Vince Clarke

During the 1980s Vince Clarke was one of the biggest names. He enjoyed top 10 albums and single success with no less than four groups from Depeche Mode, Yazoo, The Assembly and Erasure.

Often known as the king of synth he wrote, sang and performed on the keyboard and real multi talented artist. He was born in London but moved to Essex when he was young and the first taste of success was with the synth pop band Depeche Mode.

He was initially the lead singer until they recruited Dave Gahan and success came very quickly and the first album 'speak and spell' was created mainly by Clark and hit the top 10. There were two singles released and written by Vince were big hits 'new life' peaked at number 11 and 'just can't get enough' reached number 8.

Shortly after that success Vince left the band detailing the direction they were going and felt it best to go. His next stop was to team up with Alison Moyet and form the synth duo Yazoo. Despite the duo huge success they only lasted two years but were very productive. The debut album 'upstairs at eric' reached number 2 and the follow up in 1983 'you and me both' reached number one. They also enjoyed 4 top 20 singles in the UK with the debut 'only you' reaching number two, the follow up 'don't go' reaching number three and the famous 'nobody's diary' reaching three. A cover of 'only you' did go to number one by the a capella group the Flying Pickets which was a Christmas number one. In fact the song was written by Vince during his Depeche Mode days but never recorded it. Shortly, after the second album they decided to go there separate ways leaving Vince with his next project.

He then teamed up with producer to set up a project group with the idea of using a guest singer on each song recorded. They got as far as one! Feargal Sharkey ex-undertones was employed to sing on the top 10 hit 'never,never' but other projects and a new setting up of a record label forced them to abandon the project before it got really started. However, the song prompted Feargal to go solo and he enjoyed success a year later with a number one smash 'a good heart'.

In 1985 Vince put an ad in the Music mag Melody Maker looking for a singer and a certain Andy Bell applied and got the gig to form one of the most successful selling artists in the form of Erasure. They released 3 studio albums with the debut 'the circus' reaching number six and the next two 'the innocents' and 'wild!' both enjoyed number one success.

During the 1980s they released 13 singles with 'sometimes' there announcement to the world that this was going to be big reaching number two. They enjoyed 5 further top ten hits with hits like 'victim of love' and 'the circus'. They also released an EP which reached number 2 called 'crackers international'. In addition he also worked with other groups and help produce Happy Mondays WFL (wrote for luck). A very underrated star.

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