Situation By Yazoo

Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet (a.k.a. Yazoo) made a few dancefloor friendly tracks in their time. Don't Go is the best known, but Situation is more underground. It has a sound that's like a cross between Italo and Miami.

The Francois K Mix

Francois Kevorkian remixed the already danceable original to make it more club friendly. Francois K did a great job with the remix. His remix keeps focus on the hook while creating entertaining diversions using the other sections. The dub B side gives DJs who own two copies the opportunity to live-remix a longer version with a more pop focus for more crowd reaction.

Although the aesthetic of Situation is teen scene and WBMX, this was a big enough track to cut across all Chicago scenes. The sharp 808 sound fits The Playground, but it's a sophisticated song with a classy remix. The poppy chorus has a synth-pop aesthetic that echoes the Punk Outs.

Situation (Francois K Dub Version) - Yazoo

If you think this track doesn't have kudos because it's Yazoo, it's worth noting this track was sampled in Nude Photo. It certainly had kudos at the time, and it should do today.

Nude Photo By Rythim Is Rythim

Some Unrelated Tangents

There are some tangents that come to mind from mentioning Nude Photo by Rythim Is Rythim. The first is how much I love the Nude Photo 88 remix, which also samples Situation by Yazoo.

Nude Photo 88 (Ultimate Mix) By Mayday

The other tangent is how similar the concept of Nude Photo is to Washing Machine by Larry Heard.

Washing Machine By Mr Fingers

Washing Machine was released two years before Nude Photo. It has a complex polyrhythmic bassline and a similar hollow square wave bass sound to Nude Photo. House included minimalist "beat tracks" as part of its culture from live 808 jams at The Playground, and then the earliest releases by Jesse Saunders, from 1984 onwards. Minimalism is a defining characteristic of the earliest house music. This minimalist sensibility was also broadcast on WBMX, especially in mixes by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk. There are surviving mixes from the early 80s to know how these minimalist beat tracks sounded. Derrick May used to travel to "Importes, etc." in Chicago to buy the same Italo imports that were being played on the Chicago teen scene in the early 1980s.

Unfortunately this history is inconvenient for anyone maintaining the myth that Detroit Techno was a sui generis original creation with no precedent or influences. Chicago minimalism was clearly an influence on Detroit. I remember hearing minimalist house music in the UK in 1985, and the things that stood out most were minimalism and bass. We need real history to replace the exploitation myths that are perpetuated on Wikipedia. This should happen sooner rather than later, or it won't happen at all.