What I didn't know about Depeche Mode

 

I am guilty of not paying a lot of attention to the behind the scenes gossip and personal lives of the entire band.  In face I try to stay fairly oblivious because I find the music purer without knowing all the intricacies that bring it about.  But I do know what I like and what I don't.  For Depeche Mode that means "Speak & Spell" through "Songs of Faith and Devotion".  More about S&S later; it's the rest that I want to discuss.  I didn't know Adam Wilder had come in after Vincent Clarke left and then he left after SOF&D.  I just knew there was something off which really began with SOF&D but was very evident from "Ultra" onward.  

Ultra and the following albums seemed too musically simple comparatively.  The words and basic melodies were all there but the songs seemed flat and, well, boring.  I didn't think much of it as I had kind of fallen out with Depeche Mode after seeing the in concert a few times and caught them not playing live and being rude to fans at a hotel bar.  That was the Violator tour, and I just didn't feel the connection the same after that - which is what I attributed my declined interest to.  I had friends that kept up with the new records and I'd always end up with a copy on my hard drive but often never played it more than once.  I thought I wasn't interested, but what I have discovered is that the albums just aren't interesting - at least not without the contributions of Adam Wilder.  

I thought I might find interest in Adam Wilder's other work, like Recoil.  Unfortunately, that isn't true.  His work suffers from not having the lyrics and passion of Martin Gore and David Gahan.  

So I did find it interesting enough to spend the last few days listening to all the DM albums again.  Some Great Reward and Music for the Masses are still brilliant masterpieces.  The rest are still great in their own right, up until Ultra.  I have not and most likely will not buy vinyl copies of anything later than Violator.  I'm on the fence about Songs of Faith & Devotion....but the rest are flat no.  

So Speak & Spell - I think if you compare it to the Adam Wilder involved albums you get the sense that the other three left the "sound" of the band up to the 4th member.  Speak & Spell is very much a Vincent Clarke sounding album while after his departure and the addition of Adam Wilder you have another sound - one that did them well.  Evidently AW wrote only a few songs along the way but made a huge contribution to how the songs were fleshed out in production.  

So that's what I didn't know, at least as much of it as I was interested in finding out.  I recently bought Martin Gore's Third Chimpanzee EP which was another disappointment.  I was hoping for a progression from Counterfeit & Counterfeit².  I may or may not keep and eye on their future releases to find out if they will ever stop being "Disappointing Mode"?