The two pop acts who ended the \u201980s on the best possible artistic note were Madonna and the British duo Erasure. However, while Madonna\u2019s Like A Prayer<\/i> earned accolades by the critics and public alike, Erasure\u2019s Wild!<\/i> was discarded and forgotten about entirely. <\/p>\n
In retrospect, this is what we in the business call a shame. Especially when you take Erasure\u2019s lackluster material from the last decade into account, Wild!<\/i> stands tall as one of their very best. <\/p>\n
Underrated is an accurate word to describe both Erasure and Pet Shop Boys. Sure, they both have a dedicated fan base and a large cult following, but little else to show for their 20 years in the music business. Still, their longevity is remarkable, even if they\u2019ve never been able to experience mass appeal. Both acts have never strayed from their electronic music formula, and they both have lead singers who are openly gay — while that gets old with some people, I was one of the few who kept coming back for more. <\/p>\n
After the breakthrough success of The Innocents<\/i> in 1988, many critics wondered if Erasure\u2019s follow-up would be just as impressive. When Wild! was first released, it came as somewhat of a shock to those who those who had gotten used to Erasure\u2019s harmless, campy songs and colorful live shows. Harder-edged in style, Wild!<\/i> has often been called their techno concept album, but I would consider it their artistic statement. <\/p>\n
(A side note: For whatever reason, I\u2019ve often noticed that straight people typically have an aversion to dance music, except for college kids who are into the rave scene. Sure, Paula Abdul had her day, but look how long she lasted. Now, even when someone as big as Madonna goes back to her dance floor roots, the public at large tends to shut down. It just makes me wonder if you can attribute this lack of interest to homophobia or to lazy people who don\u2019t know how to dance). <\/p>\n
Anyway. Regardless of exactly why most Americans turned a deaf ear to Wild!<\/i>, the album did go straight to No. 1 in Britain and spawned a large-scale tour of the same name. The \u201cPiano Song\u201d intro is a trick teaser for the listener, slyly placed by Andy Bell and Vince Clarke, but just when you think this is another mellow Erasure affair you are blindsided by monster tracks like \u201cDrama,\u201d \u201cStar\u201d and \u201cBrother And Sister.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cDrama\u201d is the fastest song Erasure has ever recorded, beginning with a thunderclap and building to an exciting climax, all made even greater by the video that was made for it. Only Andy Bell can handle a mouthful lyric like \u201cone psychological drama after another\u201d and make it mean something. <\/p>\n
To slow down the frenetic pace just a tad, \u201cYou Surround Me\u201d is a techno ballad to die for and is just as intense as \u201cDrama.\u201d It contains a cascading melody that simply glows. File this one under Overlooked Masterpieces. As strong as \u201cYou Surround Me\u201d was, other slower tunes like \u201cHow Many Times\u201d and the bloated \u201cCrown Of Thorns\u201d don\u2019t fare quite as well and disrupt the momentum of the rest of the album. Though the elegant harps are an interesting choice, \u201cHow Many Times\u201d suffers from Andy singing in an awkward lower register. <\/p>\n
About the only misstep on this otherwise solid disc is \u201cLa Gloria,\u201d a ridiculous flamenco number that is so misplaced and out of character (especially for the deadpan Vince Clarke) that the only involuntary response you can give it is laughter. If they intended Wild!<\/i> to be their serious artistic statement, it almost goes out the window with this one. <\/p>\n
But remove it, and you’ve got one of the \u201980s most underrated discs and one of the band\u2019s best works, which was only topped by their next album, the brilliant Chorus<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":28607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7875],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40082","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-erasure","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40082"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40082"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}