Medusa (Annie Lennox album)

The album was nominated for Best Pop Album at the Grammy Awards of 1996. Lennox won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance award for her work on the first single released from Medusa, "No More 'I Love You's'" which was released in February 1995 to critical acclaim. Entering the UK Singles Charts at number two, the single is Lennox's highest-charting single in the United Kingdom to date. A further three singles were released during 1995 – "A Whiter Shade of Pale", "Waiting in Vain" and "Something So Right".

Release and promotion[edit]

Medusa was released in March 1995 and became a "substantial hit" for Lennox, with music commentators claiming that the album was a "worthy successor" to her debut solo album, Diva which was released in 1992.^[4] Whilst Medusa did not match the acclaim and success that Diva achieved, the album was still well received, becoming a substantial commercial success. It reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and in Canada, and reached number eleven on the US Billboard 200 charts, achieving double-platinum in all three countries. Medusa was a Top 10 album over Europe and in other parts of the world. Both “No More 'I Love You's'” and “Whiter Shade of Pale” were included on Lennox's 2009 greatest hits album The Annie Lennox Collection.^[4] Despite not achieving the same success as predecessor Diva, Spectrum Culture magazine claimed that "Medusa is arguably a better album than Diva, being as it is a sonically unified celebration of great songs, and it surpassed Diva sales-wise to be the Annie Lennox album most likely seen on any given shelf".^[6] As of 2018, Medusa had sold over six million copies worldwide.^[3]


The album yielded four singles in the United Kingdom: "No More 'I Love You's'" (which entered the UK Singles Chart at number 2, becoming Lennox's highest-peaking solo single), "A Whiter Shade of Pale", "Waiting in Vain" and "Something So Right". Metro Weekly claimed that "The Lover Speaks’ recording of “No More 'I Love You's'” did no more than graze the lower reaches of the pop chart, and was soon forgotten" until Lennox recorded and released the track as a single, claiming that the songs "idiosyncrasies play right into her [Lennox] strengths. Lennox and producer Stephen Lipson turn the inventive composition into a piece of epic grandeur, with Lennox delivering a dazzling vocal performance, arguably the finest of her career."^[4] "No More 'I Love You's'" was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, and Lennox, at the 1995 Grammy Awards won the award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the song.^[4]


Citing the poor success of the three singles in the American music market that followed "No More 'I Love You's'", Metro Weekly argued that Lennox may have achieved considerably more success in the singles markets "if she’d released a couple of the catchier up-tempo tracks instead of all ballads".^[4]


The album was nominated for Best Pop Album at the Grammy Awards of 1996, losing to Turbulent Indigo by Joni Mitchell. Lennox took home the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance award for her work on the first single "No More 'I Love You's'". This album was re-released in late 1995 in a double jewel case containing the album Medusa and a nine-track bonus CD featuring the studio version of Paul Simon's "Something So Right" (with Simon guesting on vocals and guitar) and eight tracks recorded live from the concert in Central Park: "Money Can't Buy It", "Legend in My Living Room", the Eurythmics singles "Who's That Girl?", "You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart" and "Here Comes the Rain Again", along with "Why", "Little Bird" and "Walking on Broken Glass".