YELLO - Solid Pleasure (1980)

Ready to go on a journey with the Swiss?

There was a watch advertisement early on in the newspaper.  Mr. Boris Blank, one half of the group, was shown modelling one of the latest timepieces.  His appearance prompted me to dig out and listen to their very first album again, which came out 30 years ago. 

The band was still a trio back then, and were relatively unknown everywhere.  They were signed to Ralph Records in San Francisco and released their first two albums with them.  Their first album was released in 1980, and the recordings involved the use of many synthesizers to create effects and atmospherics.  The voice of the singer, Dieter Meier, was manipulated by the technology available then to adopt different types of accents. 

Every song sounded different, and I meant that literally.  You can have a samba-tinged composition sitting next to a cha-cha-cha song;., and then another tune would come on as if it was made for a horror movie.  Each song would complement the next.  The band was able to transform every song into a mini-movie, if you like - with lots of interesting arrangements that captivated the listener without any signs of stress or boredom.    The band did it with experiments, with a great stretch of imagination, and with lots of humour.  It makes me come back to revisiting this glorious piece of musical output every now and then because of its great ideas. 

They put out 2 more albums later before hitting it big with their 4th, "Stella" with the biggest single in their career, "Oh Yeah".   Like "The Lexicon Of Love", "Solid Pleasure" is the crown of Yello's achievement.