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Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Eurythmics

1983

Buy At Rough Trade
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Album Summary

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) is the second studio album by British pop duo Eurythmics, released on 4 January 1983 by RCA Records.

Wikipedia

Rating

3.21

Votes

10769
Genres
Rock
Pop
New Wave

Reviews

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Sun Aug 15 2021
4

“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by Eurythmics (1983) Even if we set aside the popularity of the title track, this album stands on its own as a fine musical production. It’s best heard from start to finish, noting the fittingness of the attention-grabbing opening track (“Love Is a Stranger”), the LP-flipping start of side two (“Sweet Dreams”), and the wistful goodbye of the closing track (“This City Never Sleeps”). The cohesion is in the sound. It’s wonderfully constructed. Annie Lennox is a first rate lyricist, presenting intriguing and unsubtle metaphors that bring the listener to well considered conclusions. She knows not to overwork the images. An example is the didactic line (in “Sweet Dreams”) “Everybody's lookin' for something”, followed by a compelling explanatory quatrain that sounds like it burst into her consciousness after a fresh reading of Aristotle’s Categories: Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused As a progressively potent breakdown of the relationship between universal desires and the listener’s role in their fulfillment, that about covers it. But what questions remain! What feelings haunt! The grooves are dominated by synthetic bass lines that drive from the basement and provide a (usually dark) background for freshly gathered sonic bouquets. Dave Stewart is a masterful composer/producer. Lennox has a fine voice, with exceptional contralto range that is notably powerful on the low end. And while dubbing melodies in three octaves (“The Walk”), she still has room for soaring descants. Freddie Mercury comes to mind. Choral directors salivate. This album is proof positive that synth and pop can be excellent music. 4/5 (almost a 5)

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Thu Feb 25 2021
2

Sweet dreams the song is a timeless classic, the rest of the album is not, it drags a lot and the spanish song is just shameful

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Fri Mar 26 2021
4

In 11th grade my video production teacher gave me the keys to his Mercedes to run an errand and this album was in the CD player. Shout out to Mr. Fix, the coolest teacher.

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Wed Jun 23 2021
2

I don't have that many thoughts about this. There isn't anything that really sticks out to me as memorable (outside of sweet dreams but i think that's just because it's famous) but I don't think that it's doing anything particularly bad either. Middle of the road for me. 2.5/5

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Tue Feb 23 2021
4

Loads of cool stuff here but the title track is so immense

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Thu Jan 14 2021
4

Vocals and electronic music makes this one a classic.

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Tue Mar 22 2022
3

The album has some good moments, but the vibe is somehow not quite right. With synth as the key instrument, it takes some magic to make music that sounds human. Hopefully, there will be examples of European new wave on this list too!

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Sun Jul 09 2023
3

The hits are true classics, some other parts (especially towards the end) are not really memorable.

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Mon May 24 2021
1

Each song feels like 30 seconds worth of material stretched to 3 minutes. Also, ever song except sweet dreams is musically boring, besides.

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Fri Feb 05 2021
5

LOVE LOVE LOVE! Big fan of the Eurythmics and enjoyed the album.

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Sun Oct 24 2021
5

Ace, early 80s synth-pop and dance. Always enjoyed this LP. Jennifer is haunting and great. The singles are rightly smash hits. Awesome album.

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Fri Dec 31 2021
5

I would go as far as a title it the music that defined the 80s and was ahead of its time at the same time, and that's even without taking "Sweet Dreams" song

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Fri Nov 20 2020
4

11/19 Great Synth-Pop album. Standout Tracks: Love Is A Stranger, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Jennifer, This Is The House, This City Never Sleeps

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Thu Feb 04 2021
4

Solider 80er-Sound, Satellite of Love ist gut

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Tue Jan 26 2021
4

Enjoyed it a lot more than I thought. I like some of the weirdness of it, it's a unique album

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Thu Jan 14 2021
4

An old favourite, straight from the 80's. Intelligent pop. Annie Lennox voice is always incredible.

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Fri Apr 09 2021
4

better than i expected. very listenable. nice word joe.

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Thu Apr 08 2021
3

Very nice. We grew up with hits from Eurythmics and Annie Lennox, especially "Sweet Dreams." I always enjoy '80s new wave, but it took me a few tracks to really get into this. The production is really solid, and Annie Lennox's vocals are always nice, but overall it wasn't as explosive as I expected. Maybe just because the hits like "Sweet Dreams" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" feel so big that some of these songs feel meek in comparison. But it's still a good project. Also, "Jennifer" sounds like a precursor to "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazarus. That’s more than okay with me. Favorite tracks: Sweet Dreams, Jennifer, The Walk. Album art: I really like the different font choices, and the geometric shapes, but the picture in the middle is just way too small. It's comically large framing. 3.5/5

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Mon Jul 03 2023
3

It's fine, but I feel like a lot of the songs were too much potatoes and not enough meat, you feel me? I'm hungry.

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Sat Mar 18 2023
1

This album is really bad. It doesn't even have an interesting story behind it like some albums on here to make you realise why it's on the list. It literally just says 'Eurythmics second album'. Jennifer is one of the worst songs I've ever heard and somehow they instantly top it with This Is The House. I feel most people will probably give this album an extra star because of Sweet Dreams but I've never really liked that song either. The next album can't come quick enough

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Mon Feb 01 2021
5

Easy Listening in my opinion. I enjoyed this album while I was working

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Fri Jan 29 2021
5

Childhood favourite - incredible

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Mon Jan 18 2021
5

Ahhh! Gotta love the Eurythmics. Such great music and an unbelievable voice!

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Mon Feb 22 2021
5

Fun and synthy - I like how versatile her voice is

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Sun Sep 19 2021
5

Es un must. Love Is A Stranger , Jennifer, Satellite of Love

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Tue Oct 19 2021
5

ну кароче мне зашло, даже чуть больше чем давид бови. Звучит разнообразненько, звук приятный

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Sat Oct 23 2021
5

Cracking bit of synth-pop, good, catchy tunes start to finish.

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Thu Nov 11 2021
5

Classic. Great music to zone out and drive to

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Wed Nov 17 2021
5

Es un must. Love Is A Stranger , Jennifer, Satellite of Love

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Fri Dec 10 2021
5

Incredible. I have tons of nostalgia for this album and Eurythmics in general, and this album absolutely delivers

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Mon Jan 31 2022
5

An old favourite that I used to enjoy dancing to with my sister when I was a child.

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Fri Feb 11 2022
5

One of the best of the 80’s…loved this ..really forgot how much I appreciated this album….dancing the night away..good music….back in the day

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Mon Feb 14 2022
5

Sweet album, actually forgot to do this cause listening to that. Club movie

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Fri Mar 04 2022
5

I deeply, madly love The Eurythmics and I feel they are severely underrated. To me they are THE sound of the 80s. One of my first real musical memories is being in my Mom's Honda Civic, hearing "Sweet Dreams" come on the radio, and being completely hypnotized by it. I can even remember the street we were on. As dark as this album tends to be, I associate it very strongly with my childhood. It is definitely where my fascination with electronic music began. I have always admired the way The Eurythmics combine cold, dark electronics with warm and soulful elements - Annie Lennox's incredible, shape-shifting voice being the warmest and most soulful element of all. It's an approach that seems like it would be easy to replicate but honestly I don't know if I've ever heard it better than on this album.

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Mon Mar 28 2022
5

Wow, I loved this. I only knew the title track. This album reminded me a lot of Lady GaGa and I'm here for it.

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Tue Apr 19 2022
5

I still enjoy the ginormous hit and title cut off this LP, but I’ve also heard it so many times that I now tend to take its initial shock appeal for granted. It was helpful to revisit the song in the overall context of this excellent album. The lyrics, first of all, are haunting: ‘Everybody’s lookin’ for something. Some of them want to use you.’ Uh oh, my guard is up. ‘Some of them want to get used by you.’ Hmm, things are beginning to get a little weird. ‘Some of them want to abuse you.’ OK, now I’m downright uncomfortable. ‘Some of them want to be abused.’ Oh, my. If you just slowly read those five sentences, with the words emphasized in their proper places, it ought to make the hairs on your arms rise. Just as you’re trying to shake that off, Dave Stewart then gets his sulky rich synth hooks into you, and now you’re in his grasp. Until Annie Lennox reasserts herself to conclude the number with a powerful lead vocal melody, terrific backup harmonies, and even a surprising descant. The thing is, though, that’s just one great song dwelling within the company of others even greater. The LP opens strong with ‘Love Is a Stanger,’ ‘in an open car to tempt you in and drive you far away… Love is a danger of a different kind. To take you away and leave you far behind.’ Compelling lyrics, delivered with precise vocal harmonies, and accentuated with echoes and other effects. Dave is adept at these studio techniques throughout. It’s an agreeable pairing, these two. The next two songs feature a Latin infused electronica, ‘I’ve Got an Angel,’ followed by ‘Wrap It Up,’ an Isaac Hayes and David Porter composition, but I remember hearing it first from the 1960s soul duo Sam and Dave. (Three years following the Eurythmics, blues band The Fabulous Thunderbirds would also score a big hit from their cover.) The Eurythmics’ take finds Annie channeling the likes of Aretha Franklin, but again through the musical filter of purely synthesized accompaniments. The effect is rather interesting, too. It might immediately come across as somewhat dispassionate, but a deeper, longer listen will begin to reveal its soulfulness of a different breed. It’s an authentic union of modern electronic dance music with old school soul and R&B. But the birth is not a combination, where both are heard equally; rather, they mingle and mix together to create a whole new, third, creation: like yeast reacting to barley malt and yielding beer. Sweet Dreams is probably better accompanied with a very dry martini, but you get what I’m sayin’. By the time I was five songs in (still before the hit ‘Sweet Dreams’), I knew the album was both growing and growing on me. ‘The Walk’ is artfully arranged, and the dual play between Annie’s melodic, assertive femininity to Dave’s baritone background is tasty. ‘Jennifer,’ though (the song following ‘Sweet Dreams’), was this album’s real triumph. With the background sounds of an ocean breaking at midnight, the lyrics concern a girl/woman who is lost, and eventually found underneath the water. The music is perfect for this mystery. Are we talking murder here, or some kind of tragic accident? Tell me she didn’t take her own life? Questions unanswered that left me pondering hours later. Dave’s sparse, pounding synth beat is dynamically unsettling, then finishes with a high register synth solo effected by a strange buzz tone that sounds fiendish. By now, the last three songs were more than a confirmation of this LP’s ability to fire on all cylinders: ‘This Is the House,’ with Annie’s harmonies arranged and performed with creative brilliance, ‘Somebody Told Me,’ with a funky robotic ‘oh well’ refrain that builds in intensity along with the singer’s shock and mounting anger, and the conclusion, ‘This City Never Sleeps,’ with its successful transportation of the listener into the shared space of an overcrowded apartment in the inner city, and traveling among the desperate and poor in the ‘underground trains.’ The outro gradually stretched out to infinity, and when it faded, unresolved, I was yearning for more, but with a personal experience to reflect upon. Sweat Dreams accomplishes something that occurs, thankfully, from time to time in pop music- carving out a bit of a new path and inviting the rest of us to hop in for a little off-roading thrill ride.

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Tue Jun 14 2022
5

After listening to their debut effort I wasn't holding out much hope. I love Annie's voice (weapon) but found it had that repetitive dullness that colours so much euro-electronic stuff (that definitely includes the humdrum that is Bowie's Berlin trilogy). But they got their groove going in this one, retaining the experimental edge while truly displaying their rhythmic, melodic pop sensibility. Songs like Somebody Told Me have that hypnotic quality while being fun.

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Mon Jun 20 2022
5

Love the rythm and the instruments !

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Sat Jul 23 2022
5

I've been listening to this album for years now and it's always such a joy. Everyone knows Sweet Dreams, but there is a lot of other really great stuff on here (Jennifer, This is the House, Love is A Stranger). Really pure 80s perfection here.

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Wed Aug 24 2022
5

The ethereal beauty of Annie Lennoxs voice never ceases from taking my breath away every time.

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Thu Aug 25 2022
5

Better than expected. For once the title track isn't the best jam!

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Sat Sep 17 2022
5

Bangers all round , fantastic

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Mon Sep 19 2022
5

Wrap it up is so strange and I like it a lot. Fuck yeah. I was dancing down the street to Sweet Dreams. I really never got sick of this. It’s weird. It’s dancy. Good for them.

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Fri Oct 07 2022
5

It's a bit unfair to ask me to be objective since this is one of my all time favourite bands and albums. Annie and Dave. What a team! The greatest since Beauty and the Beast. I could listen to this all day. Perfect production and perfect New Wave Synth. And what a voice she has.

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Fri Jan 27 2023
5

Muy bien lograda la atmósfera del disco, lo disfruté bastante :>

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Thu Feb 09 2023
5

Loved Eurythmics before this project. Still a great album.

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Thu Mar 23 2023
5

Played this album a lot when it came out 40 years ago (!). Not so much in recent years - and this has been a mistake. I didn't care for some of their later pop/rock stuff, but this is an excellent synth pop album.

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Fri Mar 24 2023
5

Excellent post punk alt record. Obviously banger title track

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Sun Apr 02 2023
5

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

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Sat Apr 08 2023
5

GOD DAMN why are only one of these songs famous? dude more than half these tracks could’ve made them one hit wonders, they’re all so amazing 10/10

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Thu Apr 20 2023
5

The call and response at the beginning of wrap it up both gave me a jump scare and made me laugh. Jazz at the end of the walk is so cool. This album has a really cool vibe, feels like it takes me to a different place when I’m listening to it. The production also has a lot of cool layers, and I feel like I’m picking up new sounds on repeat listens. Sweet Dreams is a top 10 80s pop song for me. Wtf were they thinking with the Spanish in This is the House? Took me out of the flow of the album. Honestly, the whole album really falls apart after Jennifer. Which is a shame because the first 7 songs are an incredible run. This brings me to a philosophical decision, 7 songs I love followed by 3 utter disappointments. 25 minutes of music I love is good enough for me, and it helps that it’s consecutive so I don’t have to skip, I can just turn it off when I’m done. I’m gonna give it a light 5. Cover art: 9/10 did Kanye make this?

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Sat May 06 2023
5

This album is made out of awesomeness.

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Sat May 13 2023
5

One of the most classic synthpop albums of the 1980s, Sweet Dreams helped to create and establish the genre. Unlike some of their contemporaries, Annie Lenox's R&B vocals shine, refusing to get lost in the techno beat. A great listen even 40 years later and jam packed full of dance tunes, this album is part of the origin story of modern club and dance music. Without Sweat Dreams, as well as late era Donna Summers and New Order's Blue Monday, we wouldn't have modern EDM.

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Wed May 17 2023
5

I had only heard the singles off this record; I was amazed at how much of this album I ended up liking!

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Sun Jul 09 2023
5

Contains two of the best 80s singles with Love Is A Stranger and Sweet Dreams. It is not the perfect synthpop album, but the number of 5 star songs is such that I still rate it as a 5 star album, just like its two successors Touch and Be Yourself Tonight. 9/10

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Thu Aug 31 2023
5

Yeah you read that right, this is a 5 star album for me! I know that seems wild, but I truly every single song on this album brings something to the table. We all know the gigantic hit of a title track, and the Moody family members of the group are very familiar with Love Is A Stranger from years of mom’s mix cds in the car, but even songs like Jennifer or Somebody Told Me which sound like filler tracks at first end up building to a noisy satisfying conclusion. There are three big factors at play here: the production, the excellent songwriting, and Lennox’s incredible vocal performances. For the first point, if you didn’t listen to this through headphones, you did yourself a disservice. This was my first listen to the album as a whole and I was blown away by how the perfectly balanced and creative the mixing was. Synthesizers attack from every angle on the upbeat tracks while they fall into a lush ecosystem on the slower songs. The vocals rise and fall out of the mix as if they are another instrument fitting into their place with perfection. I appreciate this coming so soon after Culture Club because it really hammers home what the difference is between their generic sound va the Eurythmics’ unique tone. Second, I absolutely love the lyricism on this album. Moreso however, the synth lines stand out as unique and unmistakable. They have the darkness and grit of Dark Wave standards like Depeche Mode, but keep an airy lightness that transition smoothly into catchy choruses. It’s like everything great about the genre being put on full display. Third, not much I can say about Annie Lennox. If you hear her sing, you should get why she’s special. So yeah. 5 stars. Full disclosure I did rate the original release which ends with This City Never Sleeps (great closer by the way). I see there’s a 2005 rerelease with some bonus tracks but I’m not grading it on those (good thing too if the other bonus tracks match the quality of that Satellite Of Love cover).

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Sat Sep 23 2023
5

Certified BANGER! I fucking looooove the Eurythmics. They are the most 80's-ist thing of all 80s things and I truly enjoy everything about them. Annie Lennox is a goddess and I worship at the altar of her cool unbothered androgynous style and feminist badassery! I salute a legend and dance in her honour today.

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Sun Oct 08 2023
5

This was a really revolutionary record and an exciting band at the time this album came out. The videos were really cool, and the sound was unusual, as was the songwriting. They had a brilliant career, and Annie Lennox went on to do some great solo work. I think this is the best Eurythmics record. I have been stingy with my fives but will give this a five as I think it's a solid nine on a ten point scale, and I'm rounding up because of how revolutionary everything was... the instrumentation, the look, the design of the album itself. It all felt NEW.

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Wed Nov 22 2023
5

Always fabulous Love Anne voice

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Fri Jan 19 2024
5

Transcendental musically and vocally, showcases why the Eurythmics were one of the best acts of the 80's. 4.5/5

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Fri Jan 19 2024
5

Es un must. Love Is A Stranger , Jennifer, Satellite of Love.

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Sun Jan 21 2024
5

Es un must. Love Is A Stranger , Jennifer, Satellite of Love.

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Tue Jan 26 2021
4

Unapologetically 80s. So many great tracks on this with some concept/wacky stuff that holds up

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Tue Mar 30 2021
4

I don't like the song Sweet Dreams so I was shocked that I love the rest of the music on this album!

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Wed Jan 27 2021
4

A classic album with a couple songs I already own. Fun to listen to the whole thing.

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Fri Jan 22 2021
4

A very good classic. Sweet Dreams just blows me away every time

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Fri Jan 29 2021
4

Oh well, this is pure nostalgia for me! I basically grew up with this kind of music, being driven through foreign countries on the backseat, listening to this for hours on end because no one would switch the CD. I don't think I'd like it very much, if I listened to this today for the first time, so this review might be skewed by my past, but then again, the perception of music is always subjective. And what could be better than to remember the carefree times during childhood just by listening to a song?

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Fri Mar 05 2021
4

The titular song is the best, not super fussed otherwise

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Wed Feb 10 2021
4

Would give 5 if only some of the other songs than Sweet Dreams where as good buy, Sweet Dreams in it of itself carries the whole album, anyways it was very synth pop heavy, as expected

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Wed Feb 10 2021
4

Gran álbum desconocía por completo de quien era la canción, pero sweet dreams es el soundtrack de posiblemente una de mis escenas favoritas de los x-mens cuando quicksilver rescata a toda la banda.. Animoooo miercolitos ombliguito de semana

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Fri Feb 05 2021
4

I liked this ones! The first two songs I wasn't enjoying as much, but the more it got into the album the more fun I had listening to it.

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Mon Feb 15 2021
4

Very 80s! Lots of energy and synth sounds.

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Thu Apr 08 2021
4

Like their work.... a few songs I liked a lot but others I didn’t recognize .....seems to be filler for the LP....

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Tue Jul 13 2021
4

solid sound on classic album.

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