Yaz "Upstairs at Eric's" [1982]

For those not old enough to remember, or who had sufficiently blacked it out from their memory banks, Yaz's "Upstairs at Eric's" plays like a cartoonish parody of how bad techno was back in the 80s. The distinctly queefing syth sounds -- which some Hollywood shithead actually deemed worthy enough to rip off for the "Beverly Hills Cop" soundtrack -- come from Depeche Mode reject Andy Clark. And that homosexual dude singing? That's Alison Moyet, who I believe is actually a woman (no direct proof, I'll concede). Clark breaks up the plastic bubblegum monotony with odd, meaningless pastiches of him and his drunk grandma in fake Laurie Anderson art-crap excursions, but this fails to disguise the demo-quality, pop market-aspiring lameness of "Upstairs at Eric's" that taught all the gay singers of the Aughts that no amount of sickly sweet emoting is too much. Simply put, Eric's place must have been one queer apartment of drugs and banal sentimentality (though notably devoid of any AIDS references; this was the Reagan Era, after all). That said, this album appears to have the improbable magnetism for skinny gay boys and fat chicks that babies and puppies do for straight girls and hot babes with giant hooters have for straight guys. Had we been paying more attention at the time, perhaps the gay political lobby wouldn't be so goddamn powerful right now.