If you were to have a hit with one band in a decade, that would be a reasonable accomplishment. A few hits, maybe taste success in two different bands - that would start to make you a major musical star.
So, what if you had hits with four different bands in one decade? That will make you a star - maybe the King of Synth Pop!
One person (that I am aware of) achieved that in the 1980s - Vince Martin, a.k.a. Vince Clarke.
Vince Clarke was born in 1960 in South Woodford, Essex, before later moving to Basildon. He started his musical life on the violin, before changing to the piano. As the 1970s ended, he was starting to be influenced by the early synth bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the Human League.
Depeche Mode
With his friend Andy Fletcher, he started his own band - No Romance In China, before joining an Ultravox inspired outfit called the Plan.
But in 1980, now back with Fletcher, he formed Composition Of Sound, who were soon joined by Martin Gore. At this point, Clarke was on lead vocals, until Dave Gahan arrived on the scene and took over. It was also at this point that the band name changed to Depeche Mode.
Their first album, Speak And Spell, came out in October 1981. Three singles from it were all written by Clarke - Dreaming Of Me (#59), New Life (#11) and their first top ten hit, Just Can't Get Enough, which hit number 8. The album itself also just about dented the top ten, with Clarke penning all but two tracks on it (Tora! Tora! Tora! and Big Muff - both written by Gore). This first, Clarke-led phase, was generally considered much lighter than the direction the band subsequently took.
Depeche Mode: New Life - https://youtu.be/ZFnEhwmpjXI
Yazoo
Despite this early success, Clarke wasn't keen on the darker direction his bandmates wanted to push into, or the sudden thrust into the limelight of touring and interviews. So, by the end of 1981 he had moved on, his place taken by Alan Wilder.
He had some demos and was looking for someone to sing them. He saw an advert in Melody Maker from Alison Moyet, who he was already aware of, but didn't know (he'd seen her sing in bands and she was in the same school classes as Gore and Fletcher). They teamed up, and Yazoo was born (or Yaz as they had to be known in the US, because there was a Yazoo record label).
That initial song was Only You, which hit number two in the UK in March 1982. Strangely, it was its B-Side, Situation, that was released in the US (making #73). Subsequent singles, Don't Go and Nobody's Diary also hit the top three. They managed to rack up two quickfire albums - Upstairs At Eric's came out in August 1982 (#2), followed by You And Me Both the following July, giving them a number one. But by 1983, a clash of personalities and a lack of communication between Moyet and Clarke (they recorded much of the second album separately), meant that Yazoo was already done.
Yazoo: Situation - https://youtu.be/QdV-5ivltkc
The Assembly
If Yazoo was fairly short-lived, his next endeavour was positively brief. This time, Clarke teamed up with studio engineer, Eric Radcliffe, who had worked on both Yazoo albums. The Assembly was set up with the apparent intention that they would record ten songs with ten different singers.
In the end though, there was just one song - the single Never Never, which featured ex-Undertones singer Feargul Sharkey, who was just about to embark on a solo career. It reached number four in the UK, and so gave Clarke a hit with his third band in under four years.
The Assembly: Never Never - https://youtu.be/VUJOJ0d7e8c
Erasure
This whirlwind period was followed by relative stability, because from 1985 right up to the present day, with the exception of some side projects, Clarke has been a one band man.
In 1985, Clarke placed an ad in Melody Maker and ended up with one applicant, Andy Bell. Erasure was born.
Things started slowly, first album Wonderland in 1986, performed poorly - but sophomore record, The Circus, provided them with a plethora of hits! The album peaked at number six and spawned four top twenty hits, three of them breaking the top ten, the biggest of which was Sometimes (#2).
The Innocents topped the UK album charts, and also broke them into the US top fifty, giving them a further three top twenty hits, including A Little Respect (#4). The decade was rounded out with more success, as fourth album Wild! produced number three single Blue Savannah.
The 1990s saw them shift their styles around. 1995's Erasure saw them adopt a more experimental tone, before Cowboy saw a return to short poppier songs. And while lead single In My Arms did reach 13, they weren't hitting quite the same heights as a decade earlier.
The rate of albums has never dropped off though. 2007 saw them going very dance orientated on Light At The End Of The World, while in 2020, their eighteenth studio album The Neon, saw Clarke return to using many of his older synthesisers. Finally, last year, Day-Glo (Based On A True Story), became the most recent and nineteenth album.
Erasure: Sometimes - https://youtu.be/S1a8QABKNo0
Erasure: Blue Savannah - https://youtu.be/HZPQtb6NWKM
Erasure: In My Arms - https://youtu.be/koHzQVVg8is
Erasure: Hey Now (Think I Got A Feeling) - https://youtu.be/PsshI47JLUE
Other Projects
Clarke has got involved with many other projects on the side, along the way.
At the close of the 90s, Clarke teamed up with Martyn Ware, lead singer of Heaven 17 (and the early version of Human League), who had produced Erasure's 1994 album I Say I Say I Say. Together they made the Clarke & Ware Experiment, which produced the albums Pretentious and Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle.
In 2004, he wrote some music for animated comedy series Johnny Bravo - the episode The Time Of My Life, featured the Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler. And then in 2011, he was reunited with Martin Gore in the techno duo VCMG, who put out several EPs and an album, Ssss, which centred on minimalist electro-dance instrumental tunes.
2008 had also seen Clarke and Moyet reconcile their differences and agreed to tour - they had split before they could play the songs from second album You And Me Both live - and so, twenty five years on seemed a good opportunity (and the two albums were both about to get a re-issue). Clarke was worried about being disloyal to Erasure, but it turned out that Bell was ready for a break anyway - his only request of Clarke, when asked for his blessing, was to ensure he got tickets for the reunion shows.
VCMG: Lowly - https://youtu.be/2xix3AT07OA
The King?
There you have it. If we really were trying to decide if we can could him the 'King of 80s synth pop', what would the evidence look like?
Well, as mentioned, he had hits with four different bands across that decade.
There was 7 albums that he was featured on
5 of which were TopTen
3 of which were #1
He wrote, or co-wrote, 22 singles in the 80s
All bar four made the Top Forty
12 ended inside the TopTen
Clarke has apparently been referred to as the 'Benjamin Franklin of synth music' (Spectrasonics Artisans) and is undoubtedly a major influence in the synth pop landscape.
So, yes, I think it is safe for him to wear that crown!
In a 2012 interview with Wayback Machine, Clarke gave some good illumination on the way they write songs in Erasure:
"Andy and I get together with a guitar and a tape recorder, I'll strum some chords and he'll sing a melody, and work in little sections, four or eight bars long. Then we'll try bringing the sections together. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. I find it hard to relate songwriting to synthesisers actually - we write songs in a very traditional way. The electronic side of things is just to create the atmosphere."