Amplified Heart
The mostly acoustic album that carried "Missing" to the American charts.
Everything But The Girl, 1994
- Released
- 13 June 1994
- Recorded
- December 1993 to April 1994
- Studio
- Livingston, Strongroom, Battery, Mayfair and Whitfield Street, London
- Label
- Blanco y Negro, Atlantic
- Producer
- Tracey Thorn, Ben Watt, John Coxon
Amplified Heart was released on 13 June 1994 by Blanco y Negro in the UK and on 19 July by Atlantic in the United States and Canada. It was recorded and mixed in London between December 1993 and April 1994. It is a primarily acoustic-driven set that brought the duo to mainstream audiences through the dance remix of "Missing", and it went on to sell more than a million copies worldwide.
Pitchfork's Philip Sherburne, reviewing it in 2019, said the album was written and recorded in the year after Watt's recovery and that Thorn and Watt each wrote five of its lyrics. He described the sound as pared down to guitar, standup bass, drum kit and the occasional programmed beat, and wrote that the duo's "spare, pensive style never sounded more fully realized" than on this album. The album reached number 46 on the Billboard 200. Edsel Records reissued it in 2012 as a two-disc deluxe set, and a vinyl pressing for its 25th anniversary appeared in 2019.
Track listing
- Rollercoaster3:14
- Troubled Mind3:34
- I Don't Understand Anything4:25
- Walking to You3:30
- Get Me3:34
- Missing4:06
- Two Star4:06
- We Walk the Same Line4:00
- 25th December4:04
- Disenchanted2:03
Personnel
- Tracey Thorn vocals, production
- Ben Watt acoustic and electric guitars, acoustic and electric piano, mini Moog, vocals, mixing, production
- John Coxon keyboards and production on Troubled Mind, Get Me and Missing
- Danny Thompson double bass
- Dave Mattacks drums
- Martin Ditcham percussion
- Harry Robinson string arrangements on I Don't Understand Anything and Two Star, conductor
- Peter King alto saxophone on Disenchanted
- Kate St John cor anglais on Two Star
- Richard Thompson lead electric guitar on 25th December
- Jerry Boys engineering, mixing
- Mads Bjerke engineering
More from Everything But The Girl
Eden (1984), Idlewild (1988), Walking Wounded (1996), Temperamental (1999)
Sources
- Amplified Heart, Wikipedia
- Everything But the Girl: Amplified Heart, Pitchfork (2019-07-16)