Depeche Mode:
Black Celebration
And Some Great Reward
Review
**
Broken Infinite has reached it's 1 year anniversary, whenever
something special happens I always plan a million reviews and usually
accomplish a handful. This may or may not be my only review to
celebrate the special occasion. Happy 1st Birthday Broken Infinite.
**
I
really wanted to start out by saying, If you don't know Depeche Mode
by now you should feel bad about it. However, I don't like seriously
shaming people for not knowing a certain band, genre, artist, or
anything of the sort. So I'll start by saying, I'm finally reviewing
Depeche Mode.
I
can't speak for everyone, but look at the alternative side of the
music spectrum and just about all of them state Depeche Mode as one
of their musical inspirations. It almost seems like it's all hype
from how many bands state this, but it's not. Depeche Mode did great
things for the Electronic genre.
Thanks
to Pandora I have reconnected with my love for this British band from
the 80's. Composed of Dave Gahan on lead vocals, Martin Gore (backing
vocals, keyboards, some lead vocals, and guitars) and Andy Fletcher
playing keyboards as well along with backing vocals and bass guitar
in the 80s, they made the list of 50 Bands Who Changed The World (Q
Magazine.) They've inspired generations of musicians, and they're
still touring, making new albums, and being completely awesome.
Their
name is French, it came from a French Magazine, but Gore commented
that it means "Hurried fashion or fashion dispatch. I like the
sound of that." However in the French language it means
something along the lines of "Fashion News," or "Fashion
Update," only relating to the magazine they took their name
from.
Fun
fact time: The first time member Martin Gore remembers playing under
the name Depeche Mode was at a school gig in May of 1980. They'd
previously used the name Composition of Sound and they had different
members back then too. When the band first formed Vince Clarke was in
the band, and when he left a guy named Alan Wilder. Alan left in 1995
and the band continued on as it's currently is, with Dave Martin and
Andy.
They
didn't start out with their songs containing dark subjects and
melodies, Speak And Spell was written by Vince Clarke, when he left,
Martin Gore took the song writing job duties and that's when Depeche
Mode when dark.
"Just
Can't Get Enough,' one of the singles from "Speak and Spell,'
helped put the band in the spot light in Europe and some other
countries. Some Great Reward helped them achieve international
success. "People Are People," one of the singles from that
album went to number 2 in Ireland, 4 in the UK and Switzerland, and
number 1 in West Germany. The US was a little slow in catching on to
the Depeche Mode craze and it only went to number 13. It did become
an anthem for Gay Pride festivals and the LGBT community in the 80s
and that's always a win.
"Blasphemous Rumors and Some Great Reward"
"People
Are People," is the third song off the album. That song while
not a chaotic mess, has a lot going on in the beginning and it's
beautiful. This needs to be like the anthem to solving bullying and
mistreatment of people for no reason. I don't know whether the song
was intentionally written for that purpose but truer words have never
been sung.
Despite
the great things this song could do for the world, supposedly, Martin
Gore hates it. It has not been played live since 1988 and he says he
prefers his songs to have subtle metaphors to allow people to find
their own meanings to his songs. He feels people are people does not
fit that description. I think he likes to be a Debby Downer.
The
other song I really wanted to talk about is Blasphemous Rumors. The
six minute long song about "arbitrary divine justice."
I
had a slight idea they'd be saying something possibly shocking to
religion. Context wise, it's not that shocking but to the overly
religious person they might take offense to it. They're not trying to
offend they're telling a story and a very relate-able one at that.
Some
people find religion in dark times and other people start questioning
it. A mother finds her 16 year old daughter tried to commit suicide,
she didn't succeed, and I don't know if she's the same girl in the
second half of the song. If she is, then two years later, she rediscovers religion and one day
is hit by a car and dies. If she's not then the song is from the
band's point of view adding maybe a personal outsider's element to
it.
Then this line happens, "And when I die I expect to find him laughing."
That
kind of threw me through a loop only because of the image it put in
my head, however explaining the whole thing requires a very long
drawn out discussion on religion I don't feel like getting into.
Taking
a few steps back to the beginning of the chorus, it's so catchy. Hell
it's so catchy I almost didn't recognize how dark it actually was
until I listened to it for the fifth time and realized there were
actual verses. When I write anything I've been letting Pandora play
and I completely missed the first two verses but caught the choruses
and then the last verse before the repeated choruses.
Master
and Servant is about BDSM and it was banned from a few stations due
to this. The world should have realized you can't keep Depeche Mode
down, it made it to 87 on the billboard hot 100 chart for three
weeks. It also tries to have a political element or something to it
but it's about sex and we all know it. The song is great, I heard it
on their Best Of... Volume 1 album, but that was during a time where
I only cared for "Enjoy the Silence," and "Personal
Jesus."
"If
You Want To" was one of the songs I hadn't heard until
listening to the whole album for this review. It gives off
unnecessarily creepy vibes, and I say unnecessarily because the song
doesn't need to be anywhere near as creepy as it comes off. It's
rather vague in context, is it about a party, is it about doing
drugs, or could it be about hooking up with someone?
Black Celebration
Depeche
Mode's musical genre shifted slightly when the world heard their
album Black Celebration in 1986. They gained a reputation in the
Gothic subculture of Eurpe and became teen idols as well. Black
Celebration according to Wikipedia, 'moved away from their industrial
- pop sound that characterized their previous LPs," I didn't
know Industrial pop was a thing... The album did bring in the dark
and ominous as well as atmospheric sound.
"Here
Is The House," the second song to motivate me to review Depeche
Mode. This was also the second song Pandora introduced me to. I
firmly believe this song is about someone having sex as well. I tried
searching Google, and Google had no idea what I was talking about it.
I also heard somewhere that there's a period of songs from a certain
time that are just all about sex. I have no idea where I was when
that information entered my brain, but I don't think I'll ever find
it again. The only thing I can confidently say is that I was hooked
the minute it started. Then the first verse ended and that riff
starts the brief instrumental part between twenty seven seconds and
forty-two seconds, I was completely sold by then.
As
I was listening to this the other day I realized as much as I don't
care for religion, it could be spun to be a religious song if not
religious then very spiritual song. I think even if it's not meant to
be a cute song, the original context was that it's a sexual song. I
also wonder if it's about cheating. Why else would someone randomly
be calling on the phone and no one answer it, well I don't think
anyone answered it. That makes it even more mysterious, this song
makes me think and I like it.
I
didn't care for "Black Celebration" or "Fly on the windscreen". Question
of Lust was the big song from that album and it deserved to be.
"Sometimes" is the song Martin Gore took the lead vocals on
and I couldn't understand what was happening. The echo was a good
idea but make it clear enough that a call and response vocal works.
It doesn't work when it's one second early and then the rest are all
thrown off. It sounded like it was all piled into one mess of a song.
"It Doesn't Matter Two," has to be the most annoying song
I've ever heard from Depeche Mode. I could hardly hear Dave over the
instrumentals and only halfway through does it stop and I can hear
him sing.
Stripped
(Question of Time)
Other
than a few songs on side two the 'dark' tone Depeche Mode tried to
establish for themselves, doesn't really hold up. The sounds might
sound heavy and dark, but unless I'm missing something, the actual
product is just a major flatline. "Stripped", "Dressed
in Black," and "New Dress" kept the 'dark' themes up
very well. "Question of Time" is pretty tolerable though, I
liked that one but it doesn't hold up to "Stripped" and
"Here is the House."
"Dressed
In Black" I thought I was listening to Dead Can Dance. I don't
know how or why Dave managed to remind me of Dead Can Dance but I
don't like it at all. Now I don't completely hate Dead Can Dance, but
those two bands are on two different levels of the music spectrum I
can't even begin to compare the two.
"New
Dress" I am guessing this has all to do with politics and how
the media sucks at covering things. People suffering and dying all
over the world and all anyone cared about was Princess Dianna's new
dress she might have wore. I didn't expect this song, it hit me like
a ton of bricks. Did everyone just forget this song exists, I feel
like it deserves to be relevant again. It might not be the greatest
Depeche Mode song but the world needs this song back in their faces
again.
I
think I should state this now, these albums came out over twenty
years ago and Dave Gahan's voice hasn't changed a bit. Through the
drug addiction, through all the singing and stress he put on himself
from being in the music business, the vocals he recorded on a CD so
many years ago sound the same now. I find that awesome.
Overall
this was a really disappointing review. I thought I would have a lot
more fun with this. I hardly made it through some of the songs but I
did so I could form some opinion on it. I don't expect every song to
be a smash hit because that's insanity but even for the songs that
wouldn't normally be a hit song they should still be generally good.
Some of these were terrible. I think this album is telling a story,
but I don't know what about, some songs seem to be about some
relationship and others are about politics and then there are some I
have no idea what the lyrics are about.
I
hope my reviews of Seabound, Iris, and Neuroticfish aren't as
disappointing.
~Pugsly~
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