― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 00:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Curt1s Stephens, Sunday, 13 May 2007 05:20 (seventeen years ago) link
http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2134860,00.html
andy bell. god bless him.
― pisces, Friday, 27 July 2007 02:11 (sixteen years ago) link
Has anyone else said the new album is excellent?
If not, I'll do. Hadn't it been for "Nightbird", it would have been their best since "Chorus".
― Geir Hongro, Friday, 27 July 2007 22:16 (sixteen years ago) link
i still haven't heard it yet :/
― grimly fiendish, Saturday, 28 July 2007 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link
"Ship of Fools" is a little spooky, isn't it? This make s me feel bad at words, but "Ship of Fools" freaks me out a little.
― Peter Pepsi (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 February 2011 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
Hmm, never thought of it as spooky -- nicely atmospheric, though. (Helps that that's still my favorite album of theirs.)
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 15 February 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
It is. The music sort of sounds like wind howling. or something. lol. I am also bad at words. I feel like there are other songs on The Innocents that have a spooky vibe to them but tbh it's been a while since I've listened to them.
― ENBB, Tuesday, 15 February 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Toppermost of the poppermost: The Innocents, Chorus, I Say I Say I Say
Excellent and worth a listen but not-quite-there: Erasure, Nightbird
Good-to-great singles and one or two decent albums tracks, but otherwise patchy: Wonderland, The Circus, Wild!, Cowboy
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!: Loveboat, Light At The End Of The World, Tomorrow's World.
― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:22 (twelve years ago) link
Ultimately though, my favourites are the analogue-synthfests of Chorus, I Say I Say I Say and Erasure, and the lovely-sounding softsynths of Nightbird.
― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:25 (twelve years ago) link
Chorus is my favourite single
― Master of Treacle, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:55 (twelve years ago) link
Andy Bell's excellent performance in Peter Hammill's opera The Fall of the House of Usher is often overlooked. Here he is duetting with Lene Lovich:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYajmE_K4M
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Saturday, 7 April 2012 23:09 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/dec/21/david-davies-gay-marriage-interview
― 'Separate Lives', by Phil Collins & Marilyn Manson (PaulTMA), Saturday, 22 December 2012 16:44 (eleven years ago) link
Everything about that interview is amazing
― GIMME SOME REGGAE (DJP), Saturday, 22 December 2012 16:49 (eleven years ago) link
At least he got into Boy George, doesn't seem to have got round to 'Pop!' yet
― 'Separate Lives', by Phil Collins & Marilyn Manson (PaulTMA), Saturday, 22 December 2012 17:13 (eleven years ago) link
He probably wishes he could get into Boy George, if you know what I'm saying.
― I saw three shi*s come sailing in... (snoball), Saturday, 22 December 2012 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
"I would give everything I own... not to be a Tory fuckwit homophobe."
― I saw three shi*s come sailing in... (snoball), Saturday, 22 December 2012 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
I gave up listening to new Erasure albums quite a long time ago, but on a whim I decided to stream the new one and it's quite good. Maybe they're not self-conscious anymore now that no one's paying attention?
― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 21:55 (nine years ago) link
that's what Vince Clarke said.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 21:56 (nine years ago) link
I wasn't even aware that Erasure had a new one out, and probably would have ended up overlooking it completely if it hadn't been mentioned here, so thanks! I haven't heard it yet, but I'll at the very least be giving it a spin. I'm not expecting anything other than an Erasure record that comfortably sounds like an Erasure record, but I hope that it's better than that Tomorrow's World heap of dung that they put out a couple of years back.
― Welcome To (Turrican), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 22:21 (nine years ago) link
It's called The Violet Flame and I actually didn't realize it had just come out today, so good timing on my part.
― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 22:38 (nine years ago) link
xpost:
...and it is! I'm halfway through it now, while it obviously doesn't touch anything from their "classic" period, it's leagues better than the likes of Tomorrow's World and Loveboat (which to me are the worst two albums they ever made), and I prefer it vastly to The Light at the End of the World. So I guess this is their best album since the turn of the millennium that isn't called Nightbird, which is a pleasant surprise to me given that I wasn't expecting much.
― Welcome To (Turrican), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 22:50 (nine years ago) link
Love the Gareth Jones mix of You Surround Me has caused an argument between me and my friend. I say it's gorgeous, he says it's ruined.
― brotherlovesdub, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 22:57 (nine years ago) link
With all the praise Nightbird has gotten in this thread, I'm giving it a go right now.
― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 22:58 (nine years ago) link
Andy's not really belting it out much on this album (Nightbird), huh?
― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 23:20 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, he's not really belting it out as much as he'd done on previous albums, but I do think it suits the Nightbird material. Andy's voice has obviously changed over the years, and it's hard to say whether this is down to age, or down to the cocaine habit he had in the '90s (which had apparently got so bad that when they were making the self-titled record from '95, he was snorting lines in between vocal takes in the studio - there certainly has been a difference in his voice from then onwards), or whether he's consciously trying to take more care of his voice these days. Then there was his HIV diagnosis in '98, too.
But yeah, it does suit the Nightbird material, I think. I find his voice absolutely unbearable on Tomorrow's World, though... it's like a massive advert for autotune, mostly done on purpose (as an "artistic" decision), but it sounds like absolute shit.
― Welcome To (Turrican), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 23:42 (nine years ago) link
For me 'Nightbird' is their best since 'Chorus', though the self titled was a very interesting diversion - not sure how much it harmed them commercially given it came out at the height of britpop, but was probably artistically a great way to start a commercial decline.
Haven't listened to the new one yet, but it is waiting for me when I get home. I don't mind 'Tommorrow's World' but I rarely go back to it.
― michaellambert, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 23:45 (nine years ago) link
I enjoy quite a lot of the self-titled album and appreciate it for its indulgence, even if it is a bit on the long side. I'll admit that not all of it is successful in what it's attempting, but when it works it works really well, and I find it probably the most interesting album they ever made. It's definitely one of those albums that divides fans... some can tolerate the ambient section in the middle of 'Rock Me Gently' with Diamanda Galas vocalising throughout, and some can't.
Interesting, the first track on it ('Intro: Guess I'm Into Feeling') is a shortened/slightly different version of a track called 'True Love Wars', which was slated to go on the album, but instead was relegated to the B-side of 'Stay With Me'. I'm not quite sure whether it was bumped because they didn't think the song was good enough to be on the album, or whether it was bumped because of space reasons (the album is long enough as it is!)
― Welcome To (Turrican), Wednesday, 24 September 2014 00:14 (nine years ago) link
*Interestingly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=herZ8lENFMk
I reckon 'Stay With Me' could have been their biggest hit overall had it just been released at an earlier point in their career
― PaulTMA, Wednesday, 24 September 2014 00:52 (nine years ago) link
myself and NI made one of the remixes that's on the single (the Club Clique mix). seems to have had a pretty good reaction so far.
https://soundcloud.com/erasureinfo/elevation-club-clique-remix
― piscesx, Wednesday, 24 September 2014 01:41 (nine years ago) link
I reckon 'Stay With Me' could have been their biggest hit overall had it just been released at an earlier point in their career― PaulTMA, Wednesday, September 24, 2014 12:52 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― PaulTMA, Wednesday, September 24, 2014 12:52 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
It could have been a bigger hit than it was even if it had only been released three or four years earlier, I reckon. Prior to 'Stay With Me', Chorus and the ABBA Esque EP had been quite successful, and then 'Always' was quite a big hit from I Say I Say I Say. By the time the self-titled record came out, the UK had gone Britpop crazy and pretty much every band deemed "'80s electro" that was still active struggled apart from Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys (but even then, Bilingual got a mixed reception). I think everything from The Innocents up to I Say I Say I Say made it to #1 in the UK album chart, whereas the self-titled record made it to #14. People were still very much buying a lot of albums at the time, so they were very much selling to their hardcore fanbase from that point onwards.
Very odd choice of first single, though... 'Fingers & Thumbs' probably would have been my pick.
― Welcome To (Turrican), Wednesday, 24 September 2014 02:48 (nine years ago) link
Haven't heard the new album yet. I got my hopes about it being good as they'd work with Richard X but the single didn't do a lot for me. Agree that the last album was terrible and that Loveboat was a low point in their career.
Nightbird is a wonderful album. I loved it when it came out and almost 10 years later it's definitely my favourite Erasure album, ahead of Chorus. A great set of understated and beautiful songs with perfect production. It was such a great moment when Breathe game them another top five hit. I just didn't see it coming at the time. It makes it more of a shame that the two albums after were so weak.
I think the problem with the self titled album was it was released too soon after I Say I Say I Say. It came out less than 18 months after an album that did spawn a couple of big hits and made number one but also did sell much less and didn't stay in the charts for long at all. They needed to give the public a bit more time to miss them. I remember them saying they thought it was going to be their Dark Side of the Moon. It's not a bad album but fairly forgettable. Fingers & Thumbs is an incredible song, defiantly should have been the first single.
― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, 24 September 2014 04:26 (nine years ago) link
I can understand what you mean. Plus, if they'd held off releasing it for a while, they could have lived with the material a bit more and might have gone back and made further adjustments and/or come up with additional songs that may have improved it. But as it stands, really there's only 'Grace' and 'Love The Way You Do So' that I'm not keen on from that album.
― Welcome To (Turrican), Wednesday, 24 September 2014 04:41 (nine years ago) link
Then Play Long reaches The Innocents and, uh, yeah: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/erasure-innocents.html
― agincourtgirl, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 13:04 (nine years ago) link
I disagree, naturally. As someone more than familiar with the '80s synthpop "canon", I think The Innocents is a great record and find it mostly consistent throughout. Fair enough if he doesn't like it, though.
― You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart (Turrican), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 18:44 (nine years ago) link
The "wall" he mentions is his own inability to accept Erasure as anything other than a) a singles band and b) exclusively peers of Depeche Mode and PSB which results is a very pedestrian appraisal but whatever. Great album.
― everything, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 19:57 (nine years ago) link
Then Play Long reaches Wild! and meets Kate Bush along the way: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/erasure-wild.html
― agincourtgirl, Thursday, 3 September 2015 14:23 (eight years ago) link
Maybe they're not self-conscious anymore now that no one's paying attention?
I'd say that applies again to World Be Gone, which is also pretty enjoyable. I briefly forgot, during "Take Me Out of Myself," that I wasn't listening to the new Perfume Genius.
― geoffreyess, Wednesday, 6 September 2017 16:06 (six years ago) link
I didn't like World Be Gone at all - finding it a bit drab, lacking in energy and memorable material. I really wanted to like it, too.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 6 September 2017 18:30 (six years ago) link
^ Or at least that's how I felt the first couple of times I heard it - I'm finding this one is slowly growing on me.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Saturday, 30 September 2017 18:55 (six years ago) link
Okay, so I couldn't be any less arsed about World Be Gone the first couple of times I listened to it, but there's something about this record that keeps making me return to it... it's possibly their most ballad heavy "proper" studio album since Nightbird. It's grown on me a hell of a lot, and I've listened to this one far more than the last two.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
The previous one sounded like the most autopilot thing on Earth.
I did think that 'When I Start To (Break It All Down)' from earlier was probably their best song since 'Fingers & Thumbs' though, ignoring the processing on Andy's voice and the poor use of brackets
― PaulTMA, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 20:27 (six years ago) link
Yeah, I didn't really enjoy Tomorrow's World - I'm not against vocal processing but it was overused on that album and Frankmusik had such a stamp on the end product that I was left wondering where the fuck Vince was.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 20:36 (six years ago) link
The Violet Flame is probably the best sounding album they've made this decade, but I think the songs on World Be Gone are better, even if the production isn't as good and it takes a few listens for the songs to click.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 3 October 2017 20:40 (six years ago) link
So, it turns out that World Beyond, the piano'n'strings version of World Be Gone, is better than the original album. The songs make far more sense like this, and I wish they'd put the album out like this to begin with.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 31 May 2018 19:50 (five years ago) link
Never much of a fan, but this ^^ list reminded me to pull up this song last night for the first time in 20 years, and I promptly listened to it 10 times in a row before going out dancing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMbBMxX2nB0
― ... (Eazy), Saturday, 22 June 2019 18:55 (four years ago) link
in a deep Vincent Clarke hole right now, don't think i'll ever get over how much this one man has totally shifted my perspective on pop music.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:35 (four years ago) link
also this first comment from the "Always" video just made me rofl:
"i love how the prince saves the princess with the ultimate power of gay"
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:37 (four years ago) link
Classic
https://attitude.co.uk/article/erasures-frontman-andy-bell-claims-he-refused-to-have-a-sex-with-an-alien-because-he-is-gay/22550/
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 7 January 2020 22:04 (four years ago) link
felt like doing an Erasure top ten, hear it is
1. Joan2. Oh L'Amour3. Brother & Sister4. Chorus5. Take Me Back6. You Surround Me7. Ship of Fools8. Cry So Easy9. Rock Me Gently10. A Little Respect
― swing out sister: live in new donk city (geoffreyess), Tuesday, 16 February 2021 03:45 (three years ago) link
The new single is the first erasure track that’s pricked up my ears in... a few decades
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n77X65Aquw
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 18 May 2021 14:50 (three years ago) link
Their 1995 self-titled album that arguably strangled their Imperial Phase might be the masterpiece that contains their best songshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgIU8D--cuw
― PaulTMA, Saturday, 4 November 2023 02:47 (six months ago) link
Superior to A Little Respect etc IMO. what an albumhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1mBv3iHMQ
― PaulTMA, Saturday, 4 November 2023 02:48 (six months ago) link
And there's Grace, which no one ever mentions. Truly beautiful:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptApotnluTc
― PaulTMA, Saturday, 4 November 2023 02:51 (six months ago) link
Agreed generally. One of two albums I can think of that not only derailed a healthy chain of no. 1 albums but did so by missing the top ten altogether (the other is ahem Stereophonics' Keep Calm and Carry On). 'Wilfully obscure' in the sense that they sound like they're forcing their own transition to fans-only territory by focusing for a time on open-ended, amorphous music.
It's a really gorgeous record and I wish it was better known.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 4 November 2023 02:56 (six months ago) link
As much as I love Fingers & Thumbs (and consider it most likely the best Erasure song), it was never as hooky as the likes of their biggest hits, so I reckon the arguments that suggest it should have been the lead single fall flat- I mean, "a shattered heart in love's debris" may be a fantastic line, but it simply is not a hooky enough song to fulfill that criteria.
I think Stay With Me must have been chosen as the single as it represented the album best as a whole. I still maintain that had they led off with it in 1991 then it may have been number one for many weeks. Who knows.
― PaulTMA, Saturday, 4 November 2023 03:09 (six months ago) link
Regardless this album is a masterpiece
― PaulTMA, Saturday, 4 November 2023 03:13 (six months ago) link
I mostly think the album works but the songs don't always justify their longer lengths. "Rock Me Gently" is the most successful track here imo, the long atmospheric section pushing them into places they hadn't really explored before. 10 minutes goes by quickly! Whereas some tracks like "Sono Luminus" and "I Love You" feel more like those extended remixes that are mostly stretching out an existing short song. I like both tracks, but I may just prefer a 3-4 minute version. I might even prefer the single edit of "Stay With Me" to the album one
― Vinnie, Saturday, 4 November 2023 14:34 (six months ago) link
Agree with you that "Grace" is awesome, another track that uses the time well
― Vinnie, Saturday, 4 November 2023 14:36 (six months ago) link