Sweet Dreams: How Eurythmics Shocked America and Made MTV I New British Canon

Love is a Stranger is my favorite song, and I love the threat they were to prudish America. They were my inspiration to use fashion to upset the church, the patriarchy in my small town.

Annie Lennox spoke at my graduation in 2013 from Berklee. One of the highlights of my life thus far, she is such an inspirational artist in every sense of the word imho

I like music

You failed to mention the New Order influence. Blue Monday played a big role in them changing their sound. Dave Stewart restarted their whole LP from scratch when he heard it. Also you skipped the most famous cover of Sweet Dreams. So famous that there are people who still believe it's the original. We can assume what was the reason for excluding it.

Keep your head up, moving on, keep your head up.

I was a complete metal head back then. When sweet dreams came out, I loved it... and still do. I'm still a metal head but I've broadened my taste a lot since 83. Great video.

l've been recovering from the state of SHOCK l've been in over all this so l just can't watch this for FEAR of a relapse. Mercy me.

Sweet Dreams was a beloved song by Americans. People always want to add narrative's where none existed. Trash Theory is correct.

Integrity and sincerity often streghten your message, and in music it can hit a huge audience who can relate to it.

Um this didn't freak out any Americans, dude. NY has been the hot bed of underground and new sounds since jazz hit the scene in the early 20th century. Where'd you ever get that idea?

Found souds were used by the Beatles, but ok.

Well done. Wow. Amazing story and video references. I can’t believe I can see this for free. Well done to whoever has written and produced this video. Please keep doing more of them. Thanks

Interesting but I was not shocked by them.

Ugh!! Never could stomach this stuff!!

oh the 80's some of the best music. On of the best concerts I have been to. I still remember Annie wearing an open white shirt showing a red bra with black pants. A very striking look.

Female here, I was a teenager in the 80s, I tried to have my hair like Annies'. Short, spikey and orange. I have dark hair and tried to lighten it, but it turned out kinda orange.

Good video, but how on earth could you leave out? Marilyn Manson’s cover of sweet dreams it was by far the biggest cover

That was BRILLIANT!! Very well done too!

no disclaimer is needed, words used in 1980's are still as clear as they are now, if not, the ones who spoke them wheren't truthfull in the 1980's.. FREEDOM of speech is a great good, and should never be censorred

Try the Eurythmics album "1984". Some beautifully haunting tracks.

I'm loving the early videos and stories of groups b4 they made big time. Already a sub!

Fantastic video! I do agree that the 'class of '83' was about the last batch of New Wave bands to break through. Tears for Fears got through in the October '82 with Mad World. Thompson Twins went big in '83. And this band went to instant superstardom and would produce 7 more excellent albums.

I am 62 and when i first saw them on a video I was hooked on Annie Lennox voice. I believe she could do Joy to the World Three Dog Night version.............................. Jeremiah was a bull frog.

Sounds silly, trifle, wind, horrible. I quit a good job as lecturer because of staff’a vocal fry. It could be « blasé » should it be spoken by intelligent people on wotrh subjects, but teenagers on their silly ones…

The first time I heard Seven-nation Army, I thought, "'ello 'ello, I've heard that riff before somewhere."
On a completely separate note, a bi-sexual female friend of mine in Paris was absolutely nuts about Annie Lennox, and not because of her singing. I can see why.

Great stuff and wonderful to see the early video with Eddi Reader on backup vocals.

Tourists had lots of UK hits

I love your channel and I’m a new wave maniac fan but I do have to say that recording “found sound” or concrete music way precedes/predates the Eurythmics — Pink Floyd was doing it and way before that avant garde musicians were exploring concrete music in the 1950s.

Also, Annie was imitating Bowie as Ziggy Stardust with the orange hair etc, which for some reason doesn’t get mentioned as often as it should as it was very deliberate.

As a midwestern kid, my suburb didnt't have cable available until maybe 1986, so I didn't have MTV. There was a music video program afteramschool uHF channel 60 ( later 50). The Eurythmics video that got lots of play there was " Here comes the Rain Again".

i was 7 when sweet dreams hit MTV 😎

So wait a minute, she had to submit a birth certificate to be on MTV 🤪😱😱😱. This is just too much. 🔥 the gender now

I'm a drum major, and my band is performing this song in marching competitions. I've had to memorize every nook and cranny of this song, and this is really interesting to learn!

My deepest bow to two great artists. Excellent documentary. Kudos

This is fantastic! I remember seeing Sweet Dreams on MTV when it came out. She blew my mind. I loved her look. I thought it was the highest glam...
I am a hairdresser and photographer and shout director..
I was already in Salons back then and cutting all my friends Punk and New Wave hair.. So I was exposed to the looks.. Still Annie blew my mind and her voice!
What a privilege to be a teen in NY in the late 70s and 80s...we had so many influences... Being in the beauty and fashion field business really opened doors for me and my mind...
No style was off limits.. The acceptance was amazing for me... Thank you for this video.. You gave me inspiration to keep tackling a difficult design project... The Eurythmics.. A lesson in excellence, preservance and belief in oneself... Thank you Thank You Thank you... I need this today!

The world will always be like this, and it certainly was like this in the 80s, as evidenced by the comments here and at the time, but not everyone was fixated (initially) on the daring and unexpected visuals of Annie’s short hair and mannish suits. The first time I heard Sweet Dreams, it was on the radio in my $400 Dodge Dart, and I was absolutely transfixed; the cold and mechanical sound production, whose rhythms were nonetheless driving and danceable, paired with Annie’s voice, a strange mix of reedy, ethereal and soulful, and the completely unique melody and chord progressions. I think I stopped the car just to absorb it. Eurythmics continued to produce that ground-breaking sound; the alienating electronic production with the passionate and soulful vocal; a template reinforced by Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke and other members of this wave. Yes, indeed, as an androgynous art moppet of the 80s, I certainly came to appreciate the androgyny and freshness of Eurythmics’ visual presentation, but it was genuinely the music and what was fresh and timely about it that hooked me from the beginning. Androgyny, gender play and MTV-ready theatrics were really just icing on this delicous musical gateau. [side note to Trash Theory: There was never a “The” in Eurythmics’ name….]

Annie Lennox was woke. Still is.

Very well done thank ya very much indeed. You've got my subscription. 🎉

Superb. Learned so much. Brilliantly put togethe. Cheers

Dear Ms Lennox forgive me for the lack of proper spelling and punctuation I'm dictating this cuz my fingers can't fit this tiny little keyboard I fell in love with you and Stewart's style of music I'm a product of the 50s and '60s and I was so drawn to your song Sweet dreams not claiming I understood it I just loved how it made me feel and it was a positive and negative energy psychologically and emotionally and made sense to me rationally it didn't but that was okay and then when I heard my 10-year-old daughter sing it Oh my God I was blown away even more I am so sorry for men have been making enemies of women and defaming women since the beginning of time It was his fault that poor little Adam was seduced and ate the apple It was Lilith who wanted the same action on top Adam didn't like that so he complained to God and God replaced her not with a creation as Lilith but as something made by man's rib to be subordinate and not an equal Mary Magdalene who has looked at by Jesus as an equal is made to be a harlot You ask any preacher evangelist they'll say she was and yet there's no verse in the damn Bible saying she was again it's men demeaning women because of the truth of the matter men are afraid of women so they must keep them in their place and keep them controlled Oh my God What Idiots; WE ARE!

We now know these were a construct

Annie's look in that video was flawless. I absolutely love her voice, too.

Wow…a fantastic retrospective on their breakthrough, I didn’t realise the struggles they had to get a hit. I remember seeing the video for “Sweet Dreams” on Top of the Pops” as a 10 year old, and thinking this woman is some sort of neo-Nazi, ready to take over the world, we’re not safe 😅 (this opinion heightened by seeing some girls in London the year before, dressed the same and wearing Nazi regalia (armbands)). Anyway, a fantastic gift to music, sounds better now than it did then!

The person who cut my hair as a child had an Annie look & I still remember her style as a 46 year old woman. Her style has influenced me and still does. ❤

Wow! If you are correct, Sweet Dreams peaked on my birthday & and I have the original cassette!