Depeche Mode: A Career of Videos By Michael O. Powell
When Depeche Mode formed in 1980, electro (or “new wave” as it was then being called) was a new beast in popular music. Electronic music was still connected with the strange sounds of the German android men of Kraftwerk and keyboards and synthesizers were for the most part being used by musicians like Elton John for layering on songs like “Rocket Man.” Full on electro was not yet being marketed to music audiences.
Depeche Mode released its first single, “Dreaming of Me,” from their album Speak and Spell in 1981 and was encouraged by the success of landing at number 57 on the UK pop charts. Their next single, “New Life,” got to number 11 on the charts and got them some gigs on the telly:
Despite the commercial success, the snobs of music critic land had plenty of eggs to throw. Rolling Stone called their first album “PG-rated fluff.” Soon after, keyboardist and songwriter Vince Clarke quit the band. It likely would be very interesting to go back in time at this point and tell singer Dave Gahan that his band would be one of the longest-running bands of the new wave era.
Clarke was replaced by young keyboardist Alan Wilder, and the band released their second album A Broken Frame. The single “See You” reached number six on the pop charts, beating out all their previous efforts.
For their third album Construction Time Again, Depeche Mode began to solidify their place in popular music. As keyboardist Andrew Fletcher notes in this behind-the-scenes video, the band members were at the stage in which they were beginning to grow up.
Depeche Mode’s single “People are People,” a classic song of the 1980s, was the first of their songs to break out in the United States, reaching number 13 on the US charts in 1985. The band members at the time were being treated as teen idols in Europe, despite the increasing bleakness of their lyrical content. With their album Black Celebration, Depeche Mode reached the absolute pinnacle of their career with the brilliant song “Stripped.”
“Stripped” has influenced other bands, including the most successful German rock band in history, Rammstein, which provided a visually and musically creative interpretation of the song.
With the 1987 album Music for the Masses, Depeche Mode released the single “Never let me down again.” This song is striking to listen to, because over two decades the sound is still contemporary. When first hearing it, I was convinced that it had been released in the 1990s.
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With 1990’s album Violator came the enormously successful club anthem “Enjoy the Silence,” overshadowing the daring “Personal Jesus,” which achieved the remarkable task of combining biting satire of the fetishisation of religious faith, a memorable guitar riff and a danceable beat. The video also shows that no one can rock the cowboy hat like Dave Cahan.
Just as “Stripped” inspired a cover by Rammstein, “Personal Jesus” inspired a cover by country legend and dedicated Christian Johnny Cash.
The band experienced a great deal of problems around the time of the 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion. Gahan was addicted to heroin and was acting erratically as a result. Andy Fletcher wasn’t touring due to what he called “mental instability. Multi-instrumentalist Martin Gore had suffered several seizures. In 1995, Gahan suffered from an overdose and keyboardist Alan Wilder quit their band, claiming that his “level of input never received the respect and acknowledgement that it warrants.”
Despite Gahan’s drug problems, the 1997 album Ultra was released. In the video for the sub-par single “Barrel of a Gun,” Gahan looks far from the clean cut singer of the 1980s, better resembling Dave Navarro or Chris Cornell.
The 2001 album Exciter received mixed critical reactions, but was successful commercially. Critcism of the album being on the dull side is not misplaced but Dave Gahan fortunately appears as his normal, clean cut and handsome self in the video for “Dream On.”
The 2005 album Playing the Angel was the first to include songs written by Gahan. Featuring hypnotic keys, beautiful vocals and a soft beat, combined with a video as imaginative as their music, the single “Precious” showed a return to form for Depeche Mode.
That brings us to their latest album. Despite all the melodrama of 28 years of making music, Depeche Mode has shown themselves not only to be survivors but also capable of maintaining relevance through different musical periods. The single “Wrong,” from their newest album Sounds of the Universe, sounds just as if the young twenty-somethings that made “Stripped” had been given access to twenty-first century musical equipment. The lyrics, which speed through all the things Gahan has done wrong, could be interpreted as a bookend on the drama of the 1990s.
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