28. Yazoo - The Other Side Of Love (Mute)

Number one for one week from w/e 4th December 1982

By 1982, it was becoming unusual for artists to issue singles which weren’t tracks on their current or subsequent albums. The major labels in particular had begun to work to a very simple and successful model, which saw singles as potentially loss-making promotional devices for the albums. As well as forking out for expensive videos, they were even happy to bundle expensive free gifts with singles in chart-return shops; famously, there’s the case of Rod Stewart’s single “Baby Jane” potentially reaching the top spot in ‘83 thanks to the free Adidas t-shirt that accompanied it in the “right” stores.

Indie labels couldn’t afford to play those kinds of games, and besides the financial constraints, Indie artists often had ideas of their own, asking to put out stand-alone singles which didn’t appear on any of their studio albums. There were a number of motivations for this – perhaps they were sitting on something which didn’t fit thematically with their current LP, but felt too good to be left cooling on the shelf. Maybe they wanted to experiment with a new direction, or had enough similar ideas for an EP but not a whole album. Possibly they felt that making fans pay for the same songs twice was just a rip off. Or sometimes… and this is harsh, but hear me out… perhaps it dawned on them that the track just wasn’t good enough to put on their next 33rpm platter.

“The Other Side Of Love” is an example of one of these orphaned singles. As the first piece of fresh Yazoo material to emerge since the release of their debut album “Upstairs at Erics”, it should have created much more of a buzz than it did, but the end result was a number 13 national chart placing, their only single to fail to reach the top three in the UK. When the group reformed in 2008 for some live shows, Alison Moyet was asked why it had no place in their set list. She described it as “A bit wank. It’s my least favourite track”.

In truth, “The Other Side Of Love” isn’t terrible but it’s certainly the pair’s weakest single. Built on a backbeat of cheapo electro-bongos and Binatone bleeps and trills, and fleshed out with a repetitive, “Just Can’t Get Enough” styled riff, it feels as if Clarke was reaching backwards for inspiration rather than looking forwards. Moyet does her best to insert some passion into her delivery, but for the first time it sounds mismatched – the song needs lightness of touch to succeed as a piece of bright synthpop, and instead gets a treatment that’s almost too loaded for it to bear.

At the risk of sounding like a Disc and Music Echo critic from 1965, the main thing the track has in its favour is an upbeat, catchy charm that slowly becomes more appealing after the first few listens. Speaking purely from personal experience, though, “The Other Side Of Love” is the only Yazoo single whose melody you can’t recall if it’s been a few years since your last listen. It sticks to an extent, and the central riffs are naggingly insistent, but it never burns itself into your brain, forever remaining one of those forgotten singles whose contents are doomed to be on the tip of your tongue until you press “Play” on Spotify.

24. Yazoo - Don't Go (Mute)

Eight weeks at number one from 24th July 1982

When we bumped into Yazoo’s last single “Only You”, there was a sense the new duo were just settling into their working relationship. For whatever its strengths and commerciality, “Only You” was a track Vince Clarke had lying around before Yazoo came into being, and had initially considered hawking around to other groups. At the point of writing it, his working relationship with Alison Moyet hadn’t really been instigated, so what the public were left to buy was Moyet interpreting a track which at one point could just as easily have been handed to Depeche Mode.

“Don’t Go” is the first example of a Yazoo single where the fork in the road, the divergence between Mode and Clarke, is obvious. If Clarke’s earliest work with Depeche Mode fizzes and bops, “Don’t Go” bops and slams. The drum machine is approximating an R&B/gospel rhythm, the central synth riff – in all other respects close enough to something Clarke might have tried circa “Just Can’t Get Enough” – has more dancefloor friendly shades to it, not least the aspects where the familar high-end squeakiness is replaced by digital bubbling or low, bassy grumbles.

It’s actually less ambitious melodically than a lot of Depeche Mode’s earliest work. “New Life” was busy and surprisingly ambitious, always introducing new twists, while “Don’t Go” finds its groove by the twentieth second and sticks rigidily to it, only offering slight variations.

Unlike “New Life”, though, Clarke has a singer who can be ambitious on his behalf. While Dave Gahan is a strong vocalist, his performances from 1981 right through to the present day have tended to stick doggedly to a mournful mid-range. You could argue that it forced Depeche Mode to become more dramatic, more symphonic around him; his vocals have generally acted as the central anchor, requiring the splashes of colour to occur elsewhere in the songs. Moyet, on the other hand, veers from threatening low growls here right up to desperate shrieks. She supplies the dramatic flourishes while Clarke is free, for the first time, to let the central hooks hit a steady dancefloor friendly groove without worrying too much about frilly embellishments.

With it, the pair also managed to take early eighties synth pop to slightly different places from their peers. If you were being charitable, you could argue that it was fresh and new, and that it signalled that Clarke knew synths were about more than just aloofness and futurism, but in truth they weren’t the first to realise this. Giorgio Moroder picked up the new technology and discovered that it could represent sex, desire, vulnerability and danceability in the previous decade. All Clarke and Moyet were really doing was picking up the baton and understanding that they didn’t need permission to take electronics into these areas. Their approach here, a kind of gospel tinged New Romanticism, did however slowly nose away at the boundaries of what was possible, impressing critics without frightening either the school disco dancefloor or Clarke’s earliest fans.

“Don’t Go” is one of those rare examples of two stylistically very different individuals realising the qualities they have in tandem, and working them through with maximum effectiveness. It peaked at number 3 in the national charts.