Erasure • Features • Biography
Loveboat (2000)
Electro folk heroes don't come any more vivid than Erasure. In their fifteen-year history they have been a hundred dazzling things to a million people. They have been an ideal soundclash of the ethereal and the microchipped; for the soft-hearted they have been a perfectly turned amorous couplet; they've been caretakers of the nation's most succulent synth museum; a statement of flamboyance pride; a diamond mine of statistics; a pair of rude rhinestone cowboy chaps; pop genius sweethearts in anybody's language.
Now, in an era of out-the-closet pop, Clarke and Bell have returned to remind the world of the quality of their craftsmanship and show off some rougher edges. Three years on from their back to form Cowboy album, Erasure's ninth collection of original pop songs sails forth under the name 'Loveboat'. Written partly in Andy Bell's adopted home Spain and partly in London not so far from Vince Clarke's garden shed, the eleven songs take the band's mid-life renaissance to the next level.
"With the Cowboy album we thought we'd try and get back to being pure pop, unashamed" explains Andy Bell, "Cowboy was the beginning of that and it inspired a new confidence. We couldn't believe when we started writing the songs for the Loveboat album that we had that many songs in us still 'cause it just kind of came out of nowhere." Loveboat's eleven little masterpieces of storm-tossed cupid catharsis may have come out of nowhere but there was assistance with bedding them down.
For the first time in over a decade Erasure worked with their original producer, Flood, who co-produces Loveboat with the band. The songs which started out as purist sketches using just stylophone and guitar have been cut with beats and textures from across the contemporary spectrum, further broadening the band's already wide stylistic range. "It was inspiring working with him again," says Vince, "Part of the reason for getting Flood in was that we knew he could probably roughen it up a bit. He's been doing lots of other things, and we were more up for someone actually manipulating the recordings.
With Vince and Flood exploring new possibilities within their pop remit and Andy Bell lobbying for Phil Spector-isms and a hint of Walker Brothers feel, the Loveboat eleven constitute the richest and most diverse Erasure album in years.
'Freedom' is super-powered gospel techno. 'Crying In The Rain' welds bent hip hop beats to Bell's angelic keening. 'Mad As We Are' provides a giant orchestrated Broadway pivot half way through. 'Moon & The Sky's glutinous beats churn beneath rave-referenced keyboards. 'Surreal' provides the honeycomb pop kiss goodbye. As demonstrated in the Kraftwerkian-soul ballad 'Love Is The Rage' ("... is divine", "...is rage", "...is bizarre") Andy Bell forges ahead with his psychoanalysis of heartache' allowing his continuing love of Motown, gospel, country & western and Elvis to guide his concerns. The lyric writer of one of the greatest pop songs of all time - 'Ship Of Fools' - is clearly on good terms with his muse.
All songs on Loveboat were written without the aid of a rhyming dictionary. "You get these phrases which keep coming up in all these songs, but sometimes it's alright to use them," remarks Andy. "I just think, if it's good enough for Burt Bacharach or Motown, it's good enough for us." "I think there's an endless fascination with a song that talks about how sad love is," adds Vince. 'If you can get that across, especially if you can make someone think 'Yeah I know exactly how you feel mate', then I think you're onto a winner."
Erasure Fifteen years on from their first single 'Who Needs Love Like That' Clarke and Bell continue to be mavericks lobbing their sentiment bombs from the other side of the fashion wall. Their failure to be scene darlings may, however, have ensured their longevity. By the time Andy Bell answered Vince's 'vocalist wanted' advert in '85, the taciturn electronic 'boffin' had already come through his chic phase as Depeche Mode member and then Yazoo and The Assembly lynch pin. Bell, the embryonic diva from Peterborough, put an end to all that.
Prior to the release of the first Erasure album, 86's Wonderland, Primal Scream supported them at the Marquee, but Vince and Andy were too tuneful for underground cool. Third single 'Oh L'Amour' was a hit outside the UK. By the time of their second album 87's The Circus they had blossomed into a hits machine going top ten with 'Sometimes' and 'Victim Of Love' and following through with 'Ship Of Fools', 'Chains Of Love' and 'A Little Respect' from 88's ensuing number one album The Innocents.
The next album, 89's Wild! notched up another number one and the pair set out on the road to excess, touring with a preposterous stage set of jungle plants and inflatable creatures. As 91's Chorus album headed for the top of the charts they took the live show to an extreme of absurdism. The 'Phantasmagorical Entertainment' tour featured Andy riding a giant white swan and wearing infamous cowboy chaps, plus an Abba cover sequence in advance of their 1992 chart conquering covers EP Abba-esque. The Benni and Bjorn-esque rout of the charts slowed in the early 90s as the band took time off after the Pop! The First Twenty Hits! singles collection went to number one in 92. The I Say I Say I Say spawned the top ten single 'Run To The Sun' in 94 but amidst a guitar band dominated climate Vince and Andy veered off into the darker experimental terrain of 95's Erasure which placated their 'serious' side but slightly scared radio programmers.
Erasure 97's Cowboy album and its follow up Loveboat may sound like a return to their traditional strengths of soaring hooks and every man/woman emotions, but nothing is quite that simple with Erasure. As Andy Bell points out: "I think that we've got away with a lot really, we've been quite subversive, unintentionally, just being ourselves. We're quite normal, actually, but we're not perceived as being normal." The normal thing for a band of their lineage would have been arguments, time away and a sorry comeback tour. Erasure are too stubborn and too eccentric for any of that. They still love each other. Their love for pop is constant. Andy Bell's been getting down with Aqua and tapping his heel to flamenco. Clarke's been inspired by Mercury Rev, doing film scores and 'pseudo retro soul funk' as Family Fantastic. Their chemistry is as active as ever. "We're just very sad really, we're just going to keep making records," laughs Vince. "We'll never split, sorry folks!" "But at least that means we'll never do a comeback!" adds Andy.
With some of the most uplifting music that pop has ever been blessed with, timeless, genreless and outrageous, Erasure are on the rise again. "Before I started working with Vince I loved Phil Spector and old records that my parents listened to and they weren't contemporary," concludes Andy. "But they were the songs you hear over and over again, and eventually people cover them, and I like to think our songs are like that."
Erasure, see, they're just un-erasable.