single // Will I Ever?
About a year ago, I wondered whether a dance act would come knocking on Andy Bell's door asking him to appear on a dance record. There seemed to be a spate of 'eighties' singers cropping up as guest vocalists in the last couple of years - Talking Heads' David Byrne with X-Press 2 being the most obvious, but even Robert Smith recently deigned to front a upbeat dance track in stark contrast to his sober work The Cure. Andy's voice lends itself perfectly to -'hi-NRG' tracks, as proven by the success of some of Erasure's most commercial remixes by contemporary electronic acts. Apparently he gets asked almost weekly to provide guest vocals, but In-Vox, a Greek act, are the first to secure his permission. It's a fantastic addition to Andy's pop portfolio, and one that should sit at the very centre of an Erasure fan's collection.
It works so well as a dance record simply because it sounds just like a particularly good remix of an upbeat Erasure track. The sounds are extremely Vince Clarke-esque, with a simple bassline and plenty of analogue noodling. Andy here duets with In_Vox's regular singer, and by the rises and falls of the harmonies and judicious deployment of multiple 'whoa' sections (you Erasure fans will know what I mean), this sounds like an impressive remix of one of the 'clever pop' songs from Vince and Andy's eponymous Erasure album.
This CD consists of 6 mixes - radio edits and extended mixes from Chris 'The Greek' Panaghi and Marsheaux, and two uncredited mixes presumably from In_Vox themselves (I detest such sloppiness). Avoid the drippy 'AM Version', which drops pretty much everything that was good about the backing track in favour of a bunch of boring presets and guitars to realign the song unsuccessfully as a ballad, although you do get to hear Andy's excellent vocal better. Take your pick from the four Chris Panaghi and Marsheux mixes, as these are excellent synthpop-meets-dance reworkings - Marsheaux has the better suite of sounds, but Panaghi's production is tighter. The final ('Back To The Eighties') mix is just that - electropop masqerading as 'retro', eighties synthpop as conceived by someone who evidently hasn't listened to enough of the original stuff.