i can get behind these 3. violator sounds incredible - great production. but ill say it again, i cant deal with the personal jesus song. i just dont like that jaunty swing rhythm.
i can understand that for sure. but after listening that twangy repetitive guitar riff a lot today i realized that it has a nasty swagger that reminds me of touch n go jesus lizard, which i like and can't be mad it. it seems the biggest difference is the polished production i've accepted that i really like it and i don't care who knows it
well, actually, "polished" production is no necessarily bad - its the cheezball 80s huge verb on the drums and ass-y glass-y synths that give polished production a bad name. Depeche kept things tight and clean (no ayo). another example of good polished is 'in the air tonight'. or Purple Rain. Bad polished: most hair metal 1984-1990 (goofy lyrics and hackneyed songwriting aside, those recordings just sound like asssss!!!)
Reading this thread makes me realize how late in their career Depeche Mode broke through in the US. Or maybe how old I am, haha.
Most of the albums/song people have listed are from after I stopped listening to DM. Edit: OK OK I see Everything Counts, People Are People and so forth. I just can't stand that "Personal Jesus" era guitar crapp
For me, the top 5 list would look like this:
1. Black Celebration 2. Some Great Reward 5. Music for the Masses 3. A Broken Frame 4. Construction Time Again
IMO they dropped the ball when they toned down the electronics and started playing guitar. '82-'87 is their prime era as far as I'm concerned. "Music For The Masses" is the last LP I can wholeheartedly enjoy. I don't like he first album. Too bubblegum for me. Don't really care for the stuff that Vince Clarke did later either (Yazoo, Erasure). His departure marked the beginning of the good DM LPs.
Alongside Run-DMC and all the hiphop stuff, I was a huge DM fan around 5th-8th grade. Bought all the weird 12-inches from those albums to get the remixes and exclusive b-sides like "Christmas Island" a.o.. DM was really a collectors/fan band in that sense. Then in the 9th grade they started going rock and my tastes were going strictly hiphop anyway, so I sold everything. I wish I hadn't.
The reason I liked DM (and rap and all the "dance" music of the early 80s) was that the music was made with synths and drum machines (and samplers later on). I was really tired of the rockist fuckery of my parents generation and their "this is not real music" attitude. Fucking Bob Dylan hippie nonsense. The main attraction of DM to me was their ability to bring electronics and occasional elements of concrete music into mainstream pop.
Listening to a track like "Blasphemous Rumours" with the can-down-the-stairwell intro was an eye-opener to me on the same level as Flash cutting up Apache or whatever. Or the rolling hub cap on "Behind The Wheel". First time I heard "Pipeline" it peeled my face of. Might seem silly now, but that whole banging on metal aesthetic was totally new to me and I thought it sounded fucking great. For me, that was the pop gateway to industrial acts like Einst??rzende Neubaten or Throbbing Gristle.
I always found Martin Gore to be a bit of a miserable sod, and his lyrics are kind of naive and pathetic, but they work within the context of DM, and the catchy melodies and and great arrangements (largely due to Alan Wilder, methinks) make those mid-80s songs classic in my book.
Death is everywheeeeeere There are flies on the windscreen
I think this is one of the softest posts I've ever wrote.
My dude, Dos, just released an album of fado tunes that revolve loosely around the notion of rewriting history: Furtive, implacable and tricky, [history] inspirits both the observer and the scene observed, artifacts, manners and atmosphere and it speaks even when no one wills to listen.
On the album is his version of "Little 15," which I've been listening to all morning.
The first time I heard Depeche Mode was after karate practice, age 12. My sister and some dude picked me up, I sat in the backseat. My sister's friend handed me a bottle of Scotch Guard and a rag and told me to "do it." I huffed and puffed and passed out. When I came to I was laying supine across the floorboards of the backseat staring out the back window of the car as the highway lights passed overhead. Depeche Mode was blaring out of the speakers. When I heard the drug-induced wah-wah-wah-wah rattling in my brain along with Depeche Mode screaming death is everywhere... there are flies on the windscreen at me, I was fairly certain that I was en route to hell.
Turns out I was just high on water repellant--still wearing my yellow belt--never to return to the dojo. Thanks Depeche Mode, for runining my life.
I like Depeche Mode overall, but I must say that "People are People" and "Master and Servant" are not as danceable as the people who constantly request them when I DJ seem to think.
Comments
well, actually, "polished" production is no necessarily bad - its the cheezball 80s huge verb on the drums and ass-y glass-y synths that give polished production a bad name. Depeche kept things tight and clean (no ayo). another example of good polished is 'in the air tonight'. or Purple Rain. Bad polished: most hair metal 1984-1990 (goofy lyrics and hackneyed songwriting aside, those recordings just sound like asssss!!!)
Most of the albums/song people have listed are from after I stopped listening to DM.
Edit: OK OK I see Everything Counts, People Are People and so forth. I just can't stand that "Personal Jesus" era guitar crapp
For me, the top 5 list would look like this:
1. Black Celebration
2. Some Great Reward
5. Music for the Masses
3. A Broken Frame
4. Construction Time Again
IMO they dropped the ball when they toned down the electronics and started playing guitar. '82-'87 is their prime era as far as I'm concerned. "Music For The Masses" is the last LP I can wholeheartedly enjoy. I don't like he first album. Too bubblegum for me. Don't really care for the stuff that Vince Clarke did later either (Yazoo, Erasure). His departure marked the beginning of the good DM LPs.
Alongside Run-DMC and all the hiphop stuff, I was a huge DM fan around 5th-8th grade. Bought all the weird 12-inches from those albums to get the remixes and exclusive b-sides like "Christmas Island" a.o.. DM was really a collectors/fan band in that sense. Then in the 9th grade they started going rock and my tastes were going strictly hiphop anyway, so I sold everything. I wish I hadn't.
The reason I liked DM (and rap and all the "dance" music of the early 80s) was that the music was made with synths and drum machines (and samplers later on). I was really tired of the rockist fuckery of my parents generation and their "this is not real music" attitude. Fucking Bob Dylan hippie nonsense. The main attraction of DM to me was their ability to bring electronics and occasional elements of concrete music into mainstream pop.
Listening to a track like "Blasphemous Rumours" with the can-down-the-stairwell intro was an eye-opener to me on the same level as Flash cutting up Apache or whatever. Or the rolling hub cap on "Behind The Wheel". First time I heard "Pipeline" it peeled my face of. Might seem silly now, but that whole banging on metal aesthetic was totally new to me and I thought it sounded fucking great. For me, that was the pop gateway to industrial acts like Einst??rzende Neubaten or Throbbing Gristle.
I always found Martin Gore to be a bit of a miserable sod, and his lyrics are kind of naive and pathetic, but they work within the context of DM, and the catchy melodies and and great arrangements (largely due to Alan Wilder, methinks) make those mid-80s songs classic in my book.
Death is everywheeeeeere
There are flies on the windscreen
My dude, Dos, just released an album of fado tunes that revolve loosely around the notion of rewriting history: Furtive, implacable and tricky, [history] inspirits both the observer and the scene observed, artifacts, manners and atmosphere and it speaks even when no one wills to listen.
On the album is his version of "Little 15," which I've been listening to all morning.
The first time I heard Depeche Mode was after karate practice, age 12. My sister and some dude picked me up, I sat in the backseat. My sister's friend handed me a bottle of Scotch Guard and a rag and told me to "do it." I huffed and puffed and passed out. When I came to I was laying supine across the floorboards of the backseat staring out the back window of the car as the highway lights passed overhead. Depeche Mode was blaring out of the speakers. When I heard the drug-induced wah-wah-wah-wah rattling in my brain along with Depeche Mode screaming death is everywhere... there are flies on the windscreen at me, I was fairly certain that I was en route to hell.
Turns out I was just high on water repellant--still wearing my yellow belt--never to return to the dojo. Thanks Depeche Mode, for runining my life.