The band named after a furniture shop slogan

Everything but the Girl took its name from a shop. When Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, both students at the University of Hull, started a side project together, they borrowed the slogan of Turner’s Furniture, a store on Beverley Road. Both already had solo deals with Cherry Red Records, and Thorn was in the trio Marine Girls. Their debut release, in June 1982, was an EP with a samba interpretation of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day”.

They made their live debut in January 1983 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, appearing with Paul Weller, and then signed to Blanco y Negro Records. Their first album, Eden, came out in 1984 and reached number 14 in the UK, with the single “Each and Every One”. The early sound was labelled sophisti-pop, with jazz influences, and it earned them a steady audience.

A cover of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” reached number three in the UK in 1988. Then, in 1994, a remix of “Missing” by Todd Terry changed their direction toward electronic music. It spent over seven months on the UK chart, was nominated for a Brit Award and reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1995. The album Walking Wounded followed in 1996, entering at number four in the UK and producing the top-ten singles “Walking Wounded” and “Wrong”.

The duo went quiet in 2000, with Thorn saying she would not perform live again. They married in 2009, released solo albums and said a return was unlikely. Yet in November 2022 they announced they had finished a new album, Fuse, their first in 24 years. Released in April 2023, it reached number three on the UK album chart, the highest placing of their career, and The Guardian gave it five stars. Few comebacks have been so well timed.