Erasure - Chorus POLL

Implicit vote for "Home" as a perfect album closer.

'Am I Right?', am I right?

xxpost:

Yeah, I completely agree that it's a perfect album closer! 'Home' is one of my all-time favourite Erasure songs, and it's one of four that I'm considering voting for here: 'Joan', 'Breath of Life' and 'Siren Song' being the others. I love the whole album, but this is definitely one of those albums where I mostly prefer the album tracks to the tracks that they released as singles.

Am I Right?', am I right?

― more side eye than a Picasso (snoball), Wednesday, September 2, 2015 5:49 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like 'Am I Right?', but I love the B-sides on the 'Am I Right?' single! 'Let It Flow' and 'Waiting For Sex' are so good that they could have gone on the album itself, IMO.

"Chorus" has a gorgeous, ah, chorus, and "Love to Hate You" kills when I do it karaoke.

the b-sides to Chorus were good too. Think there was a Justin Robertson mix of Snappy maybe, that I liked.

Yeah I have a clutch of those around. There was a limited edition "Am I Right" EP with a couple of killer remixes and an acoustic "Perfect Stranger" IIRC

'Love To Hate You' is probably my least favourite song on the album, but I still like it a lot.

I love the backing vocals to 'Joan', actually... on the surface it sounds like there's a trio of female backing singers in the background of the chorus, but it's all Andy! He got better and better at these kind of vocal overdubs with each album, I think, and took it to a bit of an extreme on the Erasure album... there's a hell of a lot of vocal overdubs on that record, and the story goes that when Andy was tracking his vocals, he was doing quite a fair bit of cocaine in the studio, which I guess makes the self-titled record their coke album. Andy Bell has called the whole Erasure/Cowboy period as their "drug-fuelled excess" period.

is "Joan" about the "Today Show" hostess?

the b-sides to Chorus were good too. Think there was a Justin Robertson mix of Snappy maybe, that I liked.

― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, September 2, 2015 6:04 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I only ever had the 7" of 'Chorus', which I think had 'Over The Rainbow' on it?

Andy Bell has called the whole Erasure/Cowboy period as their "drug-fuelled excess" period.

I remember an interview in the NME around that time with Andy that basically concentrated totally on his drug experiences and related issues, and the young naive me being somewhat taken aback.

This poll is incredibly difficult. Think "Home" edges it but may have to create multiple accounts.

I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I love the sleeve artwork to I Say I Say I Say, but I definitely think Chorus has a great sleeve too... I once knew someone who bought the limited edition CD box edition of Chorus, and if I remember it had a slightly different front cover, and then in the box itself there were several postcards with lyrics, more pictures of Andy and Vince in the style of the sleeve (with some MRI scan/"patient data" type of stuff), and several "stock photo"-type of pictures that wouldn't have seemed out of place as part of New Order's Republic sleeve art, even though Chorus came out a couple of years before. In fact, one or two of 'em may have been re-used for the sleeves of the singles... I'm sure what later became the 'Love To Hate You' sleeve was one of them.

Voted for Breath of Life which is my favourite Erasure song. Always thought Coldplay borrowed the tune for Clocks (Along with a dash of Born Of Frustration by James)

The title track would be my second choice. The singles campaign from this album was perfect.

Whoa, I'd never made that 'Clocks' comparison before, but thinking about it, there's definitely a similarity in the chord progression... the piano riff in 'Clocks' always reminded me of the intro to Numan's 'I Die: You Die', too.

Special Box set for Chorus images on discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Erasure-Chorus/release/780805

Yeah, that's the one! Although I'm sure there was more than that?

Thinking about it... Chorus, I Say I Say I Say and Erasure all had great sleeves, I think, which I thought was quite a welcome development because I always thought they'd fucked up on the sleeve art to Wild! a bit (I like the leaves, the photo of the band and the back sleeve, but the front sleeve with "Wild!" in big lettering always looked a bit naff to me) ... The Cowboy sleeve could have been a hell of lot better, though.

I guess Chorus marked a change in Erasure's sound too, moving away from the digital/MIDI-driven sound of the previous Erasure albums, and returning Clarke to a more pure analogue synth-driven sound a la the first Depeche Mode album (although I think Chorus sounds a bit more fuller than Speak & Spell) - Vince would, of course, stay fully analogue for three more albums, and by Nightbird I think he had moved onto software synths.

What fascinates me, though, is that several synthpop artists moved away from the digital/MIDI-driven stuff at around the same time, Depeche Mode's Violator and Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour both being notable in their use of analogue synths, although I don't think Depeche Mode or Pet Shop Boys took it as far - by which I mean, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys added guitars and possibly used some digital technology alongside the analogue synths, whereas I think Vince wanted those Erasure albums to be purely analogue. On the other hand, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark went the other way on 1991's Sugar Tax, which was mostly the Korg M1 - a popular digital synth at the time.

the 7" mix of Breath.. is incredible. slightly tweaked and polished, as was the style at the time.

the Chorus artwork in the CD inlay was totally ripped off by Saville for New Order's Republic

this kind of thing

http://cdn.discogs.com/HrnkJJ3UQdAhBcrBfPjVKb4Exp0=/fit-in/600x299/filters:strip_icc%28%29:format%28jpeg%29:mode_rgb%28%29:quality%2896%29/discogs-images/R-100927-1324458850.jpeg.jpg

http://eil.com/Gallery/32703b.jpg

http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/new-order-republic-rock-cellar-store.jpg

know what i mean?

Yeah, that's exactly what I was getting at! Then, a couple of years after Republic, there's the artwork for Blur's The Great Escape, which is kinda "stock image"-like in places, too!

Heh, "Amor Y Odio". Isn't that one of Martial's epigrams?

I thought this was going to be simple but it's not. That said:

Love to Hate You
Breath of Life
Am I Right
Chorus

I really hope I get to see them one day.

Heh, "Amor Y Odio". Isn't that one of Martial's epigrams?

― Vast Halo, Thursday, September 3, 2015 11:23 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Amor Y Odio' is the Spanish version of 'Love To Hate You'! According to Wikipedia, they did an Italian version called 'Amo Odiarti', but I haven't heard it.

I've just realised that yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the original release of 'Who Needs Love (Like That)', it'll be interesting to see if they've got any plans to celebrate their 30th year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAqFvY8WREw

The Italian version seems to be quite rare, but I found a minute-long sample of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgLPSPKTvBY

Voted for 'Home'

One of the big albums of my life. "Chorus" seems like the obvious choice but that lovely low melody between the chorus and verses of "Joan" might give it the advantage. I'll think on this.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Can't disagree with 'Home' getting so many votes, but will never understand why so many people see 'Love To Hate You' as a highlight of this record. 'Siren Song' deserved at least one vote, too. On the whole, though, good to see that nearly all of the album got at least one vote!

I want schlock from Erasure tbh

Poor old "Perfect Stranger".

Didn't they do acoustic performances of 'Perfect Stranger' during the promotion of the album?

Already forgot what I voted, but I liked Perfect Stranger best at the time. First CD album I ever bought.