Vince Clarke

Through his groundbreaking work with Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and finally Erasure, the mercurial Vince Clarke was among the driving forces behind the rise of synth pop and remains a major player in the style's continued vitality. His work was an enormous influence on the emergence of electronica, and as Erasure's love-struck, highly melodic dance-pop has remained a force on the U.K. charts decades after their emergence in the mid-'80s, Clarke has continued to explore sound and technology. Highlights among these efforts include 2001's Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, a nature-suffused electro-acoustic collaboration with Martyn Ware, and 2023's Songs of Silence, an ambient-leaning set of genre-blurring (mostly) instrumentals that served as his first official solo album. Born July 3, 1960, in South Woodford, England, Clarke was raised in nearby Basildon, initially studying the violin before moving on to piano. In 1976, he teamed with schoolmate Andrew Fletcher to form No Romance in China. The duo proved short-lived and by 1979, Clarke had formed French Look, another two-piece featuring guitarist/keyboardist Martin L. Gore. Fletcher soon signed on, and the group rechristened itself Composition of Sound. Although Clarke initially handled vocal chores, in 1980, singer David Gahan was brought in to complete the lineup. After one final name change to Depeche Mode, the quartet jettisoned all instruments except their synthesizers, honing a slick, techno-based sound to showcase Clarke's catchy melodies. Although Depeche Mode's 1981 debut LP, Speak & Spell, became a major hit, buoyed by the single "Just Can't Get Enough," Clarke left the lineup soon after the record's release. In his absence, Gore assumed songwriting duties, and the group slowly achieved international stardom in the years to follow. Clarke, meanwhile, formed Yazoo (shortened to simply Yaz for U.S. consumption) with singer Alison Moyet. The duo's 1982 debut, Upstairs at Eric's, reached the number two spot in the U.K., and the follow-up, You and Me Both, hit number one. However, after just a year and half together, Clarke and Moyet parted ways, with the latter pursuing a solo career. Clarke then teamed with ex-Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey just long enough to issue the single "Never Never" as the Assembly, followed by a collaboration with Paul Quinn for the 1985 single "One Day." That same year, Clarke placed a blind ad for a singer in a British music weekly; Andy Bell was selected from a pool of over 40 applicants, and Erasure was born. Erasure proved to be the most enduring of Clarke's projects, although their 1986 debut, Wonderland, just barely cracked the U.K. Top 75. The duo quickly followed it with "Sometimes," a preview from their forthcoming second album. "Sometimes" reached number two on the U.K. charts, beginning a string of successful singles that would run into the 2000s. The Circus was released in March of 1987 and peaked at number six on the U.K. album chart. The Innocents, Erasure's third album, became their first number one album in Britain upon its release in 1988. The record featured the group's first American hit, "Chains of Love," which reached number 12 in the U.S.; its follow-up, "A Little Respect," peaked at number 14 Stateside. At the end of 1988, Erasure released the Crackers International EP, which reached number two in the United Kingdom . Erasure's fourth album, Wild!, appeared in 1989, and like its predecessor, reached number one in the U.K., as did its successor, 1991's Chorus. Erasure released the Abba-esque EP, a tribute to the Swedish pop group ABBA, in 1992; it became their first number one single in the U.K. Later that year, Erasure released a compilation of their British singles, Pop! The First 20 Hits. Two years later, the duo released their fifth album and fourth straight U.K. chart-topper, I Say, I Say, I Say, which featured the hit single "Always," their first American hit since 1988. Erasure's eponymous sixth album was released in October 1995 and peaked number 14 at home. It was followed in March 1997 by the Top Ten-charting Cowboy. In 1999, Clarke teamed with fellow synth pop pioneer Martyn Ware (the Human League, Heaven 17) as the Clarke & Ware Experiment, issuing Pretentious, an album of new age-adjacent instrumentals. Erasure's Loveboat surfaced two years later. Co-produced with Flood (Mark Ellis), it was the duo's first album since their debut to chart outside of the Top 40 in the U.K. Another collaborative effort by Clarke with Ware, Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, arrived in June 2001 (as Vincent Clarke and Martyn Ware). They reappeared as Clarke 'N' Ware on the 2003 compilation Electroclash. Also released in 2003 was the Erasure all-covers LP Other People's Songs. It landed them back in the U.K. Top 20. Later that year, the Erasure collection Hits! also reached the Top 20. After 2005's "return-to-form" album Nightbird reached number 27 at home, the 2006 LP Union Street found Erasure unplugging and re-recording old album tracks and B-sides with acoustic instruments. It was treated as a minor release by fans and landed just outside the Top 100. Nevertheless, a tour with a full band supported the record and was documented on the 2007 live release On the Road to Nashville. Later in the year, another return-to-form album, Light at the End of the World, arrived and took them back to the U.K. Top 30. Another Top 30 album, Tomorrow's World, followed in 2011 with the duo handing production over to Frankmusik, whose previous work included Lady Gaga and Pet Shop Boys. In 2013, they released Snow Globe, a holiday album featuring new songs from the group along with some classic Christmas carols. A return to the club-oriented work of their earlier years, the dancefloor-ready The Violet Flame followed in 2014 with production from Richard X. It not only returned them to the Top 30 at home, it rose to number 38 in the U.S., their best chart position there since the '90s. Following celebrations of their 30th anniversary as a band in 2015, Clarke and Bell released their 17th Erasure long-player in 2017. World Be Gone responded to the upheaval of the late 2010s with positive, proactive songs. Accompanied by a summer stadium tour with Robbie Williams, it returned Erasure to the U.K. Top Ten for the first time in 20 years, reaching number six. They followed it in early 2018 with World Beyond, a re-recording of World Be Gone arranged for Bell and the Belgian chamber ensemble Echo Collective. Recorded across two nights at London's Eventim Apollo as part of an extensive world tour, World Be Live arrived close behind in mid-2018. Featuring vocals recorded by Bell in Atlanta, Georgia, and entirely self-produced, the more joyous, club-oriented The Neon followed in mid-2020. It went all the way to number four in the U.K. The next year's The Neon Remixed featured over a dozen outside contributors, including Bill Coleman, Octo Octa, and OMD's Paul Humphreys. They followed that with another Neon-affiliated album, Day-Glo (Based on a True Story), in mid-2022. Going beyond the parameters of a remix album, it found Clarke manipulating and selectively reorganizing sound files from The Neon sessions to construct new, sample-based songs, with Bell contributing newly recorded vocals to some of the tracks. The Neon Live followed in 2022. In November 2023, Erasure's longtime label Mute released Clarke's first career solo album, the categorization-defying Songs of Silence. A mostly somber, atmospheric mix of ambient, drone-based, and minimalist beat-driven tracks, it included a cello lament and "Blackleg," a song based on a 19th century anti-scab folk song, as well.
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