After the Christmas EP euphoria of Stop! came the high of Drama!, possibly the most camply “operatic” of Erasure’s exuberant catalogue. The opening single from Wild! is one of the duo’s most absorbing, with Eastern-edged harmony, a shameless fairground synth solo, and well… plenty of drama. Aside from the aggressive energy created by the wall of synthesizers, there is also a startling “guilty!” chorus, which evokes the denouement of an opera ensemble. Do unto yourself as you see fit for your brother, because if you don’t know which Scottish siblings were on hand to supply those shouty vocals you can now.
It’s just one psychological drama after another.
After they hit their commercial stride with the singles off of The Circus (1987) and The Innocents (1988), the popularity of Erasure’s fizzy, dizzy pop confections threatened to outdo another British synth pop duo, their closest chart rivals the Pet Shop Boys. In key terms, when major almost did for minor, you might say.
In creative terms, Vince Clarke took his sashaying sidekick Andy Bell into slight sidestep territory on 1989’s Wild!. On the one hand, the by-now-established Erasure electrosong formula resulted in some of the material sounding like rewrites of earlier numbers, yet still with the requisite smattering of killer hooks and intriguing, yearning lyrics, making the album something of a choppy affair at best.
On the other hand, diminishing the overall impact or not, when the LP’s lead single is as delicious, delirious and divisive as Drama! you can forgive them almost anything. Yes, even Other People’s Songs. Alright maybe not Other People’s Songs.
Drama! has, befitting its title, a manic, hysterical tone to it. Building from a pinging music-box synth into a pumping four-to-the-floor dancer cleverly cued by Andy’s delayed line, “Your shame is ne-veer… ending”. Its darkly dancefloor surge helps make it another flat-out winner for the duo, even if it was deemed to all over the shop by some. The razzleberry-flavoured synths in the cheerful middle eight stood at sharp relief to the eeriness of the rest of the song and provided a little contrast.
And is there a touch of early Morrissey about the way Bell sings “just one psychological drama after another”?
Talking of fandom: amid the weirdly droning backing Bell harmonies, a cacophony of gang-shout background vocals give the proceedings an extra coruscating kick. If you hadn’t heard, they were provided in part, via an uncredited appearance, by doomy Caledonian combo the Jesus And Mary Chain. It was one of those spur of the minute things as indie upstarts the Reid brothers were mixing their third album Automatic in a smaller adjacent studio at The Church, a recording facility in London’s Crouch End then owned by Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox.
“We needed a football crowd,” Bell told the NME, matter of factly.
Co-produced with Gareth Jones and Mark Saunders — the latter was something of the man of the moment, having had an end of decade hand in everything from Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance to mixmaster work for The Cure and Clarke‘s ex colleagues Depeche Mode. Not bad for a bloke who worked his way up in four short years, serving his apprenticeship as onetime Westside in-house engineer on David Bowie’s Absolute Beginners and Dancing In The Street with Mick Jagger.
Yes, we all know A Little Respect and Sometimes are better remembered, but if Erasure is only remembered for two or three songs then Drama! deserves to be worthy of bronze. Released as a 45 on 18 September 1989, it gave the duo their third consecutive UK top five hit in twelve months when it made No.4 at the beginning of October (Top of the pops? Black Box’s omnipresent Ride On Time). Additionally, the single made No.12 in Germany, No.5 in Ireland and No.10 on the US dance chart.
A pen pal friend of mine (hello Mark Lighterness, then of Bracknell now of Cambridge) said at the time that he felt chills up his spine and a tensing of the throat when that clang of a bell introduced the steal bomb of a song. In his beautiful handwriting he marvelled to me at how through that low-key introduction, we are summoned back into the deathfully catchy church of Erasure. Because from thereon in we’re treated to a complicated, unconventional yet quintessential piece of electro-pop perfection that builds and builds to its exciting, unnerving explosion of a climax, ending on the thrilling, knowing “God only knows the ultimate necessity of love.”
What a fantastic death abyss.
Steve Pafford
I Say I Say I Say: Did you hear the one about Kate Bush producing Erasure? The Andy Bell interview is here