The story of how Yello came to be is brilliantly bonkers.
Formed, in Switzerland in 1976 by Boris Blank (keyboards, sampling, percussion, backing vocals) and Carlos Perón (tapes). They needed money and a vocalist, and they conveniently found both in the shape of Dieter Meier, a millionaire industrialist and professional gambler who was some ten years older than the duo.
Before too long, they were down to a duo of Blank and Meier, and throughout the 80s released a number of albums and singles packed with electronic pop music, although it could be argued their greater fame came, initially, via their pioneering work in videos to promote their music.
They came to the attention of a wider public in 1986 when their song Oh Yeah was included on the soundtrack of the hugely successful comedy film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The following year, their invitation to have Shirley Bassey contribute a guest vocal to a song called The Rhythm Divine – a song that would also be recorded later on with a guest vocal by Billy Mackenzie, brought them column inches in the UK newspapers, with Ms. Bassey saying it was the most Bond-eqsue vocal she had delivered in decades. In 1988, Yello would enjoy a Top 10 hit in the UK with The Race, the only meaningful commercial success they ever had here.
Today’s piece of vinyl was pulled out of the cupboard after the lead song, Lost Again, came up on random play on the i-pod and it’s one that pre-dates all of the success, released in late 1983 on Stiff Records. One of the formats was a 2×7″ release containing four songs:-
mp3: Yello – Lost Again
mp3: Yello – Base For Alec
mp3: Yello – Let Me Cry
mp3: Yello – She’s Got A Gun
More experimental than mainstream, but in saying that I have long been convinced that Billy Mackenzie contributed an uncredited backing vocal to the track Let Me Cry…but then again, it could just be an elongated synth note that has been bent well out of shape.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 