Ariel Pink Explains Why He Hates The Eurythmics

Ariel Pink Explains Why He Hates The Eurythmics

Ariel Pink has opinions on everything! Horror movies, Madonna … ask that guy a question and he is gonna have an answer. Today, Spin published an interview with Pink in which he shared some more opinions, this time on an assortment of random pop hits. Among those pop hits was the Eurythmics’ classic “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” — a song Pink doesn’t like, by a band he considers to be “extremely foul” — Annie Lennox is deemed “very off-putting” and Dave Stewart “makes [Pink] want to fucking commit suicide.” Here’s the exchange in full:

I really don’t even like this song at all, or the Eurythmics in general. I find them to be extremely foul, but “Here Comes The Rain Again” is mildly enjoyable.

What about this song provokes such a strong reaction from you?

I find [Annie Lennox’s] whole comfort level with the camera to be very off-putting. It was something of a novel thing back then, so she had some sort of charisma that translated beyond the normal performance. It’s just made for the camera. And [the Eurythmics’] Dave Stewart makes me want to fucking commit suicide.

He’s just like the Linda Perry of the era. He’s got his hand helping everybody writing songs. He was good with synthesizers and stuff like that, so all of a sudden all of these old stalwarts who didn’t know how to transfer over into the video era — Bob Dylan was calling him up, Tom Petty. And he was involved with everything because he was the person who could program shit and they didn’t know how to deal with this transition into the synthesized [sound]. That’s what was popular then.

Does that kind of collaboration seem cynical to you?

No, I just think it’s funny. I just think it was obviously not what these artists wanted to do. They were just doing it because they had to or they would lose their contracts. Nobody got out of the ’80s alive.

Harsh! You can read the whole thing — with Pink’s takes on songs by Todd Rundgren, Marcy Playground, and more — here.

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