Sunday Synthpop Brunch: Yaz

It was one of the biggest surprises of 1981 when keyboardist Vince Clarke abruptly left Depeche Mode just after their debut album Speak And Spell had achieved a significant breakthrough on the UK charts largely thanks to his work on what would become one of their signature singles: "Just Can't Get Enough." While co-synth player Martin L. Gore would eventually steer Depeche Mode into darker thematic waters over the next few years, Clarke's next move was to further refine his kinetic robopop style under the guise of Yazoo (simply Yaz in the U.S. - God knows why).

Unsurprisingly, the limited output of Yazoo has Clarke's distinctively detailed compositional fingerprints all over it. Stocked with ultraclean, incredibly catchy electro-pop gems as well as some equally compelling and far less sunny material like the doom-laden ballad "Winter Kills" and the eerie experimental tape loop collage "I Before E After C," Yaz's 1982 debut album Upstairs At Eric's was Clarke at the top of his game aided and abetted by the blazing R&B vocals of Alison Moyet (who gave the dry synthesizer dominated music a warmer and more palpably human counterpoint than Depeche Mode vocalist David Gahan was capable of at that point in time).

Apparently, it wasn't just the fans of Speak And Spell that were pleased with the results of this new collaboration: Upstairs At Eric's met with instantaneous success and the popularity of Clarke's new project, for a while, even eclipsed that of Depeche Mode. Despite this runaway success in England, Upstairs At Eric's never took the U.S. market by storm (though it ultimately managed to sell over a million copies over the following decade). Despite never reaching higher than #73 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Situation" became the duo's U.S. "hit" and the song that still accrues the most airplay for them on 80's-themed weekend and specialty shows. However, it was the album's second UK hit "Don't Go" that really caught my attention, largely thanks to airing of it's deeply silly monster-movie video on MTV. Right up there on the same insanely catchy plane as "Just Can't Get Enough," "Don't Go" features a typically head-turning Moyet vocal that adds even more urgency to Clarke's dancing synth arpeggios and driving electronic percussion.

The following summer saw the release of the second and final Yaz album You And Me Both, which managed to top the charts in Blighty (Upstairs At Eric's never made it past #2), but yet didn't have the longterm sales legs shown by its predecessor. The album also managed to yield another UK Top 3 smash with "Nobody's Diary," which retains the danceability of and dancing keyboards from "Don't Go" but adds a more reflective and sorrowful delivery from Moyet, who sings lyrics that could be interpreted as a commentary on the imminent end of their creative partnership.

Following the dissolution of Yaz00, Moyet embarked on a solo career that, while virtually a dead issue in the United States outside of a lone Top 40 single in 1985 ("Invisible"), has seen considerabe success overseas. Clarke landed in an even shorter-lived collaboration next: with Feargal Sharkey under the moniker The Assembly. In 1985, however, Clarke found his musical soulmate at last in vocalist Andy Bell and the two of them formed Erasure, which not only has become far and away Clarke's most permanent musical project to date but also yielded him a true American breakthrough at last with 1988's The Innocents.