Erasure were a better band, a better singles act, and have a better discography than the Pet Shop Boys

or amijusdreamin

meleeECI (4 weeks ago) Show Hide
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Erasure has the stupidest videos ... I love their music though. Just to put my 2cents in ... Gay is wrong but the music is good .. 2 different things.
arona1969 (2 weeks ago) Show Hide
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whats wrong in being gay? where are you from ?
meleeECI (2 weeks ago) Show Hide
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The creator, God, made man and woman to be together. Homosexuality is as wrong as hetero sex outside of marriage. God has a design and a plan. That plan does not include sexual activity outside of the bounds he created it for. That is why Gay is wrong .. this is the wrong forum to be discussing it though.

philipbutlin (5 hours ago) Show Hide
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i'm as straight as it gets but this group was fantastic

Srsly tho, just soulseeked "Sometimes", awesome.

Enjoy The Silence > Regret > Can You Forgive Her > Always.

I cannot possibly view "Regret" a synthpop song. "World" maybe, "Regret", no.

As for PSB/Erasure:

Erasure:

Positive:
- Really strong melodies, some killer choruses
- The prementioned counter melodies. Those "polyphonic" synth melodies in the background are maybe the best thing of all about all of Vince Clarke's musical projects
- Some really cool synth sounds. Vince is a masterful synth programmer. Even late 80s FM synths he often managed to get to sound cool, which was extremely difficult.
- With the exception of "The Innocents" and some late 90s/early 00s stuff, always faithful to their synthpop roots.
- Usually avoiding failed experiments with musical styles they better not visit too often

Negative:
- Extremely irrelevant for most of the 90s
- Andy Bell. I am sorry, but his vocals are sometimes terribly annoying
- Not that I am very interested in lyrics, but, yes, they are sometimes very horrible
- Could sometimes have benefited from being slightly more ambitious, and yet, the one time they were (the eponymous mid 90s album) they kind of failed.
- They aren't Yazoo nor Depeche Mode

As for Pet Shop Boys:

Positive:
- A strong row of 90s albums
- A great tongue-in-cheek and slightly ironic approach that gives their music sort of a double edge
- Some really classy songs
- Neil Tennant's vocal style fits perfectly

Negative:
- To many "hard" digital samples in their 80s material at times
- Some really ill-advised attempts at experimenting with "dance" styles they should have left untouched (house, latino etc.)
- The "Release" album. Worse than anything Erasure have ever done.-
- From the 90s onwards, Neil Tennant has sometimes sung in the same annoying falsetto way that Andy Bell does, decreasing his lead in the vocals part

Geir OTM re: Erasure, not so much re: PSB.

I like both these bands; which one I prefer depends on my mood.

PSB tower over Erasure.

PSB tower over Erasure.

In my mind this is true; in my ear I'm not so sure.

let's not think about the PSB's towers, please.

Geir has a couple of valid points, but this thread shouldn't even exist. True, the PSB have their highs (Actually) and lows (Release). But Erasure at their best is far from being at the same league as the the PSB at their best.

My thoughts exactly, except I also like Release (and might be the only one on this board).

I'm glad someone already mentioned the Abba-esque EP - great!

I don't consider "Actually" a high. It sounds way too 1987. Sounding 1982 is good, sounding 1987 not.

Just bouncing this as I forgot to add that "Chorus" was a better album that anything Pet Shop Boys have ever been close to coming up with.

Released at a time when synthpop was hardly existant at all, Erasure managed to come up with one of the best synthpop albums ever released.
It remains their only flawless classic though.

I have no clever, fancy comment on this. I can only agree with the fact that this thread should not even exist. Everything in that thread title is so wrong.

Actually, "Actually" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Chorus"

Re: Erasure

...Usually avoiding failed experiments with musical styles they better not visit too often

How can someone criticize the Boys' "failed" latino experiments (I guess you are referring to "Domino Dancing" and "Bilingual") when Erasure have the colossal tripe that is "La Gloria", one of the worst songs ever recorded?

"Domino Dancing" worked out somewhat, "Discotequa" and "Single-Bilingual" did not.

But, yes, "La Gloria" was hardly a masterpiece either.

I think "La Gloria" is pretty openly supposed to be silly

even though Erasure and PSB seem to have so much in common on the surface it's really mind-boggling to try to compare them because of their differences in approach

Admittedly "Single-Bilingual" isn't that great, mainly because it was a complete ripoff of Los Fabulosos Cadillacs' "Matador". But I "Discoteca" has a fantastic intro, and it's not bad overall.

"Discoteca" doesn't have much of a tune. "Domino Dancing" does. Thus, "Domino Dancing" is better.

Top 10 UK Chart positions for Erasure and Pet Shop Boys between 5th October 1985 and 5th October 1995:

ERASURE

Singles:
1. Sometimes - #2
2. Victim Of Love - #7
3. The Circus - #6
4. Ship of Fools - #6
5. A Little Respect - #4
6. Crackers International EP - #2
7. Drama! - #4
8. Blue Savannah - #3
9. Chorus - #3
10. Love To Hate You - #4
11. Breath of Life - #8
12. ABBA-Esque EP - #1
13. Who Needs Love (Like That) (Hamburg Mix) - #10
14. Always - #4
15. Run To The Sun - #6

Albums:
1. The Circus - #6
2. The Innocents - #1
3. Wild! - #1
4. Chorus - #1
5. I Say I Say I Say - #1

PET SHOP BOYS

Singles:
1. West End Girls - #1
2. Suburbia - #8
3. It's A Sin - #1
4. What Have I Done To Deserve This? - #2
5. Rent - #8
6. Always On My Mind - #1
7. Heart - #1
8. Domino Dancing - #7
9. Left To My Own Devices - #4
10. It's Alright - #5
11. So Hard - #4
12. Where The Streets Have No Name (Can't Take My Eyes Off You) - #4
13. Can You Forgive Her? - #7
14. Go West - #2
15. Absolutely Fabulous - #6

Albums:
1. Please - #3
2. Actually - #2
3. Introspective - #2
4. Behaviour - #2
5. Very - #1

So yeah, 15 UK Top 10 hit singles apiece, although Pet Shop Boys managed to attain 4 #1 singles, while Erasure managed one. Both acts managed 5 "proper" studio albums going Top 10 on the album chart, with Pet Shop Boys only managing one #1 album in that period, whereas Erasure had four #1 studio albums in a row.

Didn't include singles compilations, but Erasure's Pop! beat out Pet Shop Boys' Discography on the album chart too: Discography making it to #3, whereas Pop! charted at #1.

Conclusion: During their absolute peak years of 1985-1995, the UK public liked and appreciated both, though it seems that Erasure fans were more interested in buying the albums than buying the singles. Andy Bell was never a critic or a music journalist.

Post-1995 tells a different story, though: shifting musical trends in the UK made it hard for acts of this ilk... Depeche Mode probably weathered it the best even though they could just as easily have split up in the mid '90s (although granted, that had nothing to do with declining popularity), Pet Shop Boys weathered it remarkably well just by doing whatever the hell they wanted and pressing on regardless, and still managed to get a lot of press inches (Neil Tennant used to be a music journalist), but the late '90s mostly did for Erasure. They retained a hardcore fanbase, but they had only one more Top 10 album (Cowboy, in 1997), and the occasional hit after 1995.

It's weird how far Erasure fell commercially in the second half of the 90s. By the time Loveboat came out it felt like they were pretty much done. It was a wonderful moment when Breathe was such a big hit for them in 2005. I just wish the album had done as well, Nightbird is my favourite album of theirs.

'Nightbird' is indeed very good.

I think, in a way, the self-titled Erasure album from 1995 may have been the wrong type of album for them to release at the time. Personally, I think it's a good record and has some fine songs on there: 'Rescue Me', 'Fingers and Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day)', 'Rock Me Gently', 'Stay With Me', 'A Long Goodbye', but I think some Erasure fans were alienated by its emphasis on ballads/slower songs and "expanded" songs, even if just as many fans thought the approach on Erasure was a step in the right direction and find it a shame that they didn't go further in that direction. I definitely still think to this day that they chose the wrong singles from that album: 'Fingers and Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day)' really should have been the first single from the album, rather than 'Stay With Me' - not only in 'Fingers and Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day)' one of the most uptempo songs on the album, but it's also one of their very best songs in my opinion, and I still find in incredible that it only made it to #20.

Looking back, Erasure seemed to be quite a quick follow-up to I Say I Say I Say, appearing just over a year after that album. I seem to remember it getting some pretty decent reviews at the time.

Cowboy is a bit of a safer record, but there's nothing on there that's awful and that I find myself wanting to skip... I think the closing track, 'Love Affair', is up there as one of Erasure's best ever songs.

I completely forgot that I have a copy of 'Cowboy'. You're right that the self-titled may have been the wrong record at the time, but I'm not sure jumping straight to 'Cowboy' would have really helped either - I think the tide was turning regardless. "Fingers and Thumbs" should have been the first single, agreed. Probably felt they had "enough in the bank" to make something a bit more indulgent - making use of the end of the imperial period.

x-post

As for their post-'90s stuff:

I listened to Loveboat a couple of nights ago, and found it quite underwhelming on this go-round. I don't think the songwriting is anywhere near as strong as it is on Erasure or Cowboy, even if there is one or two songs on there that I like. The production/mix sounded as thin, bizarre and as terrible as ever, and I honestly can't believe that Andy & Vince thought it was good enough to release, especially since it had been about 3 years since Cowboy.

Nightbird sounded as wonderful and as underrated as ever, and sounds more like the logical follow-up to Erasure or Cowboy to me. Nightbird is probably the last Erasure album that actually sounds like an Erasure album to me, or what I like about Erasure.

Light At The End Of The World was okay, but in hindsight this album (for me) marks the beginning of Erasure trying anything they possibly can to "update" their sound, but in the process of doing so, it feels like the contemporary dance-pop gets ramped up and the "Erasure-ness" (for want of a better term) in their sound gets diluted. I think Tomorrow's World with its Melodyne effects all over the place is definitely like this, and The Violet Flame is a bit like this too. I liked The Violet Flame on first listen, but it's paled with subsequent listens. Nightbird feels like it couldn't have been made by anyone else aside from Erasure.

I completely forgot that I have a copy of 'Cowboy'. You're right that the self-titled may have been the wrong record at the time, but I'm not sure jumping straight to 'Cowboy' would have really helped either - I think the tide was turning regardless. "Fingers and Thumbs" should have been the first single, agreed. Probably felt they had "enough in the bank" to make something a bit more indulgent - making use of the end of the imperial period.

― michaellambert, Tuesday, September 1, 2015 8:18 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah... I'm glad that they made the self-titled record, even if it was their lowest charting album at the time (it peaked at #14 when the previous four had got to #1), and I definitely much prefer it to their last three "proper" studio albums. I wish they'd stop trying to be a contemporary dance act and just focus on making a record that sounds like Erasure.

I guess the Pet Shop Boys are lucky in that whatever they attempt musically, they still sound like themselves... Release and Elysium aren't great records, but they sound like Pet Shop Boys records.

I liked 'The Violet Flame', saw them for the first time on that tour, but I remember it feeling odd to be listening to a new Erasure album with nothing approaching a "hit" single preceding it. Definitely felt like "one for the fans", but that's ok.

This thread has sent me off to listen to 'Chorus', which probably just edges 'Erasure' and 'Nightbird' as my favourite.

I Say I Say I Say for me, I love this record so much and often feel that it gets a touch overlooked, even though it was a UK #1 and has 'Always' on it. It's got Martyn Ware (Human League/Heaven 17) helping out with the production, and I think the cover art is brilliant and fits the sound of the record really well. Excellent use of the choir on 'So The Story Goes' and 'Miracle', too.

'I Say I Say I Say' was the first Erasure album I bought at release - I was 11 when it came out, got 'Pop' at Christmas in '92 and 1993 was agony with nothing new from them. I still only have it on cassette, need to rectify that.

The limited edition CD version had a pretty neat pop-up sleeve!

http://cdn.discogs.com/T0sZWcYWkkMccF4Oc3XQ92t69Rw=/fit-in/300x253/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(96)/discogs-images/R-182957-1110405282.jpg.jpg

Very surprised "O L'Amour" wasn't a single on that list.

Ohh...

Chart (1986/1987) Peak position

UK Singles Chart[7] 85
U.S. Billboard Dance/Club Play Singles Chart[8] 3
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales Chart[8] 9

I liked the Colin Newman mix of 'Fingers and Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day).'

idk I like about three quarters of Pop! and think they really honed their sound in the Crackers Intl-Chorus period, but I can't escape how their obsession with a template wore them down. In Vince Clarke's admirable work ethic from Depeche Mode and the Assembly and Yazoo to Erasure there was the commitment of a hack.

Very surprised "O L'Amour" wasn't a single on that list.

Ohh...

Chart (1986/1987) Peak position

UK Singles Chart[7] 85
U.S. Billboard Dance/Club Play Singles Chart[8] 3
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales Chart[8] 9

― half the staying power of Erasure (Eazy), Tuesday, September 1, 2015 9:58 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, even though Clarke had obviously had success with Depeche Mode, Yazoo and The Assembly, Erasure got off to a really shaky start commercially. In fact, if I remember this correctly, Erasure turned into what they were completely by chance... I think the whole idea behind what eventually turned into the first Erasure album, Wonderland, was that it was initially supposed to be a series of Clarke-penned songs with different singers on each track, but then he auditioned Andy Bell and did away with the original idea, and Andy Bell became the permanent lead singer and they started writing songs together. It was originally meant to be a one-off project, but is now Clarke's longest running act after only doing one album with Depeche Mode and two albums with Yazoo (and he didn't even want to do the second Yazoo album!)

Wonderland didn't even make the UK Top 40 album chart upon release - it peaked at #71! The original release of 'Who Needs Love (Like That)' was the biggest hit from the album, peaking at #55 in the UK Top 40 singles chart - 'Oh L'Amour' and 'Heavenly Action' both performed extremely poorly at the time of release, which is surprising because 'Oh L'Amour' in particular is seen as one of their "classic" tracks. It must have been a bit of a shock to Clarke that the first Erasure releases didn't perform too well commercially, especially after having success with previous outfits, but I guess in a sense this was a good thing. Erasure weren't an "overnight" success, they built their fanbase and reputation gradually: 'Sometimes' was their "breakthrough" UK hit, which led to The Circus charting at #6, and then next came the The Innocents and singles like 'A Little Respect' by which time Erasure were a household name.

I just filed a long essay on a particular kind of '80s queer synth pop and thought about including Erasure but didn't, in part because it's obvious why the kids and their parents liked'em.

Because they wrote a series of good, catchy singles/albums?

Yep. I don't think the albums are particularly special though.

In Vince Clarke's admirable work ethic from Depeche Mode and the Assembly and Yazoo to Erasure there was the commitment of a hack.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 1, 2015 9:58 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't quite understand what you're getting at here. I think if Yazoo had made it to a third album, then Wonderland is what it would have sounded like, and I do think that sonically Erasure progressed from there, mostly with Clarke being solely responsible for the music and getting the sounds together for the records. I dunno, "hackwork" isn't something that springs to my mind whenever I hear a classic Erasure record.

Yep. I don't think the albums are particularly special though.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 1, 2015 10:57 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd argue the opposite - particularly The Innocents and Chorus.

No such thing as a "classic" Erasure album. Unless you mean "record" to include singles.

I've heard all of them through 1995 and there ain't much difference to my ears. The ABBA-esque EP sounds particularly cut-rate. Bell is often a blank singer, and to my ears Clarke's dumb little hooks need a singer with personality to put them across (Moyet, Sharkey could; Bell too on occasion).

"Hack" isn't necessarily an insult, but in Erasure's case where the guys worked hard without much imagination for so many years it makes sense.

Yes, I meant "record" to include singles, although again, I'd argue that The Innocents and Chorus are classics, both being highly regarded by not only Erasure fans, but also dedicated fans of UK synthpop. If I had to rank my favourite UK synthpop albums of all time, both of those albums would be in there without any hesitation. That they haven't had big critical acclaim outside of dedicated synthpop circles like the Pet Shop Boys have is a whole 'nother matter entirely.

I've heard all of them through 1995 and there ain't much difference to my ears.

You're implying that Wild! and I Say I Say I Say sound the same, and they don't.

Well, let's put it this way: I'd love to read a reconsideration.

I'd highly recommend giving Nightbird from 2005 a listen. It's a beautiful record and manages to capture everything that's great about them.

I've found myself listening to I Say I Say I Say a lot today... man, did Vince and Martyn Ware get some wonderful synth sounds on this record. In fact, I think at this point Vince wasn't even using any drum machines and all of the drum sounds come from Vince's collection of synths, just like The Human League did on their first couple of albums before they started using the Linn. 'Take Me Back', 'So The Story Goes', 'Run To The Sun', 'Always', 'All Through The Years', 'Miracle' and 'Because You're So Sweet' are all-time Erasure tracks for me, and I enjoy 'I Love Saturday' and 'Man In The Moon' ... really, there's only 'Blues Away' that I'm not so keen on.

otm

"Blue Savannah" is gorgeous.

Fat Vegetarian Goths > Fat Vegan Racists so The Cure wins.

Was Morrissey racist in the '80s and/or '90s or is this a recent development?

The Smiths suck

1986 — “Reggae, for example, is to me the most racist music in the entire world. It's an absolute total glorification of black supremacy... I don’t have very cast iron opinions on black music other than black modern music which I detest. I detest Stevie Wonder. I think Diana Ross is awful. I hate all those records in the Top 40 – Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston. I think they’re vile in the extreme... Obviously to get on Top Of The Pops these days, one has to be, by law, black,” he told Melody Maker.

1992 — He was quoted in Q Magazine saying: “I don’t really think, for instance, black people and white people will ever really get on or like each other.”

Ugh. Breaking my heart Moz.

How do you regard Erasure in comparison with the Pet Shop Boys? Aren't they very much alike?
Erasure In many ways, yes, they are very much alike, at least superficially. Both are British synthpop duos who started off in the 1980s and have openly gay vocalist/lyricists. And I do like Erasure tremendously, counting them among my favorites. But I like the Pet Shop Boys far more. Pet Shop Boys
I believe Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys are comparable as performers, although I think Neil and Chris put on a better show overall. I also think the Boys have a better sense of style. But, much more importantly, they're vastly superior songwriters. Clarke/Bell is a pretty good songwriting team. But Tennant/Lowe is, in my opinion, a truly great songwriting team. More pointedly, Andy simply isn't in the same league as Neil when it comes to writing lyrics.

For every two Erasure songs that I like, I can name another that I don't care for. By contrast, out of more than 300 PSB songs to date, I can honestly say that (as I note elsewhere) there are only three that I dislike: "The Sound of the Atom Splitting," "Love Is a Catastrophe," and "Ego Music." To put it another way, I like about 67% of what Erasure does, whereas I enjoy roughly 99% of the Pet Shop Boys' output. Also, I find both the early and more recent albums by Erasure rather weak—I think they peaked in the 1990s with the albums from Chorus through Cowboy—whereas PSB's albums were top-notch from the start and have, in my opinion, maintained an unremitting level of excellence. (Let's just say that Disco 2 was an anomaly. )

I have a warped little dream: that someday Erasure will release an album of nothing but Tennant/Lowe songs, perhaps including a few remakes but ideally made up mostly of previously unreleased originals. Better yet, the Pet Shop Boys would also produce the album, while allowing Clarke a free hand with his synth arrangements, of which he is an absolute master. One song could even be a "duet," in which both Vince and Chris play instruments and both Andy and Neil sing. (Can you imagine a love-duet between those two? Half of me thrills at the thought; the other half cringes in horror.) Such an album could be nirvana. (Please note the lower-case n.) Of course, it will almost certainly never happen, but I still love to imagine it.

C'mon guys—you can work it out.