Erasure part 2 - Andy Bell

Erasure's success would continue for a long time.

Wild!, their next album, also shot to the top in the UK and produced 4 Top 20 singles, among them two Top 5s. First came Drama:

Then came great Blue Savannah:

Their next album, Chorus (1991) was their third #1 in a row. It produced 3 UK Top 10 singles and we'll listen to the first two. First there was the title track:

That was followed by the excellent Love To Hate You:

In the meantime, their 2nd EP, Am I Right?, made the UK Top 20 and the Top 10 in Ireland. It was their next EP, however, that would be their biggest success internationally: released in 1992 and titled Abba-esque, it made #1 in the UK (for 5 weeks), Ireland, Austria and Sweden, #2 in Germany, #3 in Switzerland, #4 in Belgium and the Netherlands, #13 in Australia and #85 in the US. As the title suggests, it was all about Abba: four of their best songs in very good cover versions. Here's the video for Take A Chance On Me, a full on (and very amusing) Abba parody:

Here they are with Lay All Your Love on Me:

Here's S.O.S.:

Finally, Voulez-Vous:

Also in 1992, a compilation album of hits was released and was yet another #1 in the UK. Their next studio album I Say I Say I Say (1994) also shot to the top, making it 5 #1 UK albums in a row for them. It would however, be their last. Still, it produced 3 big hit singles, the biggest of which was Always:

They kept having Top 20 singles throughout the 90s and the 00s. One of those was a cover of Peter Gabriel's first solo hit, Solsbury Hill:

Their last UK Top 5 came in 2005 and was called Breathe. It also made #1 in the US Club & Dance charts:

Their final UK Top 40 and US #1 Dance came in 2007 and was called Sunday Girl (not the one from Blondie):

Vince has also had a number of collaborations: the latest came this year, a single and an album with Paul Hartnoll from Orbital. He now resides in NY with his wife and son. He has also successfully remixed dozens of songs, certainly some of Andy Bell's solo offerings, as well as ones from former partners Alison Moyet and Depeche Mode. Also songs of many other acts, from the Happy Mondays to Franz Ferdinand and from the Sparks to Dido. Here's one of his remixes, for the song Believer by Goldfrapp:

Andy Bell has also been very active working and singing for charity. He had a longtime partner in Paul M. Hickey, who sadly died in 2012 at the age of 62. Andy himself publicly announced in 2004 that he has been HIV-positive since 1998. He also suffers from non-AIDS related a vascular necrosis, which caused him to have both hips replaced.

His first solo album, Electric Blue came out in 2005. The lead single, Crazy was a Top 40 UK hit and a Top 3 US Dance hit:

His second solo album arrived in 2010 and was called Non-Stop. A single taken from the album was called Call On Me:

His most recent album came out a few weeks ago and is called Torsten the Beautiful Libertine. Here's the lead single My Precious One:

The latest Erasure album was released in 2014 and made the UK Top 20. It was made of original material. I do believe that the duo have more to offer: they both love making music and they get along perfectly with each other. They won't release a new album every year, but they will release new material and quite possibly there's another big hit somewhere in their future.

Erasure part 1

There was no stopping Vince Clarke in the 80s: his footprint is all over the decade. But it was only when he met Andy Bell that he formed his longest lasting and most successful musical partnership: the duo known as Erasure.

Let's walk back to my introduction and trace Vince Clarke's career: Vince, a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter and remixer (born Vincent John Martin; 1960, London), a classically trained musician, turned toward Synth-Pop when he first heard Electricity by OMD in 1979. Soon after he took part in a group, which after a couple of name changes and musicians coming and going, morphed into Depeche Mode. He was with them for their first album, Speak & Spell (1981), for which he wrote all songs but two. He also wrote their first three singles. Here's the most successful of the three, Just Can't Get Enough (#2 Australia, #8 UK and a hit in many other countries).

Clarke left Depeche Mode shortly thereafter. He didn't enjoy the public aspects of success, such as touring and interviews, and found himself frequently at odds with his band-mates.

Then Clarke teamed up with the fabulous Alison Moyet to form Yazoo (known as Yaz in the U.S., for legal reasons having to do with Yazoo Records). They released two albums together: Upstairs At Eric's (Platinum both in the US as well as in the UK) (1982) and You And Me Both (#1 and Gold in the UK) (1983). They had five hit singles. Here are four of those:

Only You:

Don't Go:

Situation:

Nobody's Diary:

In 1983 the duo broke up. Both Moyet and Clarke agreed that a lack of communication between the pair had been a major reason for the breakdown of the partnership. Moyet recalled that Clarke "was creatively very encouraging, very open to hearing my ideas for songs. The thing I found difficult was the lack of warmth. I wanted to feel more likeable, and you can't feel likeable if someone doesn't want to interact with you." Clarke admitted that "I lacked the life-skills of communication in a relationship. I felt confident in the studio, but starting a chat with somebody..."

Following Yazoo's split, Clarke formed The Assembly with his label boss Miller. The group produced just two singles, Never Never with Feargal Sharkey on vocals (#2 in Sweden, #4 in the UK and Norway, #5 in Switzerland and #6 in Ireland) and One Day with Paul Quinn on vocals. Here's Never Never:

Andy Bell (born 1964 in Peterborough, UK), an openly gay man, was selling women's shoes and performing in a band called the Void, when he responded to a newspaper advert that was looking for a singer. The ad was placed by Vince Clarke, Andy's hero. Vince liked Andy and Erasure was born. To date, they have sold over 25 million albums worldwide. More importantly, shy and introvert Clarke clicked with easygoing extrovert Bell and their partnership is still going strong today, more than 30 years later. They occasionally work on solo projects or other collaborations, but they always return to work on Erasure together.

Their first two singles were flops, while their 3d, Oh L'Amour, managed to make the Top 20 in Germany, France, Australia and Sweden. Here it is:

It was their next single, Sometimes (1986), that established the as a force to be reckoned with. It made #2 in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, #3 in Ireland and Switzerland.

Their 3 singles in 1987 were all respectable hits, but their vintage year was 1988: their album The Innocents was their first UK #1. It produced very good singles. The first was Ship Of Fools:

Next came Chains Of Love. What's special about it is the fact that it was their first US Hot 100 hit (#12). It did very well in Europe too.

Their next hit, A Little Respect, is perhaps my favorite of theirs. It made #4 in the UK, #7 in Ireland and #14 in the US. It is perhaps the song of theirs that resonates most with the LGBTQI community.

Erasure had great success with Extended Plays as well. In fact, a 1992 EP was their biggest non-album hit ever. More of that later. In the tail end of 1988, their released their first EP, Crackers International, which didn't do at all badly: #2 in the UK and Ireland, Top 20 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The EP appeared in different versions, containing from 3 to 6 songs each. In every version, however, the lead song was Stop:

Thus ends part 1 of our presentation of Erasure. Time for a personal confession: this takes a hell of a long time to prepare. I have found myself short of time recently and doing this means less sleeping hours for me. I try to have a new entry every day, but this can only continue if I can keep my entries reasonably sized, not more than 700-800 words. This is the reason that now more than before I splice an entry in two or three parts. On the one hand, I want to do justice by the artist, on the other hand, I need to sleep sometime. I could, of course, put out one very long entry every 3 days, but I think that shorter daily entries are more convenient. Do sound off in the comments which way you would prefer. The only real consequence of this is that our story will take more time to complete itself, but we're not in a hurry, are we? Thanks for hearing me out, guys and dolls!