Erasure revisit their Best Of collection.
Ah progress.
In 2023, does the idea of a Greatest Hits album still exist? And when playlisting, single channel releases, multi-platform distribution and social media eyeballs are more lucrative, what exactly is a ‘hit’ anyway?
We only have 600 words so much of that debate needs to be set aside for now, but what is probably true is the idea that artists operating within pop’s imperial period – let’s for argument’s sake call that the mid-sixties to the late eighties – seem to be able to hold the concept of a Greatest Hits collection together better than most.
Erasure would certainly fall into that category: a founder member of Depeche Mode, songwriter Vince Clarke had shocked the music world by leaving them at what many unwisely felt was their peak in 1981, before forming Yazoo with Alison Moyet. Success followed immediately, but the duo’s relationship broke down and after a brief spell as The Assembly, Clarke auditioned former choirboy Andy Bell and as Erasure they released their first album Wonderland in 1985.
If that and the single Who Needs Love Like That were only minor hits, the duo’s unlikely chemistry – the theatrical Bell a visual foil to Clarke’s professorial button pushing – was already evident. A few were quick to point out similarities to The Pet Shop Boys, but neither were formulaic and there was room for both of them, especially after the chiming Sometimes stormed the upper reaches of the British charts in 1986.
The breakthrough was one they would take maximum advantage of, Bell’s operatic voice in tandem with Clarke’s often playful arrangements, but as they enjoyed a continual upturn in fortunes for every Chains of Love or A Little Respect there was a more somber Ship Of Fools or The Circus, the former’s chorus, ‘Why is life so precious/And so cruel’, not exactly standard Top Of The Pops fodder.
Clarke’s knack was expressed in subtly refreshing anything that became an overly familiar touchstone. As a demonstration, following the anthemic perfection of Stop! and Blue Savannah’s chintz, and with rave all around them, Chorus, with its klaxons and thumping bassline, showed the pair were hardly living in fear.
Continuing with their impeccable timing, the Abba-esque EP mined an emerging stream of nostalgia for the iconic Swedish quartet, although their versioning of Take A Chance On Me was next to routine until astutely gatecrashed with the ragamuffin bars of MC Kinky.
This was to be their only number one, but while few acts born in the pop-friendly eighties made a successful transition between that era to the grunge and R&B dominated early part of the decade which followed, Clarke and Bell managed the difficult balancing act between remaining contemporary and pleasing their fans.
In doing so the moribund Always and Fingers aAd Thumbs (Cold Summer’s Day) kept them in the public eye, whilst Breathe saw them enter a third decade together in a philosophically downbeat but archetypal sounding mode.
Commendably, neither has been willing since to act their age and a steady timeline of new music saw their last album Day-Glo (Based On A True Story) come out in 2020, from which this compilation’s final track Hey Now (I Think I’ve Got A Feeling) is taken, a song that finds them closer to their musical roots seemingly than ever.
Originally issued in 2015, Always… underlines its nostalgia value by getting an expansion and vinyl makeover, but if the question is ‘what is a hit?’, then there are plenty of fine examples here.
Not many acts can credibly pull off the phrase ‘greatest’ either, but Erasure use this to prove they are an exception to most rules.
