Upstairs at Eric's

Last updated

Upstairs at Eric's
Yazoo-Upstairs-At-Erics.jpg
Studio album by
Yazoo (Yaz)
Released20 August 1982 (1982-08-20)
Recorded1982
Studio Blackwing (London)
Genre
Length40:29
Label Mute
Producer
Yazoo (Yaz) chronology
Upstairs at Eric's
(1982)		 You and Me Both
(1983)
Singles from Upstairs at Eric's
  1. "Only You"
    Released: 15 March 1982 (UK)
  2. "Don't Go"
    Released: 2 July 1982 (UK)
  3. "Situation"
    Released: July 1982 (US/Canada)

Upstairs at Eric's is the debut studio album by English synth-pop duo Yazoo (known in North America as Yaz). It was released on 20 August 1982 by Mute Records. [4] It was produced by the band and E.C. Radcliffe, with assistance from Mute label boss Daniel Miller on some of the tracks. Named after producer Radcliffe's Blackwing Studios where the album was recorded, Upstairs at Eric's was preceded by two UK top-three singles, the ballad "Only You" and the more uptempo "Don't Go". The album reached number two on the UK Albums Chart and has been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), denoting shipments in excess of 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. [5]

Contents

Against the group's wishes, "Situation", originally the B-side of "Only You" in the UK and Europe, was released as the band's debut single in the United States and Canada, where a remixed version of the song by DJ François Kevorkian reached number one on Billboard 's Club Play Singles chart. "Situation" peaked at number 73 on the US Billboard Hot 100, while it reached the top 40 in Canada, peaking at number 31. The North American version of the album subsequently replaced the remixed version of "Situation" for the UK album track "Tuesday". Upstairs at Eric's reached number 92 on the Billboard 200 in the US and number 49 on RPM 's albums chart in Canada.

Recording and composition

Following the success of their debut single "Only You", Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet rapidly recorded the album to maintain their high profile. As Clarke's only previous experience of a recording studio had been Blackwing Studios in south-east London, where he had made Depeche Mode's debut album Speak & Spell , his immediate thought was to record Yazoo's album there as well: he said later, "I didn't know of any other studios, so I just assumed that Blackwing was the only studio I could record at". However, when the duo arrived at Blackwing they found that not only was Daniel Miller unavailable to produce the album, contrary to Clarke's expectations, but the main studios had already been booked out during the daytime by Fad Gadget, another Mute label act. Instead Clarke and Moyet had to record the album in the early mornings with studio owner Eric (E.C.) Radcliffe overseeing most of the recording process, turning up around 5 or 6 a.m. and working through until 11 a.m. each day in whichever of the two studio spaces were available at the time. [6] [7]

On the 30th anniversary of Upstairs at Eric's in 2012 Clarke told The Quietus that there had been no grand plan for the album's creation:

We just came together and it was a bit of a mish-mash really. There was no concept or theme running through the album; we were just messing about in the studio. Part of the charm of that album is a naivety. There really wasn't a profound concept that was running through the recording. I didn't really know what I was doing in the studio and Alison hadn't much experience of being in a recording studio, so everything was new. We'd make one sound and we'd think it was great and just stop there and wouldn't make any more sounds. It wasn't like we were continually honing or over-producing songs because everything at the time sounded fresh. That's why a lot of the tracks only have eight or nine elements to them. [6]

Clarke's compositions "I Before E Except After C" and "In My Room" explore the use of cut-up vocals, including his own spoken word voice. "I Before E Except After C" features both Moyet and the mother of producer Eric Radcliffe separately reading out the instruction manual for one of the pieces of studio equipment, with Moyet struggling to keep herself from laughing.

Moyet later described how her song "Goodbye 70's" had been inspired by her disillusionment with how the late-1970s punk scene had turned out, saying, "'Goodbye 70's' is about punk and not caring how you were dressed, and then I discovered that so many of my friends that I'd thought it all really meant something to just saw it as another trend... That's what 'Goodbye 70's' was all about, about how sour the whole thing became." [8]

Artwork

The album cover depicts two apparently male mannequins in a sparsely furnished loft, facing each other over a table, with the lower part of the dummies' bodies seated on pushed back chairs while the upper portions are perched on the edges of the table. It was shot by photographer Joe Lyons at his first photo studio in north London, and he described how he had set up the shot:

"I'd just shot some furniture for a furniture designer, and got paid with the furniture. I chose dummies and started work—a fortuitous series of events. I felt that the hi-tech furniture worked really well with the rough look of the room, and I put the cake—which was actually the top of my wedding cake—as a focus on the table." [7]

The original UK CD release of Upstairs at Eric's in 1986 featured a close-up of part of the original album cover. Another photograph from the same session was used as the cover for the Yazoo box set In Your Room in 2008.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [9]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [10]
The Philadelphia Inquirer Star full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [11]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [12]
Smash Hits 8½/10 [13]
The Village Voice B+ [14]

Melody Maker hailed Upstairs at Eric's as "an album of rich, dark passion, forever burying the hoary old moan that electronics and synthesizers will never be any good because they don't have a button on the front that says 'emotion'". [15] Smash Hits reviewer Ian Cranna wrote: "The singles and their cousins here are simply brilliant – a wonderful mixture of Vince's superbly arranged synth-pop (his great strength) and Alf's glorious voice (her great strength)." [13]

Lynn Hanna of NME was more critical, feeling that "Upstairs at Eric's is an LP of trial and some error, and it shows all the signs of a collaboration that's still in a promising infancy. The writing is divided almost equally between the two, and at their best each acts as an excellent foil to the other... A little too often, though, this LP speaks of two disparate pasts rather than one new Yazoo facing the future." [16] Ken Tucker of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the album a one star out of five rating, referred to Yaz as "stiff-voiced monotony fans" and saying that the group were "even more pretentious than most, working the Lord's Prayer into [their] tedious synthesizer rhythms." [11]

In a retrospective review, David Jeffries of AllMusic compared the album with Clarke's other debut with Depeche Mode the previous year, stating "While Speak and Spell is, by far, the more consistent record, Upstairs at Eric's is wholly more satisfying, beating the Depeche record on substance and ambition, and is light years ahead in emotion... The clumsier experimental tracks make most people head for the hits collection, but to do so would be to miss the album's great twist... Like its curious cover, Upstairs at Eric's presents a fractured, well-lit, and paranoid urban landscape." [9]

Accolades

Upstairs at Eric's was placed at number 6 on the NME critics' list of albums of the year for 1982, while "Only You" was listed as the number 7 single and "Don't Go" as the number 14 single that same year. [17] The album was also named as one of Sounds magazine's top twenty albums of 1982. [18]

In 1989 Record Mirror placed Upstairs at Eric's at number 35 on their list of the best albums of the 1980s. [19]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Don't Go" Vince Clarke 3:08
2."Too Pieces"Clarke3:14
3."Bad Connection"Clarke3:20
4."I Before E Except After C"Clarke4:36
5."Midnight" Alison Moyet 4:22
6."In My Room"Clarke3:52
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
7."Only You"Clarke3:14
8."Goodbye 70's"Moyet2:35
9."Tuesday"Clarke3:22
10."Winter Kills"Moyet4:06
11."Bring Your Love Down (Didn't I)"Moyet4:40
Total length:40:29
Bonus tracks on 1990 CD re-release
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
12."Situation" (US 12")Clarke, Moyet5:45
13."The Other Side of Love" (US 12")Clarke, Moyet5:19
Total length:51:13

Personnel

Additional personnel

Charts

Certifications and sales

Certifications and sales for Upstairs at Eric's
RegionCertification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI) [5] Platinum300,000^
United States (RIAA) [39] Platinum1,000,000^
Yugoslavia—85,000 [40]

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Release history

RegionDateLabelFormatCatalog
United Kingdom20 August 1982 Mute LP STUMM 7
cassette C STUMM 7
United States1982 Sire LP1-23737
cassette23737-4
Canada LP92 37371
Germany1983Mute CD 600015
FranceMute/Vogue600015/VG 651
United Kingdom1986MuteCD STUMM 7
United States1987Sire9 23737-2
CanadaCD 23737
Europe1990Mute/Intercord TonINT 846.803
United Kingdom & Europe9 June 2008MuteRemastered CDCDXSTUMM7
United States24 July 2012 Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Remastered LPMOFI 1-020

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References

  1. ↑ Mitchell, Matt (21 July 2023). "The 50 Greatest Synth-Pop Albums of All Time". Paste . Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  2. ↑ Evans, Richard (6 August 2024). "1982.2". Listening to the Music the Machines Make: Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983. Omnibus Press. p. 354. ISBN   978-1-915841-45-2.
  3. ↑ "Top 15 Electropop Albums". Classic Pop . 25 August 2021.
  4. ↑ "Record News". Melody Maker . 21 August 1982. p. 4.
  5. 1 2 "British album certifications – Yazoo – Upstairs at Eric's". British Phonographic Industry. 18 March 1983. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  6. 1 2 Freeman, John (23 August 2012). "Synthesizer Soul: Yazoo's Upstairs at Eric's 30 Years On". The Quietus . Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  7. 1 2 Miller, Jonathan (2008). Stripped: Depeche Mode (3rd revised ed.). London, England: Omnibus Press. ISBN   978-1-84772-444-1.
  8. ↑ Watson, Don (28 May 1983). "What's It All About, Alfie?". NME . London, England. pp. 6–7.
  9. 1 2 Jeffries, David. "Upstairs at Eric's – Yaz / Yazoo". AllMusic . Retrieved 7 January 2012.
  10. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN   978-0-85712-595-8.
  11. 1 2 Tucker, Ken (19 September 1982). "New Albums". The Philadelphia Inquirer . p. 10-I. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  12. ↑ Considine, J. D. (28 October 1982). "Yaz: Upstairs at Eric's". Rolling Stone . No. 381. Archived from the original on 11 June 2008. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
  13. 1 2 Cranna, Ian (2–15 September 1982). "Yazoo: Upstairs at Eric's (Mute)". Smash Hits . p. 25.
  14. ↑ Christgau, Robert (30 November 1982). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 7 January 2012.
  15. ↑ Colbert, Paul (28 August 1982). "Review: Yazoo – Upstairs at Eric's". Melody Maker. London, England. p. 13.
  16. ↑ Hanna, Lynn (28 August 1982). "Hoodoo That Voodoo Yazoo Do So Well?". NME. London, England. p. 32.
  17. ↑ "Vital Vinyl". NME. London, England. 25 December 1982. p. 29.
  18. ↑ "Albums of the Year". Sounds . London, England: United Newspapers. 25 December 1982.
  19. ↑ "The Top 100 Albums of the Decade". Record Mirror . London, England: United Newspapers. 25 November 1989. pp. 28–29.
  20. ↑ Kent 1993.
  21. ↑ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 6181a". RPM . Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  22. ↑ "Dutchcharts.nl – Yazoo – Upstairs at Eric's" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  23. ↑ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. ISBN   978-951-1-21053-5.
  24. ↑ "Offiziellecharts.de – Yazoo – Upstairs at Eric's" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  25. ↑ "Ísland Top 10". DV . 29 October 1982. p. 37. ISSN   1021-8254.
  26. ↑ Charts Archive. 5 December 1982.
  27. ↑ Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005. Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN   4-87131-077-9.
  28. ↑ "Charts.nz – Yazoo – Upstairs at Eric's". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  29. ↑ Salaverrie, Fernando (September 2005). Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Madrid: Fundación Autor/SGAE. ISBN   84-8048-639-2.
  30. ↑ "Swedishcharts.com – Yazoo – Upstairs at Eric's". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  31. ↑ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  32. ↑ Lazell, Barry (1997). "Yazoo". Indie Hits 1980–1989: The Complete U.K. Independent Charts (Singles & Albums). Cherry Red Books. ISBN   0-95172-069-4. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  33. ↑ "Yaz Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard . Archived from the original on 20 May 2018. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  34. ↑ "Yazoo | Awards". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 16 May 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  35. ↑ Kent 1993, p. 434.
  36. ↑ "Jaaroverzichten – Album 1982" (in Dutch). Dutch Charts . Retrieved 28 May 2022.
  37. ↑ Rees, Dafydd; Lazell, Barry; Jones, Alan (1983). "The Top 100 UK Albums". Chart File Volume 2. London: Virgin Books. pp. 82–83. ISBN   0-907080-73-1.
  38. ↑ Scaping, Peter, ed. (1984). "Top 100 LPs: 1983". BPI Year Book 1984. British Phonographic Industry. pp. 44–45. ISBN   0-906154-04-9.
  39. ↑ "American album certifications – Yaz – Upstairs at Eric's". Recording Industry Association of America. 22 February 1989.
  40. ↑ Volvic, Mitja (12 January 1985). "Pervasive Economic Slump Hits Yugoslav Industry Hard". Billboard. Vol. 97, no. 2. p. 57. ISSN   0006-2510 – via Google Books.

Bibliography

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