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Yazoo
 

Yazoo

Fact Sheet

Also known asYaz
Country  United Kingdom
Years active-1984
Yazoo (known as Yaz in the U.S.) were an English electropop duo from Basildon, Essex, who had a number of top ten hits in the British and American charts in the early 1980s. They were formed in 1981, taking their name from the former Yazoo lands of the U.S. state of Georgia which later became Mississippi and Alabama.

Yazoo consisted of:

Their biggest hits included the singles "Only You" (later successfully covered by the socialist acapella group The Flying Pickets), "Don't Go" and "Situation". They also produced two albums entitled Upstairs at Eric's and You and Me Both. Heavily influenced by earlier bands like Kraftwerk, Yazoo expanded upon the synthpop formula by juxtaposing Moyet's bluesy emotional vocals with Clarke's clinical electronic hooks. Their art pop sound referenced disco but added a more new wave disaffected attitude that disco lacked.

After the band split in 1983, Alison Moyet went on to a successful solo career. Vince, who had previously been a member of the group Depeche Mode, went on to become the joint founder of the pop group Erasure after a brief project with singer Feargal Sharkey as The Assembly.




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