Yazoo
You and Me Both

THE REVIEW

Second album, and last, for the odd couple Vince Clarke - Alison Moyet, known as Yazoo. He, the slender one, raised on bread and synthesizers. She, a big woman with a torrid voice stolen from the blues. After this album, there will be an artistic separation between the two, but without rancor, because "You and Me Both" is the diary of a curious harmony: you and I together is what the title means, and just a glance at the tracklist is enough to understand why. The opening track, "Nobody's Diary," written by Alison; the second track written by Vince. Then Alison again with the third, then Vince again, and so on until the last track, the eleventh, that comprises the album.

Which, released in 1983, shoots straight to No. 1 on the UK charts. The musical style? It's quickly said: it's synth-pop without many pretensions but not banal, eleven songs that are listened to effortlessly thanks to Vince Clarke's undeniable skill at the keyboards. Essential, very clean sounds, not a smudge throughout the album. The smooth timbre of the synths accompanies the drum machines that keep the rhythm, while Alison Moyet's warm voice sweeps through the album's tracks like a warm wind, sometimes gritty and rough (in "Good Times" and "Walk Away From Love"), sometimes collected and melancholic (in "Nobody's Diary"), sometimes closer to spoken word than singing ("Ode to Boy"); and in the only track written jointly, "Happy People," it's Vince Clarke who performs the vocals.

"You and Me Both": a fine snapshot of those early '80s. Songs sometimes shadowy and meditative, in other cases full of energy and rhythm. They speak of relationships that are unraveling, or that have already ended, but for which one still needs to face the last pain: that of clarity and mutual admissions. As we are told, among the many examples that could be made, by the beginning of "Nobody's Diary": "If I wait another second / I know I'll forget why I came here. / I had my head so full of things to say / but as soon as I open my mouth, all the words slip away."

After this album, a solo career for Alison Moyet (seven works so far), while Vince Clarke joins Andy Bell to form the long-standing synth-pop duo Erasure.