acoustic and electronic instruments. A great album to listen to with headphones… when all else fails, just concentrate on the haunting melodies and lyrics. A great find!
Nice easy listening, good for background, lounge music. Some great lyrics
Very easy listen with atmospheric vocals and instrumentation. Great for a listen with the lights off or on a night drive. Relaxing in the best way
Slightly generous 4 maybe, but I like how this seems to naturally fuse pop with 90s electronic music. Very of its time, but feels authentic
I think above average in general. Some of it reminded me of ape escape for some reason, which is never a bad thing.
Damn this is not what I expected at all. This is awesome. I really wish I'd listened to all of it before. Concrete high 4.
It's easy to see the artists that were influenced by this sound over the years.
This is a really nice listen. Played is several times while working today and it seemed ideal for keeping the stress levels down and productivity up. The smooth songs kept making me think of Sade with a dance vibe. Really chilly 90s music that I’ll be happy to hear again.
I really enjoy the Everything But The Girl tracks that I already know, and always intended to expand my library...so glad that 1001 compelled me to do that today. This album's tracks have that electronic, dance style is what I know (and like) from EBTG. So, I enjoyed the groove throughout the day.
I've always loved the song "Missing," but I never dug deeper into Everything But the Girl. I should have. I love Tracey Thorn's voice and I love the music with her voice. I would have played this a lot.
Love the woman's voice, and the playoff between that and the beats is fantastic.
I hadn't listened to EBTG much before and was pleasantly surprised. I loved the electronic production of this album, and it caused me to dive back into some of my 90's drum-and-bass favorites. It has a good range of sounds but nothing that really jumped out at me as a must-repeat-listen track.
Mid-college album for me in Northern Arizona enjoying the Southwest and definitely finding all the clubs between Houston and Phoenix. This album was highly relevant for a couple of months in '96 starting in Texas for me and then carrying on for a few years. And a lot of events occurred with its birth that were terribly exciting. It calls up girls in leather catsuits and limos and other things that won't now be transcribed in detail from the thankfully analogue experiences of then to the digital AI superstructure of now. Needless to say, a wonderful pacifying album for some extremely interesting times. I know every song of this like the curves of Schnebly Hill Road or the vintage 70's couches of East Flagstaff or the Kingfisher's bar in Tucson. Mmm. This was a ground-breaking album that erupted and shattered the late grunge era of that year with a fresh sound. And this sound has basically persisted for decades in some genres though never as good as the first time. There is no bad song on this album. Wrong is my favorite with wherever you go I will follow you, but also Mirrorball is a hot track. Bringing back almost a bit too many memories!!
This album most successfully showcased Tracy Thorn's rich vocals in moody yet engaging tracks. One of the defining albums of 90's British electronica.
Heerlijk, weer helemaal terug midden jaren negentig. De breaks zijn niet zo sterk als Roni Size of Goldie, de zang blijft wat vlak (het is geen Lamb) maar de combinatie van synth-tapijtjes, zalvende zang en amen-breaks is in bijna ieder nummer sterk. Meer persoonlijk misschien maar de simpele four to the floor van Wrong is dan eigenlijk het zwaktebod binnen een album waarbij je continu tussen kabbelende achtergrondmuziek en gesyncopiseerde botsende junglebeats alert blijft. Heerlijke flow.
EBTG have a simple formula and it works - blissed out beats, beautiful vocals, a smart of d&b drums. There just enough variety to keep the album interesting and I confess I kept expecting each track to break into their smash hit Missing (Not even on this album) but an enjoyable and satisfying record.
This didn’t quite click with me the first time but hearing it now the electronic makeover gels well with their signature mellow sound. Just goes to show what repeated listenings can do
So, so, so far beyond Idlewild that it's hard to believe it's the same artist. I loved this trip-hoppy, downtempo, drumnbass vibe.It fit perfect for this rainy, foggy day.
I really liked this. The woman is the voice on some Massive Attack tracks and I love her voice. Definitely a relisten for me!
I expected to not recognise Everything But The Girl as I didn’t recognise the band name. However, the drum and bass/techno sound together with the soft female vocals definitely stuck a chord of recognition. I know Missing by them, but that’s from a different album. Still cool how the sound is recognisable enough to recognise them. Songs I already knew: none Favourites: Before Today, Big Deal I quite enjoyed this album. It is certainly a sound of the 90’s, as we don’t tend to get much music that sounds like this any more which is a shame. As mentioned above, the vocals stand out as consistently beautiful, and the techno/electronica/drum and bass music works surprisingly well together with this. It seems like a combination which shouldn’t sound good, but it just does. It’s not an album for everybody as it might sound a little dated to some, but I found this enjoyable.
Surprisingly great! Trip hop, drum'n'bass and downtempo shit are usually genres that I like a little, but no more. Now, this is a great treasure of this kind of music. The mood is nicely dramatic all the way and the beats are sick.
Admittedly, I only knew EBTG for their mega hit "Missing", which I liked but not enough to make me want to check a full lenght LP. It's done now, thanks to this book. And it's really good! For a genre that is not known for aging so well, I thought this one held the test of time admirably. A really nice and varied mix of downtempo, some drum and bass and some gold ol' late nineties trip hop. I'll have to check out their other albums.
A real question… why do I like this so much, and yet similar versions of this style that are only 5-10% different are almost unlistenable to me? What’s the magic that makes this work for me? The first thing that stood out to me was balance… the elements that might seem dated, that otherwise would irk me, always feel properly balanced with other ideas. Something about the breakbeats, drum machines, the lonesome and somewhat desolate vocal, and the string arrangements… it all feels balanced. It just all works really well together. Where other examples of this 90’s dance, breakbeat style don’t hold up to me, this music is well-served by its counterweights. That’s true in the mixing as well… everything sounds very natural, never too slick. Never cheesy. I had a great time listening. It’s also a clear jumping off point for artists today, some of whom are contemporaries. I think this is great, and genuinely feels like it could have been made a decade later and still be intriguing.
This feels like an essential UK dance record. I can hear a lot of Jamie XX in this. Even where I don’t hear influences in sound, I hear influences in spirit. Like certain elements of LCD Soundsystem, Avalanches, Justice and other indie-dance progenitors. I’m really fond of “The Heart Remains a Child.” It comes at a time in the record when the tone of the first 3 tracks, though great, is just beginning to wear a little monotonous. Track number 4 (aforementioned) introduces me to a different side of the duo and perks me right up. By “Big Deal” that feeling of monotony and sameness creeps back. But again, “Mirrorball” takes a step in a different direction. Some indie hip-hop beats. These beats make for some pretty nice beats to study/chill too. This seems to be in a conversation of sorts with that Style Council album we did recently, Café Blue. Where that album is a punk band becoming a soft jazz-y indie twee act (with a twist of hip-hip; “sophisti-hip-hop,” if you will), Walking Wounded finds a soft jazz-y indie twee act turning that café into a house party. And like that project before it, I love where new musical experimentation lands this established duo. Of course, against Café Blue, this album is significantly more coherent, tonal, and intimate. Not only do Tracey Thorns and Ben Watt introduce new musical elements into their craft, but they also achieve a profound poetry and beauty in doing so. The Toddy Terry mix is worth mentioning too. And it might reveal why the main-album cuts tend to wear thin on me over time. I think what I’m wanting from some of these house numbers is for them to be even housier. Like, if we’re gonna turn this coffee house into a club, let’s fully do it. I love that vibe. But then again, Omni Trio’s remix goes too far and I’m missing the coffee shop. It’s a delicate balance. And Everything but the Girl really walks the line quite beautifully. Of course, it’s also a line they themselves drew as they walked. A line for any and all 21st century indie dance acts to follow. In closing, the indie-r tracks are my favorite. But the production throughout is pretty spot on and pair excellently with the vocals. This is a unique group and feels to be a pretty influential album. I’ll give ‘er the old 4 stars.
I absolutely adore EBTG, but mostly for their 1988 album, Idlewild, which is one of my top 10 all-time, most-listened-to-straight-through albums. So even though I had never heard this album before I was positively predisposed to like it. I was not disappointed. I wish that I had discovered this in 1996 when it came out. I would’ve listen to it a lot over the years and I can see listening to this again and again. It’s definitely not perfect though; it’s a little too percussion-forward. On a couple of tracks they really went crazy with the drum machine. But in some ways that’s period-appropriate for the mid 90s. It sounds like music I would’ve heard at a club in New York when we lived there in the 90s. My guess is that was the effect they were going for. I still like it.
4/5. Honestly a pretty solid pop electronic house album. No Portishead or daft punk, but a nice in between. Great background music but in a good way.
This is really excellent - her voice with the electronic background works so well.
p787. 1996. 4 stars Classy ambient/electro pop with a great voice. 1 point deducted for some (most) of the tracks sounding the same.
Downtempo? Trip-Hop? Nah. This genre of music is called Mushroom music. Proper Fungus funk. Mycelium madness. Toad from Mario? He loves this shit. Listens to it every day. It's like Portishead but slightly less toadstoolish than that. Whereas "Dummy" sounds like being lost in an underground mushroom cavern, this sounds more like frolicking in a whimsical fungal forest.
Interesting because I have never heard of this band before, and it is a decent album. It feels very 90s and I appreciate it, but I am also not a huge 90s fan
Laadukasta ja toimivaa chillailua taustalle. Ehdottomasti seuraukseen, mutta mitään ylivertaista ei levyltä irronut.
Didn't pay super close attention to this album, but the beats were decent. Worth a few listens, not too bad.