Alongside Vince Clarke, the electropop pioneer has produced some brilliantly catchy and enduring songs. As the group releases a new album, the singer reflects on what happens when the hits dry up – and why he still loves performing live
In the late 80s and early 90s, when the electropop band Erasure were, says Andy Bell, “kind of the darlings for a while”, they reached what he calls “saturation TV”. Bell, Erasure’s vocalist, means they were big and mainstream enough to get on daytime television. And then, says Bell, “that all changes, the media changes, and they don’t want you any more. It makes you realise your life isn’t measured by how many people know you and stuff like that. In the end, it’s the songs that count.”
And what songs they are. Bell and Vince Clarke wrote brilliant, enduring pop songs – so catchy, I realise, that I’ve had A Little Respect going round in my head for most of my life, ever since the fateful afternoon I taped it off the Radio 1 chart show sometime in late 1988. Despite Clarke’s history as the synth-pop pioneer who had already had hits with Depeche Mode and Yazoo, at some point in the 90s, Erasure became rather uncool and never really recovered. Blame the daytime TV appearances perhaps, combined with a burgeoning laddish Britpop era that couldn’t handle Bell’s sequins and camp. But their biggest hits – among them Sometimes, Stop! and Blue Savannah – stand up.
