— Ro Newton
Between Blancmange, The Communards, Depeche Mode, The Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Propaganda, Sharpe & Numan, Sparks and Yazoo, this blog has covered many synth-heavy bands (with The Associates, Eurythmics and It's Immaterial being not so far off from this realm either). It hardly needs stating that synthesizers were everywhere throughout the eighties though a subtle backlash would begin as the decade began to wane. This would never result in a full-scale destruction of the sub-genre but synth-pop's glory days were just about at an end. 1990 and '91 would mark its final high point with the outstanding albums Violator, Behaviour, Electronic, Chorus and Sugar Tax. I miss those days...
Erasure would be the last major synth act to emerge. Vince Clarke had been a founding member of Depeche Mode and had been their main songwriter, composing early hits "New Life" and "Just Can't Get Enough". There have been many reasons given for his sudden departure but if he did indeed chafe at the promotional obligations of pop it didn't stop him from quickly forming his first synth duo Yazoo with Alison Moyet. (The year I spent in the UK, we resided in Basildon, an English new town noted only for being one of the worst places in the country and the home of some pretty pop stars) He had been done with ver Mode after just one album but he managed to cut two LP's with this new unit. Again, Clarke proved his worth as a top songwriter, this time being behind hits "Only You" and "Don't Go", among others. He and Moyet went their separate ways and he dithered a bit, appearing on Blancmange side-project West India Company with their inter-faith seasonal mantra-pop "Ave Maria" and then forming The Assembly, a "group" that consisted of himself, associate Eric Radcliffe and a succession of lead singers.
With so many projects that started promisingly before fizzling out, it's remarkable that he finally found himself a partner worth sticking it out with. As opposed to Yazoo and The Assembly, Erasure struggled at first, their early singles falling way short of the hit parade. And this was by no means the public being a bunch of ignoramuses: singles like "Who Needs Love Like That" and "Heavenly Action" are nothing special, a far cry from the likes of "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Only You". A significant change that occurred at this point was that Clarke was co-writing with vocalist Andy Bell and the pair needed time to work things out. "Sometimes" was their breakthrough single and would be Clarke's biggest hit to date but it still isn't quite classic synth-pop. Were Erasure ever going to be anything more than the Pet Shop Boys without a sense of humour?
The group's seriousness is something I often cite that held them back but I've come to realise recently that it's a rather unfair judgement. With a voice like Bell's, how could Erasure pull off humour and wit? He has a gorgeous voice but one that always sounds so deeply committed to whatever it is he's singing about. (As if to compensate, they sometimes filmed lighthearted videos which never fooled me) If the Pet Shops did irony, then Erasure specialised in painful sincerity. Then again, more often than not I bought what they were selling (spiritually speaking anyway, I didn't actually purchase anything by them until the excellent compilation Pop! The First 20 Hits in 1992). Their singles got better and better so what did it matter if they were about as joyous as a bucket of old rags?
Increased quality control of Erasure's records meant that their chart fortunes grew along the way. Their second album The Circus is a marked improvement on debut Wonderland and both "Sometimes" and "Victim of Love" were pretty good singles. The album's title track was the fourth and final 45 released from it and it pointed the way forward for the group. A departure from their usual buoyant pop, it's a downbeat number that is more musically ambitious and can be slotted into the category of anti-Thatcher songs that the likes of Billy Bragg, The Style Council, The The and, yes, Pet Shop Boys were also churning out at around this time. With this one song, they were already proving themselves to be more capable of political pop than The Communards even if the record itself doesn't quite work. The tune is a bit repetitive and I'm not sure just what makes all this a circus but they were on to something. (It hardly needs saying that it fails in comparison with The Beatles' masterful "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite" in terms of big top pop)
A year later and they were back (Back!) and they had picked up where they left off. "Ship of Fools" would an unconventional teaser single from their third album The Innocents, released a month later. "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect" would have been more logical choices (even deep cuts like "Phantom Bride" and "Yahoo!" would have made more sense). As Chris Heath says in his review of the album, it's the only slow track on an LP packed with potential hits. But they boldly went with something similarly glum as "The Circus" — only much better. (Notably, it was the only one of their singles from The Innocents not to be a hit in the US)
On paper, however, it doesn't look like much. My sister and I spent a long train journey from London to Edinburgh at the start of the October midterm break looking at the latest issue of ver Hits, which included lyrics to all the tracks from the latest compilation Smash Hits Party 1988. We knew or knew of many of the groups but most of the songs had been and gone from the charts prior to our arrival in Britain that August. Thus, we attempted to work out how the songs would go based purely on looking at the lyrics. Two songs made us laugh because they both seemed so stupid. One was "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" by Prefab Sprout (much as I love Paddy McAloon, we weren't wrong on that one) and "Ship of Fools" was the other.
To this day, I still don't know who this "baby of the class" is supposed to be or why him not knowing "one and one was two" matters. I guess it's about losing a child in some sort of nasty fashion. Recalling The Smiths and their controversial closing track from their debut album ("Suffer Little Children"), it's natural to conclude that it's dealing with abduction and/or murder. Things get a bit cloudier with the line "why can't you see what you're doing to me": is he addressing the child because he can't suddenly be trying to communicate with the criminal. Something is missing but in a way that's what makes the song's sorrow so convincing. I was a very unreliable journal keeper as a teen (I don't even bother to try now) but when I did jot down my thoughts about heartbreak and angst, they were hardly coherent. The words are scattered and it's as if Bell is in the midst of processing his thoughts in song.
Meaningful or gibberish: either way, the lyrics work as presented. It helps that the tune that accompanies it is one of Clarke's finest. It is a huge step beyond "The Circus", subtler and more refined. Not drenched in synths, no, but they're still there in service to the song. Clarke's background as a techno-pop henchman meant that he had years of experience knowing what works for various vocalists came in handy. Bell's voice is lush enough so that the music and production is gentle and only a bit haunting.
Reviewer Ro Newton never seemed like your typical pop-kid-turned-Smash-Hits-writer. As I have previously written, she had been a host of the Whistle Test and you can detect a fondness for more guitar-based music in previous singles reviews. (That said, she also once gave a Single of the Fortnight to Michael Jackson and has praise in this singles review page for Debbie Gibson — see below — so she was no rockist either) She doesn't try to hide her derision for the "twittering synthesizers" and the rest and seems genuinely surprised by this new direction. It's possible that she hadn't been following Erasure closely or she may have noted Clarke's occasional use of an acoustic guitar on tracks like "Victim of Love" or that "The Circus" signalled a change in direction. Nevertheless, she's absolutely right about just how wonderful "Ship of Fools" is. They had done fine work before but this was their first great moment where everything fell perfectly into place.
Erasure's move towards more serious subject matter didn't always work and it's fortunate that they never gave up on ecstatic pop along the way. But for an earnest singer and a grumpy-looking keyboardist/guitarist, it makes sense that they would embrace a darker side. Sheer joy just wasn't their bag and we'll see very soon just what a moody pair they could be when it came to the task of evaluating other pop groups and their synth-friendly or synth-free singles. Stay tuned.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Debbie Gibson: "Only in My Dreams"
They called her a "Mall Madonna" (though you'd think this would have been a better moniker for Tiffany given her penchant for performing in mall food courts all over the States) but Debbie Gibson was a very talented young woman back in the day. Like her nibs, she doesn't have the strongest voice in the world but there's character in that nasally tone. Truthfully, she was probably a better songwriter than the Material Girl and it was this quality that likely made everyone think she'd be around for a while. Still, it was a good ride while it lasted and she made some money and some of the songs were quite good, especially at first. I always preferred "Out of the Blue" myself and "Foolish Beat" has aged surprisingly well but "Only in My Dreams" is decent too. Her future seemed bright but she got serious too fast and couldn't pull it off as well as Erasure.
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