EURYTHMICS: “Live 1983-1989” (RCA)

THIS IS no ordinary live album – but then Eurythmics were no ordinary band. In fact, Eurythmics Live 1983-1989 constitutes a kind of live documentary of the evolution of one of modern pop’s most substantial and soulful acts.

It begins with ‘Never Gonna Cry Again’, recorded in Manchester in 1983, and works its way through Europe, the US, Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and Australia on a six-year trek during which the band’s power, appeal and sophistication demonstrably grew. But so many of the crucial elements are constant that there is never any danger of this producing an uneven record.

There’s the songs, for a start. Eurythmics wrote pop classics from the word go and they delivered them brilliantly live so that the versions of ‘Never Gonna Cry Again’ and ‘Sweet Dreams’ easily stand up alongside the best things the band recorded. Of course, there’s a sense in which this record feels like Greatest Hits Mark II, with ‘Who’s That Girl’, ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’, ‘Sex Crime 1984’, ‘There Must Be An Angel’, ‘Thorn In My Side’, ‘Missionary Man’ and numerous other similarly familiar cuts all present and correct. But it isn’t quite as simple as that either.

Annie Lennox is one of the great white women vocalists and if she’s soulful and authoritative in the studio, here the spontaneity of live performance adds an edge of passion, and at its wildest, abandonment. Her voice also improves with age, allowing the record to build subtly like the best gigs towards a climax of a different order.

On the face of it, this might have been a cynical ploy in extracting further mileage out of a band whose career was itself marked by a conspicuous absence of that very quality. In fact, however, it’s a fine and fascinating insight into what made them special. Surprised?

• Chris Donovan