Do what you want, I’m going cheap tonight.” If you google the song lyrics, you’ll find plenty of interpretations of them on the internet. “Sweet little girl, I prefer you behind the wheel and me the passenger. #5: Behind the wheel (from “Music for the masses”, 1987)
#80S DEPECHE MODE SONGS SERIES#
I hope to get to parts two and three of this series in the early half of this year.
Have a peek at these five early tunes, my own top five from their 1980s output and let me know what you think and what your own picks would be. I’m certain many of these tracks were popular in the clubs at the time, sharing sets with The Cure and New Order, and are still favourites these days on Retro nights. If you go through the albums, or even just the singles, you can easily chart their progression, from the bright and bouncy pop of “Speak & spell” under Vince Clark’s watch to their darker and more complicated and convoluted themes under Gore and Wilder. With six albums in ten years, Depeche Mode’s run of music in the 1980s is easily their most prolific period. From there, I started exploring their back catalogue, purchasing “Some great reward” on cassette, and later, “Black celebration” and “Music for the masses” on CD. It was then that I put a name to the song “People are people”, whose chorus I vividly remember singing quite often while delivering papers back when I was in grade eight, though I couldn’t tell you now where I would’ve heard it at that time. (You’ll soon note that I haven’t included it in the top five here and that’s because I identify it more with the 1990s.) My friend John then recorded a copy of “101” to cassette tape for me for further exposure, given that it was something like a best of collection of their tunes to that point. I officially became a fan after the release of the hit single, “Personal Jesus”, in 1989. A concert film was later produced, as was a live album, of this tour’s 101st show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. All of this culminated in 1987’s “Music for the masses”, the tour for which was wildly successful, especially in the US, where they became something of a household name. This is the quartet that would put out five more albums through the 1980s, establishing themselves as an important force in the synth pop and new wave movements. Martin Gore took over songwriting duties from that point on and they brought their membership back up to four after an ad in a music magazine was responded to by Alan Wilder. He went on to form Yazoo with Alison Moyet and later and perhaps more famously, Erasure with Andy Bell. Clarke then left the band he helped found after the release of their debut, “Speak & spell” in 1981. So I decided to do three: one for the early days in the 80s, one for during the height of their popularity in the 90s, and a final one to cover off their latter output of the last two decades.ĭepeche Mode was born when Andy Fletcher, Vince Clarke, and Martin Gore, all of whom were already in a band together, heard OMD and decided to dispense with their guitars and buy synthesizers, and then, Clarke heard Gahan performing a Bowie cover somewhere and asked him to join. Of course, with forty years in existence comes an extensive back catalogue, too great to narrow down to one of these top five tunes things. The thought of it got me thinking about how long I’ve been following them (hint: it’s not quite that long) and I decided I should do something on these pages to observe the anniversary for myself. Wouldn’t a 40th anniversary show be something to see? And it occurred to me that there would likely be some special releases launched to mark the occasion but that a tour would be really cool as well. Then, shortly after all that, I saw somewhere on social media that Depeche Mode were set to celebrate 40 years in existence this very year. We decided in that same conversation that we would both be willing to see Depeche Mode again live if the opportunity arose. We didn’t know it then, but it was actually the first of what turned out to be many concerts we would see together over many years. I later mentioned the show and William’s post to my wife and of course, it brought a smile to her face because it was a pretty special night for both of us.
Upon reading his words and the set list, I thought it sounded very much like the sole time I saw them live with my friend Tim and my future wife Victoria and I told William that I was reasonably sure I saw that same tour on the other side of the world.
Vince Clarke (keyboards, lead and backing vocals, guitars) 1980–1981Īlan Wilder (keyboards, piano, drums, backing vocals) 1982–1995Ī couple of months ago, William, a fellow blogger at a1000mistakes, posted about a Depeche Mode show he saw back in 1994.
Martin Gore (vocals, keyboards, guitars) 1980-presentĪndy Fletcher (keyboards, backing vocals) 1980-present
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