Upstairs at Eric's

by

Yazoo

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Yaz appeared on the "New Wave" scene in 1982 with the hits "Situation", "Don't Go" and "Only You". Fronted by Vince Clark (ex-Depeche Mode) on synthesizers and an unknown female vocalist named Allison Moyet, Yaz (originally Yazoo) created catchy electro/pop. Yaz's debut album "Upstairs At Eric's" produced several huge club hits with "Situation" (here in it's entire "Club Mix" version), "Don't Go" and the moderately successful "Only You". The first two songs are synthesized discoish club tunes with strong vocals courtesy of Moyet. Club jocks pumped these songs thru their sound systems to packed dancefloors (I know cause I was one of the jocks that spun both these tunes, sometimes several times a night) worldwide. But the album also had other great songs such as "Bad Connection", "Goodbye Seventies", and "Bring Your Love Down (Didn't I)" to name a few. If you enjoy artists such as Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, New Order, Human League, Heaven 17 and Ultravox then this cd is a must have. Highly Recommended!

I wasn't nearly as enthralled with this album as previous reviewers. Alison Moyet's voice is decent, but certainly not spectacular and Vince Clarke does the best he can with the equipment he had available to him at the time. Certain parts of the production, however, just don't seem to come together. The number of times the single "Don't Go" chorus line was strung together at the end of that song begins to grate on the ears a little. "Too Pieces" starts off well, but then has no lyrics after the first minute or so leaving me with the feeling that Clarke forgot to write a couple of verses. I do, however, enjoy "I Before E..." because it's just so funny: (Dragons, the policeman knew, were supposed to breath fire and occasionally get themselves slaughtered). After "Midnight", another rather weak song, the rest of the album isn't bad at all. Moyet and Clarke didn't collaborate in writing any of these songs but one, and it's obvious that Moyet writes much better lyrics while Clarke's talents lie in the creation of a good tune. All in all, it's not a bad effort at all considering when it was written.

Having said all this, Clarke finally gets everything right later with Andy Bell and Erasure. They collaborate on their songwriting and by this time Clarke finally has some decent synth equipment to work with. My three stars might be a little harsh considering I judged this against Erasure albums.