Customer Reviews

The Lover Speaks

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I cannot believe this is available. I loved this album when I was just a teen. I loved "No more I love you's" way, way before Annie Lennox covered it. I love her but, the original is by far my favorite. This song is a little darker than the rest of the album. It has a passionate feel to it. I own the vinyl but I haven't been able to find it on cd till now.

I cannot really compare the sound to another band, they are unique in my opinion. I love it for sentimental reasons also.

Not even Annie Lennox making a cover hit out of "No More I Love You's" could keep this album out of the "Shame It's Out-of-Print" File. Comprised of David Freeman and Joseph Hughes and produced by 80's and 90's alt maestro Jimmy Iovine, The Lover Speaks put out this album in 1986, toured briefly with the Eurythmics, then broke up after their sophomore effort was canned by their label. This is saccharine in spots, and the almost omnipresent high-pitched female backing vocalist gets a bit old, but there are some gloriously melodic moments, especially on "This Can't Go On!" It's a bit of an 80's time capsule, so if you enjoyed the poppier artists off the beaten path in that era, The Lover Speaks is worth picking up.

I am still kicking myself for letting this one go. I bought the cassette when TLS first released it and loved it from the "git go". Anyone that has the chance to get their mitts on it...SNATCH IT UP. Great stuff. Maybe I should call my ex-wife and see if she still has it after all this time. lol

---David Freeman, lead singer for THE LOVER SPEAKS, was the haunting voice with Alison Moyet on "Sleep Like Breathing" from her RAINDANCING release in the 1980s. This album is steeped in pained romance and loss. Eloquent lines like "I desire you, my absent one," "I am a spy spying on myself, a tragic subject," "I used to be lunatic from your precious face," and "Nervous flirtings of a modern soneteer, still faking this art of love" filtered through Freeman's rich and full baritone, and wrapped in deceptively complicated and unforgettable British pop stylings of the late 80s.

---If you love the "new romance" movement within British New Wave - including THE COLOURFIELD, CHINA CRISIS, EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL, STYLE COUNCIL, ALISON MOYET, and many more - this album belongs in your collection. If you have a tendency to stew in your own pain and tears after a breakup, this album, a candle, and a full bottle of intoxicating spirits are just what you need. Freeman's lyrics are sentimental, sometimes sappy, occasionally cryptic, and often cynical. You'll be writing florid love letters to your ex-lovers in no time flat.

---If you are a huge 80s hair band or hardcore punk afficionado, this album may not be for you. For the wide and avid group of fans, music from THE LOVER SPEAKS still endures and we enjoy turning on new listeners to the sound whenever possible.

---Freeman headed up THE LOVER SPEAKS and after a cassette of the project traveled through the hands of THE EURYTHMICS Dave Stewart and ended up in the hands of Jimmy Iovine, the group was signed. Two albums were produced, but this is the only one that was released.

David Freeman's only published musical work. Harkons back to an era in music where melodrama and intensity in pop music was just about coming to an end.

Freeman's deep and crisp tenor/baritone is ripe with emotion and lushness. The original "no more I love yous" by far eclipses Annie Lennox's remake, with its overlapping and seering backing harmonies accompanied by suprising key changes.

The rest of the album is also ripe with mid-80's synth/pop balladry and uptempo rock tracks!!!! Highly recommended!

First, I'm in agreement with almost everything written before me. The following is my journey of fantastic discovery of this album, and the drama of it being lost.

I bought the record when it first came out, on the advice of my ex-husband. WOW!! I listend to it all the time. The lyrics were/are like non I have ever heard, so poetic. They paint such a picture, I feel like "I'm spying" on someone, reading their most personal diary. I then found it at a used CD store (actually my friend did, I snatched it out of her hand before she could blink!). I gave the record to my nephew, who has an electic taste in music. A few years ago I could not find my CD of THE LOVE SPEAKS, I was desperate. I had listend to Annie Lennox's version of "No More I Love You's" recently and I was on a new tare to find the CD. I found it by accident a week ago tucked away in a compartment in my car (along with Dylan's "Blond on Blond")!!!! All this to say, this is how desperate a person will react to the loss of such a wonderful creation of magic. There was even a black and white video made of "No More I Love You's" that I happened to see only once on MTV, late at night. Hopefully this CD will come back into print and the second recording would also be released. Too good to just fade away. Dave Stewart should be working on this as I write!

I'm generally dead against reviewing an album which I haven't heard in full, but since nobody else wrote anything about this one I feel I should make just one note here. This self-titled album by an entirely forgotten one-album band contains the original version of the beautiful ballad 'No More "I Love You's"', which was covered wonderfully and to great success by Annie Lennox in 1995 and released as a single, as well as part of her covers-only second album, Medusa, immediately becoming her biggest hit as a solo artist. The original version is quite similar to Annie's version, but not quite as emotionally poignant, and sung by a man. Since I've never heard anything else by The Lover Speaks I'm not able to recommend it or not, but to the best of my knowledge, this track is the only thing worth remembering about them. If you're a huge Annie Lennox fan and would like to hear the original song, you might want to seek this out.