Blogocentric Formulations

A Little Respect

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Song: "A Little Respect"
Artist: Erasure
Album: The Innocents


Now we're getting into the good stuff! I'm a sucker for late 80s British synthpop, and this song stands out as one of my favorites. Erasure has actually enjoyed enormous success, selling over 25 million albums worldwide and, from 1986 to 2007, racking up an impressive 24 consecutive Top 40 hits in their native United Kingdom. They're still active today, with a holiday album release in 2013, their sixteenth studio album release in 2014, and some special new material in 2015 to celebrate the duo's 30th anniversary.

This song in particular was their tenth single released (and third [UK] or second [USA] single off this particular album). It's become one of their signature songs and was a Top 10 hit in the UK (Top 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100). This song, like many other synthpop hits in the late 80s, has been a source of ridicule in recent years. While not as prevalent in popular culture as now infamous Rick Roll, "A Little Respect" has popped up every now and again, like when a character lip-synced to it in the movie D.E.B.S., or when the television show Scrubs made it the source of a recurring joke in the episode "My Best Friend's Mistake" where it was referred to as being like a spreading virus. I guess earworms technically are contagious...

Perhaps more important than the song itself is the guy who wrote it, though. One half of Erasure is the inimitable Vince Clarke, a musician/songwriter who has not only penned most of Erasure's biggest hits, but also did the same for his previous bands. He was a founding member of Depeche Mode and wrote "Just Can't Get Enough," and left that group to start the duo Yazoo (Yaz in the U.S.), where he penned their biggest hit "Only You." It's pretty amazing that the three songs I probably love most and most identify with the British synthpop movement were all written by the same guy, albeit for three different bands!