CENTRAL ERASURE TOPICS

[Undertaker]

A bit of a disaster to be honest. The album didn't even make the top 100. They must have thought it would do better than this, considering the money they would have paid for all those remixes.

Still, the proper release should do much better.

[JSDOUVRES]

The album is non chart eligible but it would have most probably struggled to get into the top 100 anyway but that's the way it is now.
Remember Disco 4? And that had Madonna and Killers tracks on it but didn't do well.
As for the single, well I wasn't even aware it was having a proper single release, I just thought the new mix was done to get a bit of radio play for the album's, not that it would have worked with very little radio play for Erasure these days.
As for the proper release doing better, well like you I doubt that very much but it should at least get top 50!

[Undertaker]

The album was chart eligible. Why wouldn't it have been?

As for the so called 'single' That didn't stand a chance because no one knew about it. So there wasn't a lot of point in releasing it.

[JSDOUVRES]

I don't think remix albums like that are chart eligible, Erasure have previously released remix cd's like Storm Chaser, Moon and the sky plus and Rain and none of these were chart eligible as well.
It Says non chart on the erasure website anyway and it is listed under singles and ep's not albums.
http://www.erasureinfo.com/releases/sin ... mixed.html

[Undertaker]

You might be right, going by that but Greg at EIS said the physical release and the 11 track download were classed as albums and the 4 track thingy was a single.

As for remix albums being chart eligible, all PSB's Disco's were, so god knows how they devise the rules. They seem to change every few months.

[JSDOUVRES]

Well this release is listed under single's and ep's so perhaps they never had the intention of releasing it as a proper album. And Disco 4 must have been listed under compilations with 6 songs by other artists? God knows.
Erasure will never have a big chart hit again I am sure but like I have said before I am also sure they will continue to sell enough to keep on going for a long time now.
The PSB will have better chart success, not necessarily anything that great but just like Erasure they will also sell enough to go on for a long time and I am more than happy with that.

[Undertaker]

Dunno, i think the Pop 40 will do really well. People will buy this, even if it's for just one week. I'd say it will get into the top 20 quite easily.

[JSDOUVRES]

Top 20! I doubt it very much, do people even know this is available?
Lucky if it is top 40-30!

[Patrick Bateman]

Dunno, i think the Pop 40 will do really well. People will buy this, even if it's for just one week. I'd say it will get into the top 20 quite easily.

I doubt it. This will struggle to chart. It's basically the first Pop! with filler only Erasure fans are that bothered about. They seem artistically moribund to me - why re-release Always to promote the new album? Oh that's right, it was a 'remix'.

[DJ_Couture]

Not to mention their last Best Of only came out a little over five years ago.

[Undertaker]

Maybe you guys are right, although the righ promotion and a poor sales week might give it a boost.

I've now listened to pop 40 twice and i actually preferred the remixed release.

The first disc we already have. Some classic hits on there. Blue Savannah, The Circus, Breath Of Life, Am I Right, Drama, Ship Of Fools are all wonderful records. There are some steady records too but songs like Who Needs Love Like That, Heavenly Action and the terrible Abba cover, just get skipped. Three bad tracks from 20+ songs isn't bad going at all.

As for the 2nd disc ;- It's a long time since i heard a lot of the songs and i'll admit that i'd forgotten about them. I was then reminded why i wasn't bothered when i first heard them. The intro's to most give you the impression they are going to be really good but most of them just turn into the same thing. Take away the lyrics (which isn't a bad thing on some of the songs) and a lot just sound virtually the same. Always will always be a good track but the remix is virtually the same. I Could Fall In Love With You, Sunday Girl, Storm In A Tea Cup, Fingers and Thumbs and Rock Me Gently are the better tracks but there are a lot of cringeworthy tunes. Solsbury Hill and Come Up and See Me are dreadful covers. Run to the Sunand I Love Saturdays are equally as bad. It sounds like half the diss are filled with demo's.

The biggest difference from the 2 cd's is the production. The 2nd 40 are cheap. They sound rushed and aren't very interesting. Thats where they need to go with their next album. A proper producer and maybe take a few risks because everything has become way to repetitive. Maybe if i hadn't got bored with them so quickly after 1994, i'd appreciate their later stuff a bit more and wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it all.

8/10 for cd 1
1/10 for cd 2.

[Frequency]

The first disc is virtually flawless and aside from the obvious growing pains of the first couple of mediocre singles, its up there with Discography in terms of being a near perfect singles collection. Its aged rather well and the stuff from Chorus, in particular, still sounds great after all this time.

They should have swapped out Take A Chance with the much superior Lay All Your Love On Me, which I always found to be rather brilliant and superior to the original. These days Take A Chance On Me sounds rather dated with that horrible rap towards the end.

The 2nd disc is a mixed bag of occasional brilliance (In My Arms, Always, Run to the Sun, Fingers & Thumbs, Storm in a Teacup), the awful (Moon & The Sky & Freedom being the main offenders) and the mediocre (Sunday Girl & Make Me Smile). I actually thought the Solsbury Hill was pretty good and a nice electronic take on a classic. The covers project, though, should never have blossomed into a full album.

I find it bizarre that both Always and its virtually-idenitical-but-obviously-inferior 2009 mix bookend disc 2. By the time most casuals get to the 2009 mix they'll probably think that its some kind of pressing error and the 1994 mix is repeated twice.

It deserves a respectable chart position but with the combination of a lack of radio play and without a proper single to promote it, it'll probably struggle.

[pulse]

Although this is a pop triumph artistically, I doubt Total Pop will even get into the top 60.

The second disc's biggest weakness is the "Moon & The Sky" single mix, which has nothing to do with the band's original album version. Other than that, I think it's full of Olympian pop tunes ranging from innocent to epic. Mind you, Disc 2 is plagued by wrong single choices from albums that could have easily been mined differently to much better results.

[Frequency]

I actually quite like the album version of Moon & The Sky but rather than give it a horrific remix, they really should have gone with Love is the Rage as the follow-up; even though it should have been the lead single. Loveboat is much maligned, but I quite like it, and much prefer it to Light At the End of the World. As for single choices, well, its not unique to Erasure, PSB have struggled with the right singles choices during and after Very.

[pulse]

I completely agree. They should have released "Love Is The Rage" (one of the best Erasure album tracks ever), "Alien," and "Here In My Heart." Loveboat is far better than Light At The End Of The World, which I consider the weakest Erasure studio album. The album version of "Moon & The Sky" was an ethereal monster.

All in all, the experimental Loveboat is an album that keeps getting better with age. It was too un-Erasure for the fans at the time, though.