YAZ Classic or Dud

"Don't Go" sounds like Vince just recycled the beat from "Nodisco" and let Alison go nuts on top of it

yaz is pretty funky

God, I love the first album to bits even though they run out of melodies halfway through.

He was the last guy to win the Triple Crown/

TS: Yaz Vs. Yazz ;)

(Well, Yaz obv. or Yazoo)

Don't Go, wherever it came from, just rules. Pretty much the whole 1st album does. Been playing it a lot lately, for some reason. Shrug. Anyway, classic, classic, classic - though You and Me Both is a huge letdown.

TS: Yaz Vs. Yazz ;)

Sunday, 24 March 2002 12:00 (5 years ago)

http://www.yaz-us.com/images/Yaz_logo.png

Gosh, Yaz never get talked about here, this is a great trend. Thanks Curtis.

Also didn't James Murphy mention a "Yaz record" in LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge"? Haha! I believe he did indeed!

I just listened to some Antony & the Johnsons the other day and all I could think was "he sounds exactly like Alison Moyet this is so weird".

Hahaha, I had a very similar moment to you, Trayce, when I heard "One More Try" by My Robot Friend (vocals by Antony). I think in that context the Yaz connection became obvious.

I just listened to some Antony & the Johnsons the other day and all I could think was "he sounds exactly like Alison Moyet this is so weird".

wtf

"Situation" is another great Yaz/Yazoo jam, featuring (in my humble opinion) one of the great synth riffs of the 80's, a guaranteed floor filler every time...(Moyet's laugh at the beginning sounds eerily similar to the sampled laughter in Derrick May's "Nude Photo"...which would make sense)...

http://www.yaz-us.com/images/Yaz_logo.png

(new us birth control pill btw. the song on the commercial is twisted sister's "we're not guna take it".)

Yaz(oo) were great. Classic.

"nobody's diary" might just be the greatest synthpop single ever.

i've got a little note in my music list to go back and listen to the second album (this is off the back of overdosing on the mute box set -- which has live yazoo stuff too) just to see if the rest of it is any better than i remember. i doubt it will be.

still. classic.

"Situation" is another great Yaz/Yazoo jam

yes!!

mega classic, and i don't even like the red sox
http://www.cooperstownglory.com/images/players/yastrzemski_carl_5.jpg

I certainly liked 'em more than Erasure or D.Mode. They deserved to be as big as the Eurythmics, on the basis of that debut anyways. (Never owned/heard the followup.)

I'm still indebted to Curtis for turning me back on to Yazoo's (Yaz's) "Don't Go". I would never in a billion years have thought of that song again until Curtis mentioned it. I never even owned it before, but it's great fun! All of a sudden a cassette tape in my ears 20 years ago comes alive (like Frampton? Um...no)! Great stuff.

Anyone got any idea whether Mute are planning to give the Yazoo/Erasure catalogue a similar treatment as the Depeche Mode one once they are finished with Depeche Mode?

Crutis' Speak and Spoll made me think about how much I love V Clarke and how much I've been listening to Upstairs at Eric's lately. I discovered Yaz in middle school and UAE has been one of my favorite albums ever since. Most of it is just fantastic.

Yaz Coleman.

Hahahah

There's a bunch of little kids outside my window right now chanting "Yaz fuckin' rocks! Yaz fuckin' rocks!" Where are their parents?

Just kidding. But yeah, Upstairs at Eric's is one of the greatest records of the 1980s. Even "I Before E Except After C" could charm the pants off mannequins. Kiddie concrète is a show I want a ticket for.

But ooh doggies what a drop off the second album was! The You and Me Both tracks that bacon up that greatest hits from a while back would render the latter utterly worthless were it not for the houseified 12" remixes tacked on at the end.

"I Before E Except After C" could charm the pants off mannequins. Kiddie concrète is a show I want a ticket for.

Vince told me that they're seriously considering performing it on the reunion tour. However, and this is hardly a surprise, "Happy People" (Vince's only lead vocal EVER) has been ruled OUT OUT OUT.

Re. You And Me Both: I shared that "what a massive drop-off" perception right up until last month, when I played both albums again for the first time in years (if not decades). It holds up remarkably well. Listening again on Artist Shuffle, I kept being caught out: "Oh, that's a good one, must be off Upstairs At..., woah, what???"

"Vince told me"

?!

I bought Alison Moyet's Alf secondhand last week on the strength of "Invisible." That's the only strength.

Yazoo are of course classic, and I am looking very much forward to the "In Your Room" set, which is supposed to be released on the 26th.

The Yaz name is dud though.

There would stop because
there will always be, because
there will always be, for two
there will always
inside you can feel th-
outside you can see the difference
inside, stop, inside, difference
outside, out stop, inside you can feel the difference
feel the
you can difference, difference, difference
you can see the, feel the difference
you can stop, stop, and see the, you can stop, you can see the difference
Dragons, the policman knew,
were supposed to breathe, to breath fire, fire, to breathe fire
and occasionally get themseleves, get themseleves
slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered
he decided.
That would definately not be decided
stop, stop
definately not
stop, stop
not
definately
That would that would that would
stop
definately decided
decided decided decided
not not
he decided

I used to think they were talking about YazZ or some band I didn't know in Losing My Edge until I read this thread, didn't know about the name change in America!

Nobody's Diary is a pretty cool song.

I've been listening to Upstairs at Eric's a lot recently. Totally classic album.

so has anyone seen them play yet? reports?

I had a very amusing conversation with my husband when we first met wherein I professed my love for Yaz. He's English and so thought I meant Yazz who I'd never heard of. We were both very confused.

I love all the obvious songs on UAE but lately I've realized just how awesome "Midnight" is. It gives me chills.

It is! I like how "Goodbye Seventies" attempts to limn a situation -- a time and place -- and never quite does, yet is all the better for it.

Gawd, that's about as perfect a description of (many) pop (and rock) lyrics as any, whether intended that way or not.

And yet sometimes I'm not sure they're all the better for it. I've always felt "Goodbye Seventies" as an extremely welcome skewering of nostalgia, esp. as it comes in decades chunks and even more esp. in the lament that nothing follows in the Elvis/Beatles/Sex Pistols, 1950s/1960s/1970s Great Man/musical revolution litany. But concentrating on the lyrics doesn't exactly bear that out. So is this a limitation of the song? Or does concentrating so intently on the lyrics go against the spirit of pop music? Perhaps the confusion at the heart of the song is its very subject.

I don't know. Should we ponder just what exactly those thirty faces are? Or should we disco right past it?

The line about "thirty faces" forces you to stop dancing cuz it's so unexpected in a song that's all about making you dance, which is partly the point: goodbye to the dreary seventies, dance away the heartache, etc. Maybe it's about Bowie!

It's fair to say that Moyet solo never matched her heights in Yazoo again, but shoudl I give anything else a try besides Alf?

Never heard anything beyond that. I wouldn't bother.

"Goodbye Seventies" seems that she actually thought there would be less fashion hysteria once the 70s ended. I guess we all know she was wrong...

heh! in a big way.

all the gay dudes in my building got tickets for their show out here.

i didnt

;_;

I should note that in the states, Yazoo is known as Yaz, and Eurasure Head is known as Eurasure"
okay maybe not THAT different
-- Tracer Hand, Sunday, 24 March 2002 Bookmark Link

In the UK, Erasure is Eraserhead? now that's weird!
-- A Nairn, Sunday, 24 March 2002 Bookmark Link

no, "Eurasure Head". can't you read?? :P
-- Tracer Hand, Monday, 25 March 2002

!!! super !!!

Yazoo were fairly unique in the synthpop duosphere the songs were written by either vince or alf alone - and that they wrote roughly half the songs each..

i'm going to see them tonight in glasgow: no fuckin' way i was paying 45 quid for a ticket (seriously: that's just barking, and will -- i fear -- lead to a very empty house) but am reviewing it now so all's good.

oddly unexcited, mind you. oddly unexcited :/

I'm reviewing them next week in Nottingham, and then I'm seeing them again the following night in Wolverhampton. (Front row, bit weird, God bless pre-sale, but if they'd announced the Nottingham date at the same time then I wouldn't be making the journey, after all it's not like I'm OBSESSED or anything, no no.)

I'm also right in the middle of editing an interview with Vince: to be published on Friday, with an extended 2600 Q&A version to go on me blog.

Will be interesting to see whether they do perform "I Before E" as Vince hinted they might do, and also whether there are any new songs. (He wasn't ruling it out when we spoke at the end of April, but they hadn't started rehearsing at that stage.)

The "In My Room" box is on its way to my snailmailbox as it doesn't seem like any actual Oslo record shops have been able to have it yet. Looking forward to it. :)

AWESOME. more tomorrow. mike: i have pictures you'll like. saying no more yet ;)

will write the review tomorrow morning ... shit, later this morning ... and post more here after that.

but woah, yeh. £45? cheap at half the price. one of the best gigs i've seen.

would have liked to have gone, but, y'know, £45?

yeh, hindsight is key here. was surprised at the crowd, mind - far from sold out, but reasonable.

I'm also right in the middle of editing an interview with Vince: to be published on Friday, with an extended 2600 Q&A version to go on me blog.

He answered 2600 questions!??!?!?!?

couple of photos tomorrow. (blurry, cameraphone ones.) promise.

right, yes, as promised (if anyone still cares). this was "tuesday":

http://sparky.thehold.net/pix/080604yazoo1.jpg

... and this, gloriously, was "i before e except after C". notice anything missing? :)

http://sparky.thehold.net/pix/080604yazoo2.jpg

basically: vince wheeled out the wee reel-to-reel and the pair of them fucked off for the duration. it's an awesome, retooled, new-improved-beats version, too: the sound (as i said rather pretentiously in my review) of the future that should have been.

what a glorious gig, though. pretty much perfect in every way. unlike the OMD debacle last year, there was no grandstanding or backslapping: this was two musicians saying, right, we've got a small but perfectly formed back catalogue here and we want to go out and do it justice. which they did. everything sounds crisp, fresh, urgent, vital. and they look -- yes, even vince! -- like they're having the time of their lives.

a joy.

Simon Frith: "I once watched Vince Clarke of Yazoo pretend to play his Fairlight (all he was really doing was loading and unloading floppy discs). When at last he got bored and walked away, the music played on and he was booed even more loudly than Bob Dylan at the Albert Hall."

So did anyone have a similar reaction to "i before e except after C" live, grimly?

There's Flickr photo set from Copenhagen here.

Nice review, Grimly. (I just GoogleNewsed it.)

So did anyone have a similar reaction to "i before e except after C" live, grimly?

well: the venue is seated -- right up to the front -- which is bollocks: obviously everyone stands up as soon as the band comes on, then "dances" badly in the space between the seats. given that (like OMD!) this wasn't the youngest crowd, that didn't really matter.

for "i before e", though, EVERYONE SAT DOWN. i guess everyone knows the song -- i mean, most of the audience were word-perfect for every number -- so they knew what it was and where it would go. but the reaction seemed to be: "oh, it's this" -- people kinda ignored it, then got back on their feet for the next number. it got muted applause, too, to say the least -- there was me and about five others on our feet going: "WOOOOOOOOO!" but everyone else clapped politely like it was a 10-year-old's piano recital.

grimly's impromptu social-psychology experiments, #45 in a series: the three rows in front sat down for "winter kills", too. but, presumably because i'd stayed up for "i before e" (and wasn't going anywhere this time either), everyone around and behind me stayed up for "winter kills", too :)

mike: impressive googling! and thank you -- 280 words is never the easiest, and i don't do a great deal of reviewing these days either.

Those 2600 questions for Vince in full.

I've been listening to Upstairs at Eric's a lot recently. Totally classic album.

― latebloomer, Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:52 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

This may be one of my top 5. I'm still pissed I missed the tour last year.

Erasure is called "Eurasure Head" in the US?!

No.

Well then, why did you say so the 24th of March 2002?

http://ohmyapt.apartmentratings.com/images/exasperated.jpg

Why is this thread called YAZ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAeN3qqzsWg