You could say that Depeche Mode’s first big single, “Just Can’t Get Enough,” was one of the first-ever Yaz songs. It was written by Yaz (known outside the U.S. as Yazoo) co-founder Vince Clarke, who would become the prince of synth-pop in Erasure but who was in Depeche Mode just long enough to write most of the first album, and it’s an ornate three-minute pop opus with everything that made Yaz memorable. In fact, if Yaz released the song, things might have worked out differently—for more than a few bands. Instead, Clarke’s post-Mode, pre-Erasure duo Yaz only gave us two albums with incomparably affecting singles before breaking up in 1983. Thanks largely to singer and co-writer Alison Moyet, they transcended the couldn’t-care-less ethos that bands like Mode popularized. She came from a punk background, but in Yaz her voice is Chrissie Hynde-deep, heavy with sadness suggesting endless bad days and lonely nights. With Clarke’s programming behind her, she gave Yaz what electronic artists strive for: pure emotion somehow amplified by sterile synthesizers and drum machines. It was something rare—replicated if at all on a few Eurthymics songs, who put out “Sweet Dreams” the year Yaz broke up. Their biggest hit, “Only You,” is a great example of that perfect man-machine interplay: a ballad rich in synth flourishes and minimal 808 patterns made sweetly personal by Moyet’s vocals. The crescendos provoke the same feelings you get on classic tearjerkers like “Stand by Me.” If left to their own devices—which probably included a Roland MC-4—they might have earned the sort of spot in the first phalanx of new wave that Depeche Mode will occupy until the power finally goes out forever.

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Tags: depeche mode, erasure, Music, oc fair, yaz