A Little Respect
By Erasure
“Vince Clarke had been a member of Depeche Mode before leaving to try out a slew of other short-lived bands.”
Ultimately, Clarke settled with Erasure, a band he started with the help of an ad he put in a newspaper. He had sought a singer, and responding to that ad was a vocalist named Andy Bell, who, after successfully auditioning, helped form the new duo. With Clarke on keyboards, the iconic musician would end his years-old band-hopping and make the most he could get out of this new musical entity.
Erasure showed a lot more promise than Clarke's past experiments. It was more feasible, had staying power, and had arguably a potential for commercial success. Growing up, Clarke was heavily influenced by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), a North West England synth band known for helping pioneer synth-pop and electronic music. OMB was a notable pillar of electronic dance music or EDM. Considered icons today, the members had had a distaste for guitar-driven rock music with an overly masculine image. This appealed to Clarke, and OMB offered him a think-outside-the-box model to motivate his own 'rule' breaking.
The pioneering electronic dance group Kraftwerk was also one of Clarke's early favorites and influences. The impact can be picked out in his work while with Depeche Mode. In his youth, Clarke had been a band geek. He started on the violin but soon gravitated towards electronic sounds; he would form a band called 'No Romance in China' with a schoolmate.
Erasure's 1988 song "A Little Respect" is a testament to the fact that Vince Clarke is truly a genius of electronic dance music. It is remarkable that he came from a groundbreaking band, Depeche Mode, and landed with another equally significant band. "A Little Respect" is thought to be densely synthesized, but one would argue it is masterfully so. The song is part of an Erasure studio album called The Innocents, released in 1988. The production mixes synth-pop instruments with traditionally rock elements such as an electric guitar. Andy Bell offers a very soulful rendition of a song about a lover's yearning for the mercy of his partner. It has a gospel tinge - in the choir-like synth pads layered together in the chorus areas and elsewhere. That, with the electronic combination, is quite unique and has rarely been seen since.
The musician, a 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, noted for his "electronic virtuosity," admits that he is a pure musician and would approach composing and producing much like a singer-songwriter would. "We write songs in a very traditional way. The electronic side of things is to create the atmosphere. It's mostly just messing about." This is evident in the production of "A Little Respect" as a guitar riff, adding rhythmic structure to the dense synth sounds of the keyboards, is unmistakably present.
Critics have always held Clarke's work in high regard, and his musicianship is revered. One music reviewer, Metro Weekly, thought "A Little Respect" to be "perfect," stating that "Very few pop songs can be considered perfect," and this song was "one of them." Another music magazine, Trebleezine, calls the song's composer a good candidate for a "synth-pop Mount Rushmore," noting that, on "A Little Respect," Erasure compresses "synth-pop innovation and disco-pop immediacy into a perfect moment of transcendent pop glory."
