Documentary Evidence's Ten Great Depeche Mode Tracks

A version of this article originally appeared on MJA Smith's Audio Journal blog.

Depeche Mode are a band that I first heard around the time of Violator; a girl in my class at school, Sarah, had plastered pictures of the band all over her English folder and I assumed they were some sort of New Kids On The Block boyband, though their music didn't exactly sound like 'The Right Stuff'. At the time, 1990, the songs off Violator that graced the charts were annoying to me, 'Personal Jesus' in particular.

Fast-forward a years: by 1991 I'd settled upon Erasure as my favourite band. Finding a brochure from the record label called Documentary Evidence in the 12" single of that band's hit 'Chorus', I discovered that Vince Clarke from Erasure had started his musical career in Depeche Mode, before moving on to found Yazoo, The Assembly and finally Erasure. All of a sudden I didn't know what to think - I almost felt obligated to revise my opinion of Depeche Mode and so began tentatively running through their back catalogue. Knowing that Vince had only been with the band for their first album, 1981's Speak & Spell, I figured I'd only want to listen to that. Instead I borrowed their first singles collection from my local library in Stratford-upon-Avon and promptly fell in love not just with the Vince-era singles ('Dreaming Of Me', 'New Life' and 'Just Can't Get Enough'), but the whole lot.

This blog is supposed to be a personal record of what I have been listening to and, accordingly, I don't make any apology for the occasional emotional content or degree of recollection of the text below. It doesn't have the word journal in the title for nothing. However, I surprised myself at just how important these songs - which were compiled for Mrs S as an introduction to the band many years ago - are in my personal history. Those looking for less of an autobiographical post should tune in next week for a return to business as usual.

1. Nodisco

taken from Speak & Spell | mute records | stumm5 | 1981

I bought a CD copy of Speak & Spell in 1992 and found its distinctive, pure analogue electronic sound highly captivating. Many years before I'd been exposed to 1981's contemporaneous Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell and Human League's Dare. Speak & Spell sounded utterly different to those other records. Aside from the singles mentioned above, the track that I liked best was 'Nodisco', an arch and vaguely sleazy track whose percussion noises sounded just like Erasure's version of ABBA's 'Lay All Your Love On Me'.

I spent that summer in love with a girl who roundly spurned me. [read more]

2. My Secret Garden

taken from A Broken Frame | mute records | stumm9 | 1982

I got both A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again on cassette for my sixteenth birthday. It was something of a Depeche Mode-dominated birthday that year; I got a black Violator t-shirt (long since lost and finally replaced when I went to see them at the O2 Arena in 2009) as well, and possibly a poster. Oh, and I also got a Phillishave electric razor.

'My Secret Garden' remains my favourite track on the mostly fey A Broken Frame, recorded hastily after Vince's swift exit from the band. The track is ethereal and mysterious, developing out of an extended, laconic instrumental section before breaking out into a serene, wry take on synth-pop. [read more]

3. Pipeline

taken from Construction Time Again | mute records | stumm13 | 1982

By 1983's Construction Time Again, things had begun to darken in the Mode camp. Martin Gore had developed a new, more complex writing style and new boy Alan Wilder added a new inventiveness to the band's sonic palette. The key track was 'Pipeline', a six-minute track sung by Gore which roundly dumped the confines of electropop in favour of sampled industrial sounds culled from a visit to an East London railway yard; the lyrical theme was the anguish of hard labour, an effective counterpoint to the album's huge single 'Everything Counts' with its cynical Eighties Yuppie greed Gecko-isms. Engineer Gareth Jones, who began working with the band on this album, told me it was an absolute pleasure recording this. You can read more comments from Jones in my Documentary Evidence review of Construction Time Again.

4. Somebody

taken from Some Great Reward | mute records | stumm19 | 1984

Sticking with my sixteenth birthday, I bought this the Saturday after, from a record shop in Stratford-upon-Avon called Music Junction, a place sadly no longer in existence where I bought a lot of music during my teenage years. I was on a date with a girlfriend; she didn't like Depeche Mode. No-one I knew did. She dumped me within a fortnight.

'Somebody' is the most perfect ballad Martin Gore has ever recorded; a plaintive love song sung by himself with Alan Wilder on piano, whose lyrics detailed a wish list of all the emotional qualities that he wanted in a partner. I first heard this song on The Singles 1981 - 1985 and loved it emmensely. I would wait another eight years to find someone for whom the opening lines applied to: 'I want somebody to share / Share the rest of my life'.

5. A Question Of Lust

taken from Some Great Reward | mute records | stumm26 | 1986

Each successive Depeche Mode became that little bit darker, and by Black Celebration it was hard to see anything at all. Yet in amongst this was another standout Martin Gore-sung track, the tender 'A Question Of Lust', a counterpoint to the urgent, harrowing 'A Question Of Time'. Gore really has a handle on writing emotional ballads, and 'A Question Of Lust' is another perfect example. The drums and percussion sound like something Phil Spector may have fashioned from his wall of sound; big, reveberating sounds, dramatic tension and all those sorts of words and phrases.

One day at work many years later I was talking to a guy called John in the lift lobby of our office building. To date, he's only the second similarly ardent Depeche Mode fan I've ever met. I thought I was a pretty solid fan at that point, and in a second John roundly shattered that illusion. 'Life in the so-called space age,' he said. 'What's that from?' I racked my brain trying to find that lyric somewhere in a Depeche song, and seeing my blank expression he decided to put me out of my misery.

'Black Celebration, back cover, right at the very bottom.' He's right of course, and I realised in that moment where he described the placement of the nondescript white text on the rear of that sleeve that obsessive fans can be a bit, well, nerdy, can't they?

6. The Things You Said

taken from Some Great Reward | mute records | stumm47 | 1987

The year was 1994. It was summer. A girl had just dumped me earlier that day. (There's possibly a theme emerging here.) I listened to this on repeat all afternoon until it got dark. It seemed to suit my mood of disappointment, detailed perfectly a sense of betrayal at learning you'd been led a merry old dance and been made a complete fool of by someone you thought you were in love with. Sixteen years on and it's still what I think of whenever I hear this song, though I have naturally stopped caring about that day and that girl.

7. Enjoy The Silence

taken from Violator | mute records | stumm64 | 1990

Buying Violator, knowing that I'd detested 'Personal Jesus', almost felt fraudulent somehow. I bought this album on a trip to Coventry with the girl who I was seeing at the time of my sixteenth birthday. Admitting to myself that the sleek, polished - and, for the band, stretching - sounds of the album were appealing was an uncomfortable move, but I'm glad I did. Violator has now become probably my favourite Depeche Mode album and it's the one I listen to the most overall. I played it to my then-girlfriend who just found it boring.

Violator was a progression again from Music For The Masses. Where Music For The Masses used occasional guitars, Violator sprayed them over the songs liberally. 'Personal Jesus' remains the biggest surprise, what with its overtly religious leanings and ominous blues riffs. Johnny Cash would later record the song with assistance from Depeche fan John Frusciante (ex-RHCP and future Dave Gahan collaborator) on guitar. For me my favourite track here remains 'Enjoy The Silence', a shimmering, upbeat track with a strange and captivating chorus. It is a towering moment in the band's catalogue.

8. I Feel You

taken from Songs Of Faith And Devotion | mute records | stumm106 | 1993

By 1993's Songs Of Faith And Devotion, I was a Depeche Mode fan proper. I had all their albums and had started collecting their singles back catalogue. When Radio 1 announced a 'Depeche Mode Day' and the premiering of their new single 'I Feel You', I woke up early to make sure I could hear the song before I went to school. I was dumbfounded when I heard the song. There was not a trace of anything the band had done previously at all; no electronics and no reference points to their back catalogue. It was almost like Dave Gahan fronting another band, a band who played heavy rock. It was a million miles (yet only twelve years) from Speak & Spell. I learned to love the song, loved the album and saw them live for the first time during that tour, a tour which saw the culmination of Gahan's drug taking, Andy Fletcher leaving the band temporarily with stress, Alan Wilder almost losing his life when an RAF jet crashed near his car and Gore drinking way too much.

'I Feel You' is a song I always equate with tragedy; the single was released a few days after we learned of the death of a school friend, initially thought to be a suicide bid after getting dumped by a girl but later found to be because of an unknown heart defect; consequently it's hard to separate the song from that event. In complete contrast, the orchestral B-side / album track 'One Caress', a beautiful if black ballad, reminds me of Stephen King's It, which I was reading at the time. That book terrified me and this song still raises the hairs on my arms.

9. Useless

from Ultra | mute records | stumm148 | 1997

Post-heroin, post-near-death, post-Alan Wilder, Depeche Mode returned in 1997 with a much more Violator-esque album - much more electronic and less out-of-character than Songs Of Faith And Devotion.

By 1997 I was at university and it wasn't a great year overall. This song soundtracked my personal disenchantment at not being able to save a certain person from themselves and their troubled thoughts, and the line containing 'All my useless advice' has a definite poignancy. Elsewhere that year Nick Cave And The Bads Seeds 'Into My Arms' soundtracked the rare moments of optimism. On the positive, the girl that I'm referring to didn't dump me, but two years later we would mutually call it quits. 'Useless' could well be an apt description for three pointless, uniformly wasted years, come to think of it.

10. Dream On

from Exciter | mute records | stumm190 | 2001

'Dream On' was the first single from 2001's Exciter. Arriving on waves of almost Latin guitars and a conspiratorially-delivered vocal from Gahan, it was an unusual song which would later be overshadowed by the much more upbeat, dance-floor friendly 'I Feel Loved' which received a sterling remix from Armand van Helden.

I promised there would be no more heavily autobiographical episodes after this post, so here are my final words: I chiefly remember listening to this singer whilst preparing for my wedding to Mrs S. It's not my favourite track from Exciter, but I find it hard to separate the song from those positive days.

She hasn't dumped me. Yet.

(c) 2011 MJA Smith / Documentary Evidence