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Everything but the Girl are an English pop duo formed in Kingston upon Hull in 1982, consisting of lead singer, songwriter, composer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, composer, producer and singer Ben Watt. The group's early works have been categorized as sophisti-pop with jazz influences before undergoing an electronic music turn following the worldwide success of the 1994 hit single "Missing", remixed by Todd Terry.

The duo have achieved 12 top-40 singles in the UK, including four reaching the top 10 and received eight gold and two platinum album BPI certifications in the UK as well as one gold album RIAA certification in the US. Their cover of "I Don't Want to Talk About It" reached No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart in 1988, a feat later matched by "Missing", which charted high in several countries and reached No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1995. The "Missing" remix spent over seven months on the UK Singles Chart, which led to a Brit Award nomination for Best British Single.

Their ninth album, Walking Wounded (1996), entered the UK albums chart at No. 4, and spawned the top-10 singles "Walking Wounded" and "Wrong". The band went inactive in 2000, with Thorn declaring she would no longer perform live. Thorn and Watt, who did not publicise their romantic relationship while active, married in 2009, both released solo albums and said it was unlikely Everything but the Girl would be active again.

However, in November 2022, Thorn and Watt announced that they had just completed work on a new Everything but the Girl album. Fuse, the band's first new material in 24 years. The album was released on 21 April 2023. It charted at No. 3 on the Official UK Album Chart, making it the highest-charting album of their career. In a 5-star review, The Guardian said: "Still staking out pop's frontier after 40 years. It is audibly made by people with a deep love for and understanding of the music they're inspired by a comeback worth waiting for.”

History

Formation and early years

When Thorn and Watt met, they were both attending the University of Hull and both had contracted with the independent record company Cherry Red Records as solo artists. Thorn was also a member of the trio Marine Girls.

They formed a side-project as a duo and adopted the name Everything but the Girl from a slogan used by the Hull shop, Turner's Furniture at 34–38 Beverley Road, between Norfolk Street and College Street.

Everything but the Girl's debut EP, with a "samba interpretation" of Cole Porter's "Night and Day", was released in June 1982. After steady sales and exposure on the Cherry Red Records 99-pence promotional Christmas 1982 compilation album entitled Pillows & Prayers, the single was reissued in August 1983.

Later, the pair each had solo album releases through Cherry Red. Thorn's 1982 LP was A Distant Shore, an eight-track mini-album. Watt's 1983 debut LP, North Marine Drive, was the follow-up to his 1982 5-track EP Summer Into Winter, featuring Robert Wyatt.

On 5 January 1983, Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, as Everything But the Girl, made their live debut at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and performed with Paul Weller.

Thorn and Watt, as Everything but the Girl, signed to Blanco y Negro Records.

Recorded in September 1983,, their debut album, Eden, was released in May 1984, reaching No. 14 on the UK Albums Chart, spending 20 weeks on the chart. It featured the single "Each and Every One", which reached No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart. Thorn wrote in 2016 that her lyric was misunderstood as a lovelorn lament, when it was actually a response to the patronizing tone her earlier all-female band Marine Girls was written about by male music critics.

In spite of their early history as established independent artists, as newcomers Everything but the Girl were considered part of the "lite-jazz/neo-jazz-pop" music style, later known as "sophisti-pop", alongside other British acts such as Carmel, a then-newly-solo Alison Moyet, Swing Out Sister, Sade, Matt Bianco and The Style Council. Both Watt and Thorn were guest musicians on the Style Council's Café Bleu album, where Thorn's vocals were featured on The Paris Match. Everything but the Girl worked with producer Robin Millar, who also produced Sade's debut album in the same studio, alternating between recording and collaborating with the two bands.

A later version of the album, Everything but the Girl, was released in the United States on the Sire label, containing six tracks from Eden, two UK singles and four alternate tracks, the six substitutions replace the second side.

Love Not Money, released in 1985, was the band's second studio-album release, signaling a move away from jazz and Latin influences to more traditional electric guitar, bass and drums arrangements. The US edition included two songs not on the original UK release: a cover version of the Pretenders song "Kid", and "Heaven Help Me".