Album Review of Record - Tracey Thorn

Tracey Thorn’s ascent to national treasure status is something that in retrospect was inevitable. After forming the Marine Girls in the 1980s, she is best known as the lead singer of duo “Everything But The Girl” and their chart-toppers “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” and ubiquitous mid-1990s anthem, the Todd Terry enhanced “Missing”. Together with partner/husband Ben Watt, they occupied a liminal point between fey indie band and unorthodox pop stars, loitering on the periphery of music as a niche act that stumbled upon fleeting fame every few years. Thorn herself was aesthetically the antithesis of what a pop star ought to look like: too tall and rangy, lacking the sex appeal, too intelligent to all but nerds who could imagine her stepping off the stage of Top of the Pops to cram for her upcoming English Lit exam in the university library.