Depeche Mode
One of the longest surviving bands of the New Wave British invasion of the early 80’s, Depeche Mode rank as one of the top 10 Dance artists of all time. They first emerged as a New Wave Pop group that scored underground Dance hits. Having survived the loss of Vince Clarke as key songwriter, the band retooled to emerge in the late 1980’s as leaders in electronic Dance music. Attracting top talent to remix their singles, Depeche Mode released some of the most artful mixes for the dancefloor that ultimately resulted in a string of 4 number one Dance hits in a row. Depeche Mode are survivors of good times and bad for the band and remain one of the most compelling groups in the music industry today.
The group that eventually became Depeche Mode began when Vince Clarke first teamed with Andy Fletcher in 1976. After several name changes and pulling in guitarist/keyboardist Martin Gore and vocalist Dave Gahan, the name Depeche Mode was finally adopted in 1980 for the four person group. The band ignored conventional instruments in favor of an all-synthesizer approach similar to other British New Wave bands of the early 1980’s such as Human League and Soft Cell. Depeche Mode’s first single Dreaming Of Me appeared in 1981. It was a minor U.K. hit, but the followup singles did progressively better and Just Can’t Get Enough, the third single, landed in the U.K. Top 10. The first album Speak and Spell scored in the U.K. and brushed the lower rungs of the U.S. album chart on the strength of Dance chart success for the first 3 singles.
Toward the end of 1981, keyboardist and primary songwriter Vince Clarke abruptly left the group. He soon formed the duo Yazoo (Yaz in the U.S.) with
vocalist Alison Moyet but abandoned that project and a group called Assembly before settling into Erasure with vocalist Andy Bell. Martin Gore soon took over primary songwriting duties for Depeche Mode and the band added Alan Wilder as a replacement keyboardist. The hits continued to flow in the U.K. but U.S. audiences saw the group as merely a minor Electronic Pop band. The 1983 single Everything Counts broke through to the Top 20 of the U.S. Dance chart and is a good example of Martin Gore’s growing facility with socio-political commentary in his songs. The band’s 1984 album Some Great Reward is a pivotal album in the band’s long history. It includes the group’s U.S. Pop breakthrough People Are People as well as the underground Dance favorites Master and Servant and Blasphemous Rumours that lead in darker, more introspective directions with erotic and religious overtones. The band had hit their stride and in response to the success of People Are People, two compilation albums were released to remind new fans of earlier music by the band.
Depeche Mode’s next album Black Celebration did not appear until 1986. It expanded on the band’s darker tones and alienated much of their Pop audience while exciting even greater fervor in their hardcore fans. For the A Question Of Time music video the band worked with artist Anton Corbijn as director for the first time. It began a visual collaboration that has endured to the present. The single Strangelove preceded the Music For the Masses album in early 1987 and became the band’s first number one Dance hit. It was soon followed by Never Let Me Down Again and Behind the Wheel. Although the band still failed to sell strongly to Pop audiences they had developed a massive concert following. A world tour began in October 1987 and by the time it ended in Los Angeles in June 1988, 72,000 fans packed the Rose Bowl to hear Depeche Mode. The concert was immortalized by documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and became the centerpiece of the band’s live film and album 101, released in 1989.
With critical acceptance and fan adulation at their back, the band began recording sessions for their next studio album. Another long-term collaboration began with Flood brought in as producer. Francois Kevorkian was brought in to do remixes of the leadoff single Personal Jesus. The single, a Top 20 Dance hit and the group’s first Top 40 Pop hit in years, kicked off the band’s biggest album to date and one of the biggest hit albums of 1990. Violator broke into the Top 10 of the Pop album chart, spawned 3 Top 40 Pop hits, 3 Top 10 Dance hits and sold over 6 million copies. The band had hit the mainstream while maintaining the authenticity of their sound.
Depeche Mode spent 8 months in the studio during 1992 recording and fine tuning the next studio album Songs Of Faith and Devotion. The album debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart but failed to generate a major Pop hit single as I Feel You barely reached the Top 40. Songs Of Faith and Devotion intensifies both the Rock and confessional aspects of Depeche Mode’s music. Although Pop audiences were not impressed, I Feel You and Walking In My Shoes both topped the Modern Rock chart and I Feel You pleased club audiences, reaching the Top 5 of the Dance chart. Another successful tour followed and the powerful combination of Anton Corbijn’s visuals with the band’s performance is captured on the DVD Devotional. The mid-1990’s shook the band to the core as Dave Gahan sank into severe drug addiction culminating in a suicide attempt. By the time the band pulled itself back together for 1997’s Ultra, long-time member Alan Wilder had departed and Tim Simenon was hired as a new producer. The new album featured renewed, confident vocals from Dave Gahan and continued the band’s hot streak in clubs with It’s No Good topping the Dance chart, the first single since 1987’s Strangelove to do so.
In 1998 and 1999 the band released two lovingly constructed compilations of past singles covering the band’s entire history from 1981. Exciter appeared in 2001 and featured a phenomenal 3 chart-topping Dance hits: Dream On, Freelove, and I Feel Loved. The band continued to feature some of the top remix artists in the business such as Peter Rauhofer’s (Club 69) work on It’s No Good and Danny Tenaglia’s reworking of I Feel Loved. As 2004 was coming to an end, the band released a limited edition 3-CD set of many of their classic remixes and seemed poised to work on a new album.