Search - Dave Stewart :: Sly Fi

Jack of All Trades

Simon Selwood | Hampshire, UK | 11/20/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This isn't a great album by the standards of Dave's other albums, either as a solo artist or a Eurythmic. Unlike most of his other albums, this one is fairly uniform in style and lacks a lot of the strong melodies and clever arrangements that he usually excels at. None of it's bad, but with a couple of exceptions, nothing's particularly outstanding.Some of the better tracks are the up-beat opener, Happy to Be Here; Leaving This Earth Again - a memorable tune although the 'clever' lyrics could start to grate after a few listens; and Even the Bad Times (Were Good Times). The outstanding track however comes at the end of the album - Jack of All Trades, the lyrics poignantly and modestly summing up his career (and personal life) to date, and a kind of fore-runner for 17 Again on the most recent Eurythmics album ('Peace'). It's probably worth buying the album just for this track."

Dave Hits Paydirt.

Jason Stein | San Diego, CA United States | 12/18/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With 1998's "Slyfi", Dave's fourth solo release, he finally achieves complete musical success that eluded him on his three previous outings. Here, Dave sounds up to date and even joyous. Great songs like "Happy To Be Here", "Leaving This Earth", "Even The Bad Times (Were Good Times)" and "AWOL" make this release worth owning. All 10 tracks fit together very nicely with minimal filler or waste. Dave tones down "Greetings From The Gutter"'s heavy r&b influence and blends it with electronica here for nice effect. I find it interesting that one year before reuniting with Annie Lennox for "Peace" that Dave Stewart was making some really great music that was absent from "Peace", which is perhaps why "Peace" didn't sell well in America among other things. If you are a fan of Dave's music or the Eurythmics, "Slyfi" is definitely worth owning."

Dave does it

Stefan Janßen | Friedeburg | 02/20/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Dave Stewart begins his album
"SlyFi" with the single and the best
song "Happy to be here" which
contains a good sound and nice lyrics.
The following songs are "My place",
"Leaving this earth" (nice), "Picadilly picnic",
"Stars on Sunday", "Even the bad times were
good times", "Good for nothing", "Royal infirmary",
"owol" and "Jack of all trades". The album is
relaxed, spacy, synthi- pop and is the ideal
atmosphere for dreaming."