Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart — Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)

JUL 01 1987 · 12:00

Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart — Beethoven (I Love to Listen To) (1987) Director: Sophie Muller Era: Late MTV Golden Age (1987) - Peak of the art-directed British synth-pop video era; part of the landmark Savage album video cycle, one of the first fully conceptual long-form video albums in pop history. Exceptionally high. This video marks the debut directorial work of Sophie Muller — one of the most decorated music video directors in history — and is the opening chapter of the groundbreaking Savage visual album cycle. It is a rare artefact where commercial pop and avant-garde art-cinema converge, documenting both Eurythmics at their most creatively autonomous and the birth of a major directorial voice. Essential for any archive of 1980s music video art. Context: Released October 1987 as the lead UK single from Eurythmics' sixth studio album Savage, 'Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)' arrived at a moment when the music video had matured into a full artistic medium. Eurythmics, having secured complete creative control over their singles selection, deliberately chose this challenging, spoken-word-driven track — resisting commercial pressure from RCA Records. The Savage album itself was a concept record exploring psychological collapse and relationship dissolution through an avant-garde electronic lens. The video's depiction of a woman unraveling in a domestic space drew on dissociative identity and feminist gothic imagery, prefiguring the psychological video aesthetics that would define early-1990s art-pop. It also launched the career of Sophie Muller, who would go on to become one of the defining directors of the music video form. Director notes: This was the first music video Sophie Muller ever directed, marking the beginning of a pivotal five-year collaboration with Annie Lennox and Eurythmics (1987–1992). The video is the opening chapter of a loose narrative trilogy across the Savage singles cycle — 'Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)', 'I Need a Man', and 'You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart' — all sharing a conceptual thread of characters with dissociative or split-personality traits. All twelve tracks on the Savage album received accompanying video treatments, most directed by Muller, released as the groundbreaking Savage home video compilation. The video was produced by Oil Factory (producers John Stewart and Billy Poveda, per IMDb full credits). An alternate version with different edits and shots is documented. The video received heavy MTV rotation and was later edited into Eurythmics: Greatest Hits (1991). The Savage video album received a Grammy nomination.