Tom: Erasure: synthpop legends. Thirty-two top 40 hits. Four number 1 albums. And “A Little Respect”, which has joined the understated but incredibly lucrative pantheon of “songs most people know”.
But they also had a number one EP, with four Abba covers on it. It was enormously popular, which makes sense given how well Abba write songs, and how well Erasure produce them.
There were several interesting choices here.
Tim: Oh, blimey. That’s…not what I was expecting. Well, the music is, anyway, as it sounds exactly like I’d expect an Erasure cover of this song wou– WOAH that middle eight has hit just as I’m writing these words, and suddenly the video’s no longer the most interesting part of the song. Really quite something, isn’t it?
Tom: I am reliably informed – by Wikipedia – that the middle eight is a “ragga-style toast performed by MC Kinky” who is “the first white female reggae/dancehall MC”, and that there is a list of things that I am utterly unqualified to even speculate about. It is basically the early 90s in musical form, and yes, it’s really quite something.
Tim: It’s not something I’d choose to hear again, nor probably something Benny and that lot had in mind when they wrote it, mind, but still something.