Erasure - Oh L'Amour

Originally released with a 'Thomas The Tank Engine' Picture sleeve, that had to be withdrawn.
The Record Collecter price guide used to list this as being worth £10 (UK), though the value has now dropped. The 12" version is still valued at £18 (UK)
So if you see a new copy as I did for 10 pence, then grab it.

Reading about the legal struggle regarding this beautiful sleeve, the reason for withdrawal very probably lays more in addition to the song's homosexual innuendo. 'Thomas the Tank' as an innocent sweet cartoon character that could never survive such pressure - but if you cut out this potentially controversial suggesting 'Oh L'amour' is 'something else but', this would have remained less rare, more friendly with the consumer.

Erasure's early catalogue featuring picture book-like fantasy world nostalgia on their sleeves is really worth a collector's own. The songs themselves mark a decent point for the duo that was just starting out, maintaing Clarke's songwriting talent - 'Oh L'amour' is a nice, soothing powerful disco ballad and somewhat easily (if not radically) softer sequel to previous Yazoo. Although Bell's voice is far more childish than Alf's, still it continued to accompany Clarke's synthetic arrangements respectively.