Synth-pop duo Erasure were one of the most successful British acts of the late 1980s and early ’90s, with four consecutive chart-topping albums and 33 Top 40 singles. • Erasure co-founder Vince Clarke was also a founding member of Depeche Mode and, after he left that group in 1981, half of the synth-pop duo Yazoo (Yaz, in the US), with Alison Moyet. When Yazoo split, Clarke formed Erasure after Andy Bell responded to an ad that Clarke had placed in the British music magazine Melody Maker. • Though Erasure’s first three singles sputtered out in the upper half of the British singles chart, the fourth, 1986’s “Sometimes,” zoomed to No. 2—the first of 23 consecutive Top 20 hits. • The band’s third LP, 1988’s The Innocents, became Erasure’s first No. 1 UK album on the strength of the singles “Ship of Fools,” “A Little Respect,” and “Chains of Love.” The latter two singles were the band’s biggest US hits, charting at No. 14 and 12, respectively. • After Erasure’s fourth straight No. 1, 1994’s I Say I Say I Say, the band took a more experimental tack on their introspective self-titled seventh album in 1995. Erasure peaked at No. 14. • Following middling commercial success through much of the 2000s, Erasure returned to the upper reaches of the UK charts with World Be Gone in 2017 (No. 6) and The Neon in 2020 (No. 4).