I loved Erasure as a teenager. I bought all the singles from this record on the week they were released and on multiple formats to ensure I had every version and every remix.
They were the first band I obsessively collected. As well as the new stuff, I started ordering older 12-inch remixes from Germany via a catalogue book in HMV, buying VHS tapes of them playing live and generally consuming everything I could.
After the brilliance of ‘The Innocents’ (still my favourite Erasure album), I had high hopes for ‘Wild!’ and, on the whole, I wasn’t disappointed. Ok, so ‘La Gloria’ can do one, a full Mexican trope in the middle of the album for no particular reason, but besides that hiccup, the album is excellent.
The singles ‘Blue Savanna’, ‘Drama!’, ‘Star’ and ‘You Surround Me’ speak for themselves and, except for that daft mariachi song, there isn’t a bad track on this album for me.
I’d go so far as to say that the album tracks ‘Brother And Sister’ and ‘Piano Song’ are right up there with the best songs the band ever recorded. It has been an absolute pleasure listening to them again for the first time in years.
The album sold well, hitting number 1 in the UK charts and being certified as double platinum, meaning plenty of copies are available at a reasonable price. This copy (media NM/sleeve VG+) was just £12 delivered.
Tracks To Try: ‘Blue Savanna’, ‘Drama!’, How Many Times’, ‘Star’, ‘You Surround Me’, ‘Brother And Sister’, ‘Piano Song’.
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