The Chart Runs Thread

[Fugitive1979]

Eh, all these are so predictable. Why not post Buddy Holly or Miley Cryus or Black Eyed Peas or Todd Rundgren?

On you go, then.

[Undertaker]

Erasure - Albums

Albums - 16
Number One - 5
Top Ten - 7
Top 40 - 13
Average Chart Position - 22

After that teriffic run of five consecutive number one albums, Erasure haven't had a top ten album for 13 years.



Wonderland (14/06/1986) 71 peak position 7 weeks
The Circus (11/04/1987) 6 107
The Innocents (30/04/1988) 1 78
Wild! (28/10/1989) 1 48
Chorus (26/10/1991) 1 25
Pop the first 20 hits (28/11/1992) 1 26
I say I say I say (28/05/1994) 1 15
Erasure (04/11/1995) 14 5
Cowboy (12/04/1997) 10 4
Loveboat (04/11/2000) 45 1
Other People's Songs (08/02/2003) 17 2
Hits - The Very Best Of Erasure (01/11/2003) 15 5
Nightbird (05/02/2005) 27 2
Union Street (03/)4/2006) 102 1
Light At The End Of The World (02/06/2007) 291
Total Pop - The First 40 Hits (07/03/2009) 21 3

[Patrick Bateman]

That has got to be one of the gayest videos ever. I remember at school how much mileage the assorted oafs got out of that mincing blue hand.

[XTZ1969]

[Drico One]

Let's not forget that one of their early singles was a S/A/W pastiche that sounded a bit like a PSB pastiche (video is very PSB too) called "Kylie Said To Jason":

Bill Drummond openly admitted that it was a PSB pastiche. Let's face it, it's Domino Dancing meets Left To My Own Devices in Pete Waterman's jax. It's no surprise they were influenced: no other art pop duo has so wholly constructed a perfectly conceived self-contained world as Pet Shop Boys. If it was just about the music, they'd have been forgotten years ago.

Drico.

[BlueSwan]

Erasure - Albums

Albums - 16
Number One - 5
Top Ten - 7
Top 40 - 13
Average Chart Position - 22

After that teriffic run of five consecutive number one albums, Erasure haven't had a top ten album for 13 years.



Wonderland (14/06/1986) 71 peak position 7 weeks
The Circus (11/04/1987) 6 107
The Innocents (30/04/1988) 1 78
Wild! (28/10/1989) 1 48
Chorus (26/10/1991) 1 25
Pop the first 20 hits (28/11/1992) 1 26
I say I say I say (28/05/1994) 1 15
Erasure (04/11/1995) 14 5
Cowboy (12/04/1997) 10 4
Loveboat (04/11/2000) 45 1
Other People's Songs (08/02/2003) 17 2
Hits - The Very Best Of Erasure (01/11/2003) 15 5
Nightbird (05/02/2005) 27 2
Union Street (03/)4/2006) 102 1
Light At The End Of The World (02/06/2007) 291
Total Pop - The First 40 Hits (07/03/2009) 21 3

The steep dropoff in popularity from 1994 to 1995 is really astounding. Yes "I Say I Say I Say" was a shit album, but "Erasure" was a great album and the two singles were vintage Erasure, yet both flopped.

[Drico One]

Their ship (of fools) had sailed. Erasure were a pop group in the purest sense - there was nothing else to their aesthetic. When their commercial time was up - and the rise of retro guitar pop in 1995 heralded their end - there was little else to justify their continued existence. I like Erasure, but even their most ardent fans would concede that Andy Bell is not a modern-day wit in any sense of the term.

What saved Pet Shop Boys from the same fate was the fact that they operated on a wider canvas. Their oeuvre took in art as well as pop. Pop was a mere medium for the wit of Neil Tennant, clearly a very intelligent man, a chronicler of modern life, and avid consumer of culture. I realise that this sounds pompous, but, hey, I've never been a man to use one word when two will do instead.

Essentially, Erasure were a pop group - and a bloody fine pop group at that - but Pet Shop Boys are artists. Tennant was a "singer" only because the medium he initially succeeded in giving voice to his art was pop - and even then he spoke most of his early words of wisdom. Bell was a singer because that was all he could do. If Neil hadn't met Chris, he'd still have found a way to make his voice heard.

Drico.

[Undertaker]

, but even their most ardent fans would concede that Andy Bell is not a modern-day wit in any sense of the term.

Nope. The ardent fans think he's the greatest lyricist of all time and still is.

What saved Pet Shop Boys from the same fate was the fact that they operated on a wider canvas. Their oeuvre took in art as well as pop. Pop was a mere medium for the wit of Neil Tennant, clearly a very intelligent man, a chronicler of modern life, and avid consumer of culture. I realise that this sounds pompous, but, hey, I've never been a man to use one word when two will do instead.

Essentially, Erasure were a pop group - and a bloody fine pop group at that - but Pet Shop Boys are artists. Tennant was a "singer" only because the medium he initially succeeded in giving voice to his art was pop - and even then he spoke most of his early words of wisdom. Bell was a singer because that was all he could do. If Neil hadn't met Chris, he'd still have found a way to make his voice heard.

Drico.

Pretty much spot on. I think it was your good self that said PSB were now ''culturally massive'' and i doubt you have ever said a truer word.

I do think Erasure's next album will be their highest for a long time because the top ten is quite easy to break into at the moment and Erasure still have enough fans that will back them and they deserve great credit for sticking by them, while most groups and their fans of the same era, have long gone.

[Patrick Bateman]

The ardent fans think he's the greatest lyricist of all time and still is.

It's not like them to resort to hyperbole.

How does one begin to describe such a behemoth beauty of a song? Not only is it the perfect opener to an album, it is so beamingly powerful as to almost "wash out" the entire album that preceeds it with its brilliant light.

It's as though Vince has painted a canvass using electro-paint that stretches for kilometers in either direction and soars to the atmosphere... while Andy achieves angel-song notes that raise the hairs on my limbs in a wave from one end moving to the other.

The song is a masterpiece of visual-phonic splendour. When Andy sings of butterflies toing and froing (and after one gets over how cool that lyric is), Vince draws in the fluttering butterflies with synths and then encapsulates it in an idyllic, childhood fantasy backdrop that you can almost smell. When Andy sings "...echooooooooo!" in the beginning, Vince unleashes an intro that sounds like a trillion crystalline flowers splashing into a sparkling ocean.

The thing that adds yet another dimension to this song is the looming darkness, like a foreboding stranger lurking in the background of your greatest moment, slowly seeping the poisoning question of "could this all end?" Like windchimes growing restless and clouds rolling into horizons like an advancing army on an otherwise perfect day. The bass is ominous and powerful, yet hints at a childlike reality that is about to age and curdle like the milk in a baby's bottle.

This song is one of the reasons I am here... one of the reasons I spend so much time swimming in my love for this band... one of the reasons I spend so much time posting to this forum. This song is seriously what life is made of, and I'm proud to the point of tears for having had the fortunate chance of being part of it simply by letting the beauty pour into my ears like one of the electronic waterfalls that Vince has crafted for this song.

[Drico One]

My God. It's me in a leotard.

[Patrick Bateman]

The amazing thing is that he describes every single song they've written like a copywriter for My Little Pony OD'ing on PCP.

[Patrick Bateman]

The Shamen

Pro-Gen 07/04/1990 55 4
Make It Mine 22/09/1990 42 5
Hyperreal 06/04/1991 29 5
Move Any Mountain 27/07/1991 4 10
LSI 18/07/1992 6 8
Ebeneezer Goode 05/09/1992 1 10
Boss Drum 07/11/1992 4 7
Boss Drum (Remixes) 07/11/1992 58 1
Phorever People 19/12/1992 5 10
Re-Evolution (with Terence McKenna) 06/03/1993 18 2
The SOS EP 06/11/1993 14 4
Destination Eschaton 19/08/1995 15 4
Transamazonia 21/10/1995 28 2
Heal (The Separation) 10/02/1996 31 2
Move Any Mountain '96 21/12/1996 35 3

Another group who like The KLF briefly went hugely mainstream in the early 90s were The Shamen. I still think that Ebenezer Goode is an incredibly clever and subversive number one hit, and En-Tact is a brilliant album even now. I love the fact that groups like The Shamen and The KLF did just burn brightly for a moment in the pop firmament rather than hanging around to ever-diminishing returns like most careerist pop stars seem to these days. Fat Dancer and Take That! have been around twice as long as The Beatles ffs!



(Sexy Plavka of Jam and Spoon fame )

[BlueSwan]

Patrick, which song was he describing so "eloquently"?

[Patrick Bateman]

[York Minster]

It's funny, I actually knew which song he meant. But mostly from the butterflys. But that song DOES have a great sound. If Erasure do represent an "enchanted forest" type atmosphere, that song is at the height of that movement.

But Blueswan, how is I Saw a "shit" album? On a few Erasure albums, they actually have a strong sense of concept and place, and that is one of them. I doubt the author above could be so intricate about I Could Fall In Love With You. I rarely defend Erasure, and I don't really listen to them anymore, but those who said they always did the same thing were wrong. Listen to I Say, then Erasure, then Cowboy back to back. And then even Loveboat. Sure, Vince is ping pong just like Chris is synth strings, but they did something new each time. The problem is they don't do new lyrical themes very well.