Andy Bell

Erasure are an English synthpop duo, consisting of songwriter and keyboardist Vince Clarke and singer Andy Bell. Erasure entered the music scene in... 1985 with their debut single "Who Needs Love Like That". Following the release of their fourth single "Sometimes", the duo established itself on the UK Singles Chart and became one of the most successful artists of the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s. From 1986 to 1997, Erasure achieved 24 consecutive Top 20 hits in the UK, while only having 3 Top 20 hits in the US : "A Little Respect", "Chains of Love" and "Always". By 2009, 34 of their 45 singles & EPs had made the UK Top 40, with 17 climbing into the Top 10. Labelled "the definitive synthpop superstars", the duo are most popular in their native UK and mainland Europe and also in South America . To date, Erasure have sold over 25 million albums worldwide. The band is also popular within the LGBT community for which the openly gay singer Andy Bell has become a gay icon.
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Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest independent music management company in the world. It was also the world's largest... independent owners of music intellectual property rights, with over 150,000 songs. The company was formed in 1979 by Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor, who had first met as undergraduates at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later organized dance events for students together. In 1979, they discovered and then managed Iron Maiden. They consequently named the record company after the band's song “Sanctuary", a 1980 single later included on the reissued version of their 1980 eponymous debut album. Sanctuary Records is noted for preferring to sign artists with long-term appeal, usually the artists are those considered heritage acts, being artists that have had a long career and steady fan base. Between 1989 and 1991, Sanctuary was co-owned by the Zomba Group, whose music publishing arm still held the music of Iron Maiden in 2001. In 1994, the company diversified.
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