My first exposure to Yazoo and the incredible voice of Alison Moyet - not to mention the brilliance of Vince Clarke who was also instrumental (pun not intended!) in the evolution of landmark bands Erasure and Depeche Mode - was with their single Nobody's Diary off the You and Me Both album, but while that was a pretty amazing I was entranced by their earlier album Upstairs at Eric's (released Jul 1982).

they were called Yaz in the USA

Sequencers and analogue synths abound, makes me (once again) regret selling that Roland Juno 106 I owned back in the time. But I'll wait and snipe a Jupiter 8 one of these days!

Favourite track from this one? Hard to say. I have - as I'll try to do with each of these - been listening to the album while typing. They're all really, really, really good. No seriously. Listen to them carefully on a good clean AV rig and you might get it. If I were in a normal mood I'd say a toss-up between Only You and Midnight (both must be listened to with good headphones and maybe darkness) but if I were my normal quirky mood I'd say my pick would be I Before E Except After C (hard to find, but definitely worth it), In My Room, and Bad Connection.

Alison Moyet has a knee-weakeningly beautiful voice, Vince Clarke is one of a kind when it comes to synths and sound combinations. This was a magical match, and I'm only sorry that they stopped when they did.

Tags: AotW