Who is the biggest-selling artist from Essex?
The UK boasts such a glowingly brilliant musical heritage that you can pretty much pick any county at random and uncover a litany of cracking musical exports, Essex no exception.
Naturally, many an artist has found themselves pulled into London’s cultural pull from every corner of Britain, but especially from one of the capital’s key Home Counties. Lying in the east above the Thames, many a key band of the Big Smoke’s songbook, in fact, hailed from the ancient realm of the ‘East Saxons’.
Jabby pub rockers Dr Feelgood were formed way back in 1971, The Horrors first rustled up their spooky garage attack in Southend-on-Sea, and Damon Albarn spent enough of his teens in Aldham village near Colchester to qualify as a semi-Essex lad.
Blur would go on to sell a good 15 million albums, over double that of his mammoth Gorillaz pop project, but who else is in the running for Essex’s mega unit shifters? Pop’s done pretty well there, Busted managing a respectable five million as well as reality show ‘stars’ like Olly Murs sitting at the 10m mark and Anne-Marie at a 37-odd.
In terms of global fame, Braintree’s The Prodigy takes silver medal with their solid 25m copied under their belt and standing as one of electronic music’s most iconic acts – yes, Keith Flint’s double-Mohican was iconic. Electronic music seems to do well in Essex, Basildon synthpop legends Yazoo launching both powerhouse singer Alison Moyet’s 23 million-selling solo career, and staid songwriter and keyboard man Vince Clarke, counting an extra five million with his Erasure pop duo.
So, who is Essex’s top seller?
Basildon. Vince Clarke. Who else could it be?
It’s hard to imagine anyone expecting Depeche Mode to enjoy the future they’ve won way back in 1981, when Clarke decided to call it quits after debut Speak & Spell and take his ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ producing lyrical pen with him.
But soldier on, they did. It hadn’t been two years since the then-named Composition of Sound had played their live debut at Basildon’s Nicholas School, but with Martin Gore stepping up to principal songwriting duties and label support from Mute Records, Depeche Mode would withstand synthpop’s plummet in the charts as a steady pop force to be reckoned with.
By the decade’s end, they’d conquered America, and 1990’s Violator thrust Depeche Mode to superstar status. To this day, they’ve sold over 100m records worldwide and singlehandedly placed the little Essex town on the musical map.
Years later, frontman Dave Gahan took his family to the humdrum suburbs he grew up in. “I took my son Jimmy and daughter Stella,” Gahan told journalist Niall Doherty. “We were doing something in London, and they were with me, and I said, ‘Let’s take a little drive’. We drove down to Basildon and to my house at 56 Bonnygate. I wanted them to see where I grew up.”
The offspring of a rich electronic rock star in Manhattan naturally quelled some confusion, explaining to Jimmy the concept of a terraced house when under the impression that the Gahan family had lived in the entire block.
