Customer Reviews

POP! - 20 Hits

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a friend over yesterday and something in our conversation ended up making me think of Erasure. Having an extensive CD collection, I sometimes forget all the CDs I have and I found this gem that I haven't listened to in a long time.

I think that one of the reasons why people don't think they know many Erasure songs is that with the exception of a couple like "Blue Savannah" and "Chains of Love," you can't necessarily figure out what the title of the song is by listening to it. The group definitely has its own sound and unless you listen to them a lot, many of the songs tend to sound very similar. This makes me think of bands like Journey and STYX who's greatest hits albums are awesome... it wasn't until listening to the entire CDs that I realized I really did know a lot of songs by those bands. They just kind of suffer from a lack of branding of their songs. What my philosophy/theory brings me to is, that if you've ever heard even one Erasure song that you liked, you need to get this CD... you'll realized you've heard all of these songs before and loved them. Synthesizers and a strong beat give these songs a lot of dance-ability for parties or just grooving in your car and they can be listened to over and over. With all these hits and all the talent, you've gotta wonder, where are these guys? Why don't I hear them on the radio anymore?

I'm not often enthusiastic about club-dance-techno-pop bands, most of which seem determined to copy each other to the point of exhaustion. But I'll make an exception for Erasure, which has a great deal more going for it than the vast majority of music you're likely to hear the next time you hit the dance floor.

Chief among the band's assets is vocalist Andy Bell, who has a remarkably rich and passionate voice--but Erasure does not rely on Bell pure and simple. It is the combination of Bell's vocals, a bouncy beat, and the often unexpectedly thoughtful and frequently bitter lyrics that do the trick. The result is a consistent sound that crackles with a sensuous passion, and at its best creates one memorable cut after another.

POP! suffers from the usual failings of every compilation album, which is to say that it generally goes for the obvious choice even when a lesser-known selection is clearly superior. But even so, it offers a solid overview of Erasure, from the purely danceable to the disquietingly emotional playing against the dancefloor rhythm. "Ship of Fools," "Chains of Love," and "A Little Respect" are perhaps the side of Erasure that are most recognized--but when the selections turn to such intense and lyrically sharp selections as "Drama" and "Love to Hate You," you know that you've stumbled into something special.

The compilation, in my opinion, saves the best for last, running a gamut from the intensely passionate and romantic "You Surround Me," to the purely elegant "Blue Savannah," to angry "Chorus," to the moody and introspective "Am I Right"--the latter of which may well be single finest thing in this collection. As a garnish, the collection finishes up with a very enjoyable cover of Abba's "Take A Chance." But whichever you happen to prefer, it's all good stuff. Recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Prior to listening to this album, I was only familiar with Erasure from the radio. When a friend loaned me this album on cassette, I was eager to listen to songs that didn't receive airplay here.

This album proves that for every "throwaway" pop hit they released, another one exists which is more introspective and sublime. Starting from The Innocents era (why is this album trashed by the Amazon reviewer?), the duo really began to indulge (thankfully) in material that is melancholy in nature. Listening to "The Circus", for example, you focus first on the theme-park background, but lyrics like "holding back the pieces of a broken dream" show another facet. Similar in lyrical style, "Ship of Fools" from the title alone would seem to be a campy song, but it is really a wonderful, sad song about the pain of growing up. The other "extra" tracks here, for the most part, follow in this vein. "Drama!" is cathartic, and "You Surround Me" is sensual; "Am I Right" is sublime, and "Breath of Life is anthemic. These songs will be a revelation to anyone who only knows Erasure from radio airplay.

Of course, any Hits album has to draw the line somewhere, and some great songs are missing, like "How Many Times?", "Heart of Stone", "Brother and Sister", "She Won't Be Home", "If I Could", "S.O.S.", etc... But that only encourages you to buy their other albums to discover these great songs.

The bottom line is that anyone with even a passing interest in this group would like this greatest hits album.

This twenty song collection played the singles route to perfection. "POP!" collected all the singles to date and then ran them chronologically, up to the "Abba-esque" EP and "Take a Chance On Me." Nothing left off, and the "hits" aspect is taken literally. Since Vince and Andy were better at the singles than at the albums anyway, the finest of their singles truly sparkle as gold from the eighties. Given that their later output was lackluster at best (save "Always"), this is a great primer for a fun band.

And Erasure is pretty much a sugar candy duo. With two notable exceptions, the songs were campy or beat heavy hook records. Only with the environmental lyrics of "Chorus" or the call to arms of "A Little Respect" did the duo ever push towards anything really weighty. Not that there is anything wrong with that, mindless fun is better than no fun at all. And this was the period where Vince was still innovatively exploring the compositional range of the synthesizer. Which meant that, when he was on, he was brilliant, and Andy almost always found the kind of exuberance to overcome any deficiencies (think "Love To Hate You").

So if you are contemplating a choice between this album and the more recent hits collection, I'd actually give the nod to "POP!" The new set adds more from the Abba EP and removes several of the songs here. The dropped songs included some essential (in my opinion, at least) songs like "Drama" and "Who Needs Love Like That." You loose 8 songs here for 7 alternates, and this collection has, simply put, a more concise menu of Erasure at their best.

Vince Clarke was formerly with Depeche Mode, another band that relied heavily on electronic music, synthesizers and enigmatic types of lyrics. Clarke wanted to journey out from Depeche Mode's darker tendency to a much more pop-oriented and dance-oriented sound of his own. He recruited Andy Bell after auditioning many vocalists to front the band Erasure, and after turning out dance music throughout the 80s and 90s, has become one of the better-known unknown musical artists.

Erasure never really made it big in America, although they did have a string of top 40 hits, some one which made it into the top 10 for brief stints depending upon what Billboard chart you were looking at. Yet at every dance club even to this day you can put on a remix of "Sometime" or "Chains of Love" and the floor will be filled.

Maybe one thing Vince Clarke didn't count on, being a straight man, was how identified the group he just created would be with the .. world. Yet it didn't phase Clarke at all -- he embraced the audience that embraced his music. One can see on the videos that he revels in the atmosphere that his music inspires.

One of the more inspired and campy aspects was their remake of Abba songs, one of which appears on this greatest hits collection -- "Take A Chance on Me". The consistency of the beat and the electronic qualities make this a very 80s kind of sound that nonetheless survived into the 90s, seemed to be waning with the MTV refocus of attention to rap and grunge/garage bands, but seems to be making small inroads at returning, much in the way that 70s music made a resurgence. Fortunately, Andy Bell and Vince Clarke are still around and still making music; while their greatest hits are probably behind them, and to be found on this disc, their music will not soon be forgotten, and their influence will continue for a long while to come.

Give is a "Little Respect".

this is a great cd because it probably has all the songs you want on it ... and a few you didn't know about too! the best such as "oh l'amor" & "a little respect" and one of my fav's "take a chance on me" make this worth the purchase even if every song isn't your favorite so... if you really enjoy erasure GET this CD!

Erasure is one of the few groups from the '80s that has managed to remain a consistent favorite with me. Of course I grew up with their music in the '80s with the likes of "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect". Their music is irresistably catchy and upbeat and yet their lyrics can be reek of despair and sadness. Of course Vince Clarke happens to be a former member of Depeche Mode so Erasure's music is going to have that similiar synth-pop sound that Depeche Mode did so well in the '80s and '90s. Andy Bell's vocals adds such an endearing quality to the music. I have never heard such sweetness and sincerity in one man's vocals like I have with Andy. "Pop! 20 Hits" is a thorough compilation of the group's greatest hits back in the '80s and early '90s. I think the only flaw I could see with this album is that they didn't include "She Won't Be Home", one of my all time favorite Erasure songs. That song is so sad yet extremely catchy and irresistable to sing along to. I can forgive them for the exclusion of that particular song. My most personal favorite songs comes from the group's debut album "The Innocents". I just absolutely adore "A Little Respect" and "Oh L'amour". Those two particular songs really represents the new wave sound of the '80s. "A Little Respect" in general blends both the infectious melodies the duo is known for with such heartbreaking lyrics. I absolutely love that song too pieces. I can listen to that song without ever getting sick and tired of hearing it. I can't say that about just any song nowadays. The duo's cover of ABBA's classic "Take A Chance On Me" is truly one of a kind. Not many pop acts today can really do a half-decent cover of an ABBA song but Erasure does an excellent job at one of my favorite ABBA songs. In fact, Erasure does a swell job at covering various pop songs like The Supremes' "Baby Love" and Blondie's "Heart of Glass" (both songs are b-sides for a couple of their singles). "Blue Savannah" is another favorite Erasure song that I can never get sick of hearing. Just a tremendous pop song. "Pop! 20 Hits" is one of the few best of/greatest hits cds that really covers a group's early years. Other than excluding "She Won't Be Home", this cd does a really excellent job at covering Erasure's earlier music.

Erasure has their own distinct style. You have to hear them to know what I'm talking about. They're REALLY heavy on the synth-pop sound and high-pitch vocals, so this album title is appropriately named.

Pop is usually highly upbeat, and many songs in this album are, like Stop! and Chains of Love. But what really pulls this album together are the darker songs that aren't quite so upbeat like Ship of Fools and The Circus, which are still heavy on the synth, but not so much the pop.

This album is quite harmonic, and you can find a track to listen to no matter what mood you're in. I got more out of it than I bargained for.

This album is marvellous! No other word to descibe the best releases of one of the best POP! bands in the world. POP! has pride of place in my extensive cd collection (which ranges from Erasure to Emperor). I've never met a music fan who wasn't captivated by the incredible collection of songs present on this CD. Even a lay-person with no prior knowledge of Erasure will know the tunes on this CD and will be singing along in no time. The best buy you'll ever make. (check out the accompanying video/DVD too) {:)=

Erasure are the best all-time pop duo and their singles collection is the definitive proof of this fact to me. And it couldn't be different since Vince Clarke is a keyboarder that really knows how to marry technological resources with beautiful & inventive melodies in a perfect way, while Andy Bell owns a superb voice indeed and he's a very good lyricist, but largely underrated on this point... I mean he catches his inspiration for writting lyrics from artists like Burt Bacharach and Motown's legends and not from pseudo-intellectual and pretentious ones. I really think most people tend to confuse complexity with intelligence and simplicity with dumbness. I'm trying to say that many lyrics apparently brilliant and complex don't mean anything indeed while many other ones just apparently foolish can mean so much more... In addition Erasure have always showed a sense of melody really refined, which you can hardly find on most Pet Shop Boys's songs, by example. Songs like "Oh L'Amour", "Sometimes", "A Little Respect", "Stop!", "Blue Savannah" and "Breath Of Life" own in common their elegant simplicity and they all are real gems from Pop Music. Leave the excess of sophistication to PSB... Besides Erasure are a particularly joyful/sunny pop duo that is strongly interested in bringing light to our lives. Leave the excess of darkness to Depeche Mode... Regarding their ballads, I consider they represent the most melancholic side from Erasure, specially because of Andy's bitterer lyrics, as you can see on three ones present in this compilation: "Ship Of Fools", "The Circus" and "Am I Right?". "You Surround Me" isn't so melancholic indeed. These four mellow and brilliant single-ballads reached all of them a relative success in the charts, however I really think Erasure would deserve more recognition about their talents for making this kind of song. I mean the ballads from Clarke & Bell are so great as their dancing songs, but those ones could rarely get the same quantity of claps. And that's totally unfair! Buy it and you won't regret. By the way, who is this Mr. Steve Gdula who classified most songs from Vince & Andy as "limp and uninspired"?! What a foolish thing to say about Erasure's ones! I think you, Mr. Gdula, need to hear all the albums from Erasure again and again and again. And urgently! By the way, it seems to me the critics have never gotten tired of writting limp and uninspired reviews about Erasure.