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His extraordinarily complex synth-pop has sneaked into the charts under cover of deceptively simple hooks since 1981. Vince Clarke’s projects away from Depeche Mode and, later, Yazoo and Erasure, are rewardingly experimental, but his wizardry has been most manifest in the Top 40 cauldron. Erasure’s Hits! is rereleased tomorrow on Mute with a bonus DVD.

1 A Little Respect This is Clarke’s masterpiece – chattering, soaring, swooping, propelling.

2 New Life Depeche Mode’s first hit: electropop so multilayered, it would work as an instrumental.

3 Nobody’s Diary Alison Moyet’s song is matched for nuance and heartache by Clarke’s deft score.

4 Blue Savannah The Erasure track that best captures his genius for structure, crescendo and reach.

5 Just Can’t Get Enough The second Depeche hit, at once brutally reductive and fiendishly intricate.

6 Winter Kills Another Moyet composition, given a spooky and spectral setting by Clarke.

7 Ship of Fools This Erasure gem shows how similar the vibrato-rich singers Clarke has worked with are.

8 Mr Blue The economy of the drums and up-and-down-the-scales keyboard on this Yazoo song is deadly.

9 Never Never As it is here, on this one-off 1983 project with Feargal Sharkey, as the Assembly.

10 Photographic Motorik pulses, a sinister synth: stripped-bare perfection with Depeche Mode.

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