508 Hello Erasure - Who Needs Love Like That ?

Chart  entered : 5  October  1985

Chart  peak : 55  ( 10  in  re-mixed  form  in  1992 )

Number  of  hits : 35

Now  we  catch  up  with  the  story  of  Vince  Clarke. As  stated  in  the  Alison  Moyet  post  I've  covered  the  work  of  Yazoo  elsewhere  so  we'll  pick  the  story  up  after  their  dissolution  in  July  1983.  Vince  founded  his  own  record  label  Reset  with  recording  engineer  Eric  Radcliffe  ( of  Upstairs  At  Eric's  fame )  and  started  producing  singles  for  his  friend  Robert  Marlow. In  the  autumn  he  and  Eric  announced  they  were  now  a  duo  The  Assembly  who  would  release  records  with  guest  vocalists   in  a  similar  way  to  B.E.F. the  year  before. They  got  off  to  a  flying  start  with  "Never  Never"  a  self-pitying  ballad  featuring  Feargal  Sharkey, at  a  loose  end  since  The  Undertones  split  at  the  end  of  1982. It  reached  number  4  in  November  1983.  Vince's  reputation  as  a  songwriter  was  further  enhanced  the  following  year  when  The  Flying  Pickets  version  of  "Only  You"  went  one  better  than  the  Yazoo  version  and  became  the  Christmas  number  one.

Despite  that  The  Assembly  project  quickly  ran  into  the  sand   for  reasons  which  have  never  really  been  explained  given  that  Vince  and  Eric  continued  to  work  together. No  other  vocalist  was  associated  with  the  project  and  there;s  been  no  hint  anything  else  was  recorded. Apart  from  producing  a  couple  of  singles  for  Marlow  Vince  was  musically  silent  throughout  1984.

Vince  re-emerged  in  the  summer  of  1985  with  the  single  "One  Day"  in  collaboration  with  Paul  Quinn, former  vocalist  with  the  short-lived  Bourgie  Bourgie.  It's  not  clear  if  Quinn  had  originally  been  approached  to  be  an  Assembly   The  song  was  co-written  with  pop  duo  Morgan  McVey   although  you  wouldn't  know  it  as  it's  pretty  similar  to  "Never  Never"  both  in  tempo  and  melody. However  the  single  didn't  get  much  air  play  and  didn't  chart. One  wonders  if  , as  seemed  to  be  happening  with  Terry  Hall, his  audience  were  getting  tired  of  the  constant  bed-hopping.

Even  before  the  single  with  Quinn  came  out  Vince  had  placed  an  ad  in  Melody  Maker   for  a  new  singer . Andy  Bell , a  gay  shoe  salesman  from  Peterborough   came  through  the  audition. He  had  been  singing  with  a  group  called  The  Void  and  was  a  big  fan  of  Vince's  previous  work.

Here's  my  take  on  "Who  Needs  Love Like  That  "  from  the  albums  blog  :

  It's  the  first  of  those  non-smashes  Clarke's "Who  Needs  Love  Like  That ? "  that  kicks  things  off  here. It  was  released  in  October  1985  and  reached  number  55  with  most  attention  focussed  on  a similarity  in  vocal  tone  between  Bell  and  Moyet  with  the  following  assumption  that  that  was  why  he'd  been  "picked". It's  a  fairly  straightforward  synthpop  ditty  with  an  Oriental-flavoured  melody  and  vaguely  accusatory  lyrics. There's  no  obvious  reason  for  its  failure  and  indeed  it  was  a  big  hit  in  remixed  form  as  a  trailer  for  a  greatest  hits  LP in  1992.

The  muted  ( sorry )  reaction  to  Erasure's  first  single (  and  indeed  the  performance  of  the  next  two  )  suggested  that  Vince  still  had  some  work  to  do  to  regain  his  audience  but  history   shows  he  managed  it.