For all their hit singles I'd readily bet my last pair of red ruby slippers that Erasure wouldn't feature in many people's Top Ten Pop Groups of the last twenty years. Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, the Human League sure, but when it comes to Erasure well, they seem to have set up camp - ahem - in some kind of critical blind spot.
What makes it all the more difficult to understand is the fact that they were responsible for probably the juiciest slice of pure pop pie of the 80's with 87's 'The Circus.' Every single track on that album was the match of it's biggest hit 'Sometimes' and whilst this their ninth album proper isn't quite that good, 'Loveboat' is still probably their best effort since.
You can be too gay of course and maybe that's been Erasure's main problem all these years. I mean, Andy Bell has none of the cuddly asexual appeal of a Boy George and none of that pervy exoticness upon which Marc Almond has built an entire reputation.
To be frank Andy Bell looks like someone who might come round to fix your washing-machine, like someone you might actually know who actually, you know, DOES IT. In short he's a little bit too discomforting for middle England who like their queers a little bit more otherworldly. More power though to his gay elbow and here's hoping 'Loveboat' lands him and Vince Clarke back in the tediously still waters that is Top of the Pops these days.
Current single and standout track 'Freedom' might just do it. Glitter-choked and stinking of amyl, it's high-octane sweet-as-a doughnut disco-drama just like what they used to make. Closing tune and heartbreaking fadeout is 'Surreal', the 'Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond' played by a drunk swarm of lovestruck bees. As beautiful as it is bonkers, it is almost - I said ALMOST - the match of 'The Circus' climactic 'Spiralling'. No shame in that though. 'Spiralling' was written by God as a thank you for 'Oh L'Amour'.
Erasure's time has probably gone as far as the general public is concerned and all they can probably look forward to now is ever-diminishing record sales and a new 'Greatest Hits' repackage every five years just in time for Christmas. 'Loveboat' proves Andy and Vince to be far from a spent creative force though and frothily fruity enough to even bring out the Judy Garland fan in your father.
