The Spirit of Basildon - Catching Up WIth Depeche Mode

Photo Anton Corbijn

March 17 brings the luck of the Irish and the Spirit of the boys from Basildon: Depeche Mode. Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher offer up their fourteenth album, Spirit. While saying it isn't a political album, but it's definitely about humanity, and our place in that Gahan recently told Rolling Stone. And it wouldn't be the first time the band has dabbled in current events and social issues. Their 1983album, Construction Time Again was rife with statements on big money and the environment.

So let's have a look back at some of Depeche Mode's live highlights while we prepare for the 17 track gift of Spirit. 

1983's Construction Time Again gave DM the album that critics call one of their best. 

Everything Counts

The song that most in the US gained their Depeche introduction was the 1984 anthem People are People from their fourth album, Some Great Reward. 

Another March 17th release, Black Celebration. The album took the band towards the sound we know of now and away from the pop sounds the MTV Generation were liking. A Question of Time was the first video that their long time collaborator, Anton Corbijn would direct. 

Off their sixth studio album Music for the Masses, Never Let Me Down goes down as one of the best known live music moments for the band. At the end of the tour that cemented them into one of the greatest bands to come from the 80's, this performance from the tour's Pasadena Rose Bowl show proved to the critics that Depeche Mode had arrived. 

Personal Jesus: It's easily one of the first songs people will sing when you mention Depeche Mode. While there are so many great songs from this album, this version while Dave was on the short end of drug abuse is haunting. While he is so very frail, his voice is so strong and willing. 

From Songs of Faith and Devotion, the heavy and throbbing I Feel You hits every nerve. It's desperate, passionate, and this version from 1993 is strong but left many fearful how many lives Dave had. 

Like the proverbial butterfly, Dave and the band were healing and showing stronger and healthier  than in the dark grungy early nineties. Ultra was the awakening and maturation with songs like It's No Good, Barrel of a Gun, and Insight. 

It is one of the most tender songs we've ever gotten from DM. Precious from Playing the Angel, Precious, we later found out, was a song from Martin Gore to his children as he wondered what his divorce had done to them.

Not live but the best mix (my opinion). DM loves March release dates, Delta Machine coming at us in March of 2013. Their 13th album was thought to be the most powerful, gothic, twisted, electronic album since Violator, according to music writer Luke Turner. It was soulful and deep, and the remixes we got were, well, Heaven (Freemason's Mix).


I'm ready to get on board. We all got our fist live taste of Where's the Revolution on Jimmy Fallon. Spirit is going to be a pouty and sultry with a lot of attitude I feel. Here is our sneak peak of what to expect when Spirit takes the road this fall.  

Lift Up the Receiver I'll Make You a Believer

March 19, 1990 was the day the Mother Love Bone's lead singer, Andrew Wood passed into the heavens, Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson brought Cabaret back to Broadway, and one of the most influential albums of the 1990's was released. Depeche Mode's Violator, the band's eighth album, was released at a unique time in that hair bands were dying and grunge was festering away in Seattle. This is the album that put Depeche Mode into the superstardom realm. Their unique lyrics and creatively unique risqué videos also helped to push them into a realm of more than electronic and more than pop music. While they had proved their popularity by selling out the Rose Bowl in 1988, it would be the release of Violator that gave them credibility.


World in My Eyes
It sounds like a futuristic car starting up. Then Dave's voice hits you. Let me show you the world in my eyes. The lyrics to this one are very simple, it's Martin and the hypnotic beat that drag you into the driver's seat (which assumingly would be in Dave's lap).


Sweetest Perfection
Call it electronic jazz if you will, this song is purely about the uber love of someone.
The sweetest infection
Of body and mind
Sweetest injection
Of any kind

Personal Jesus
The song that is probably Depeche Mode's most known to many, I'm sure many in the religious world hated this song. But, hey everyone needs a Personal Jesus - and for a while, mine was Dave Gahan. Yes, reach out and touch faith.

 

Halo
One of my favorite Depeche Mode songs of all time, Halo is the acceptance of sin. It's opening lines grab you and are genius.

You wear guilt
Like shackles on your feet
Like a halo in reverse

Waiting for the Night
It sounds almost like an electronic lullaby. Its a song about the still of the evening or if you really listen, is it about Dave's addictions?

Been waiting for the night to fall
Now everything is bearable
And here in the still
All that you hear
Is tranquility

Enjoy the Silence
There are two incredible videos to this song. The first is one of Dave Gahan traipsing about a mountain top dressed as a king. Ah, enjoy the silence - power, possession, a crown. Another song with simple lyrics All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is here in my arms, but it would be the second video that eleven years later would give people chills. 
High atop the World Trade Center, Depeche Mode captured the grandeur of the Twin Towers.

Crucified
Oooooh, hidden track of symphony. Sort of like a "drums and space" for the electronic band. It goes seamlessly into ...


Policy of Truth
You have to really listen to the lyrics in this song to realize they are saying You know, things would have turned out so much better if you'd only lied a few years ago. About what, we will never know.

Blue Dress
Many have done between this is a song about a really pretty girl to, when in doubt, the song is about heroin. Is the worthless item the material dress or the damaging drug?

Something so worthless
Serves a purpose
It makes me a happy man
Can't you understand
Say you believe
Just how easy
It is to please me

Interlude
Takes the listener back to Music for the Masses and refreshes for the final course.

Clean
A very personal glimpse into Dave's clean lifestyle - or attempt at the time.

 

As years go by
All the feelings inside
Twist and they turn
As they ride with the tide
I don't advise
And I don't criticize
I just know what I like
With my own eyes

Sometimes