RC@5: The Innocents by Erasure

Record Club covered this album five years ago. Nate and Joe gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

The Innocents

Erasure

Week 86: September 20-26, 2020

Nate

My experience with Erasure is now old enough to attend kindergarten and nothing has changed: this is fine, baby. I can't tell if the new wave influence has found any purchase in modern pop, but since we're about 20 years past Hot Fuss, trend cycles suggest if it hasn't already been reanimated and made to dance, it will be soon. 

This is neither here nor there, but this video for an Erasure song off a different album is a pretty good watch.

Anyway, this album has second-favorite song about a ship of fools (shout out to Fucked Up, shout out to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald") and my seventh-favorite song that I discovered via the Scrubs soundtrack (Colin Hay got put on by Braff, god love him). Have I told my Braff anecdote on this blog before? It really isn't much of an anecdote, more of a story being told secondhand. Anyway, this album: we certainly did listen to it five years ago!

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Joe

Fun album! I would say that this is not the first time I've heard The Innocents since RC covered it five years ago, but I'm also not spinning it all that often, so it was real nice to give it a couple run-throughs this week. It's just cool to be reminded of joy. Remember joy? I think I remember it, in a hazy sort of way. Man, that intro to the Sunday write-up hit me hard ("remember to vote trump out!" oof). I guess it would be nice to remember joy in every moment. I understand that that's not always possible. It's easier with Erasure.

You know what was cool? Pam chose this album. Just out of the blue, told me, "Hey, you know what would be cool for Record Club?" That doesn't really happen anymore. Not with Pam, not with anyone. I won't say never. But the vast majority of non-Joe picks come from me sending an email, asking for a particular person to choose an album at their convenience. 

I don't think it's a matter of "investment." There are friends who have been at this thing for a long time, and I don't doubt their investment in this club. If this is how it plays out, then that's how it is, and I don't have a problem with it. The only thing is that I like learning how people discover music. I just like knowing how brains work. Apparently Pam and I heard an Erasure song on a show called Dead to Me, and that is how Pam formed the thought of "this would be cool for Record Club." I remember close to nothing about Dead to Me (ain't that how it usually goes with streaming-era TV), but because she made that connection in her brain, I know Erasure, I love Erasure, and I will never forget Erasure.

If YOU have an idea for Record Club, you know where to send it. Just no Erasure—we already covered that band.

Good lines from other reviews:

Nate — "The most damning indictment of Erasure I can offer is that Zach Braff correctly mined the most interesting, most compelling song off this record..." Somebody had to mention Scrubs, shoutout to Nate for falling on that grenade.

Rachel S. — her ranking of song titles from least spooky to most spooky was inspired (and I don't remember if her misspelling of the word "spooky" as "spoopy" is a typo or a meme)

Sunny — rare Sunny gimmick, a wonderful fake episode transcript of I Love the '80s

Pam — her "Let me think of something later, these kids are ruining my life today." text from the Sunday write-up got a laugh out of me

One more stray thought — "Heart of Stone" is the clear winner, and did not get the flowers it deserved in any of these reviews.