kristiwooten's Profile

How Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt saved my life

OK, so maybe they didn’t rescue me from a burning building, but the music of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt (a.k.a. Everything But the Girl ) has accompanied me on a lifetime’s worth of afternoon walks, airplane rides and lazy Saturdays – saving me from myself all the while. Whether it’s the samba’d solitude of “Rollercoaster,” the saxy sadness disguised in “Me and Bobby D,” or the breathless beats in the “Wrong” remix, their songs are the Language of (my) Life. Separately, they’ve done well by eachother – Ben, with his record labels and DJ career, and Tracey in her incarnation as guest vocalist extraordinaire (Style Council, Massive Attack, Jens Lekman, among many others) and her  recent reinvigoration as a solo artist. Together, Ben and Tracey hold a permanent spot in my Top 5. In celebration of the release of Tracey’s brill new record, Love and Its Opposite, I’ve been reflecting on all the good music these two have put out in the last few decades. This is by no means a compendium of all their accomplishments (nor a fan’s laundry list of rarities) … just a summary of my faves and why: