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Nov. 16, 2023 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer
01:50:27
Depeche Mode: Momento Mori

Richard Spencer and Andrew Jensen review Depeche Mode’s 15th studio album, Memento Mori (2023). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe

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What is your takeaway from the album?
You know, to be honest, from listening to it and then sort of cheating and watching interviews beforehand, I think they're kind of confronting the fact that they're both, you know, 61, 2, 3. You know, they're older and their kids are probably old enough to...
Be at the age they were when Ultra came out or something, you know?
Yeah.
You know, the title kind of says it all.
And, you know, I think it is unfair to expect a violator out of them or anything like that.
You know, I think that's safe to say that's their apex and all that.
but I don't know if it's going to be the last Depeche Mode album ever, but it wouldn't be a bad note to go out on.
Lost in sleepless lullaby Heaven's dreaming Thoughtless thoughts, my friends We know we'll be ghosts again We know we'll be ghosts again
Yeah, it's definitely about death and soul.
I was trying to crack the nut of a lot of these songs because I do think they are about something.
I mean, for instance, Precious from many albums ago, you could kind of hear it as kind of a basic love song.
Of, you know, precious and fragile things need special handling.
But if you dig deeper, it is actually about his children and getting a divorce.
And you're going to need to leave space in your heart for two.
It's kind of confronting the reality of a child of divorce.
And it's about Martin's divorce.
So it has a particular meaning if you can kind of crack the nut of it.
Precious and fragile things need special handling.
My God, what have we done to you?
you We always tried to share the tenderest again Now look what we have put you through Things get
damaged, things get broken I thought we'd manage, but words left unspoken Left us upwritten, there was a little left to give We always tried to share the tenderest again
This is the vibe that I got from the album, which was that I feel like it was written during COVID.
And I think it was.
It was written during COVID and they kind of sat on it for a while because it only came out about six months ago.
I think it was available in the United States in early 2023, wasn't it?
Yeah.
But I think it was probably done earlier than that.
Even, I mean, like, for instance, My Cosmos is Mine.
I don't necessarily think this one is about death, although it kind of could be.
I think that's what's good about a song, is that you can unlock some meaning to it, but it doesn't just have that meaning.
You know, like, I feel like country music songs are literal and kind of basic and in your face in a way.
Don't try that in a small town.
It's like just telling you what it's about.
Or, you know, what is the parody of country music?
Like, my wife left me and my dog died.
And, you know, it's like...
Beer in the tractors.
Yeah.
It is literally about something.
And they tell you what it's about.
But I think songs are...
Better when they might have a kind of layer to them that is accessible.
It's about love, or it's about lust, or someone who's unreachable.
It's about the kind of typical things, but you dig down and it might be about something else.
I think People Are Good is probably the most literal song on the album.
But My Cosmos is mine.
And again, I don't know...
Exactly what Martin Gore is saying.
He wrote this.
But at least the vibe I got from it was it feels like it's someone...
It's kind of like the life on cyberspace and social media, which even older people experience in their own way.
And it's about kind of...
like shutting out all these other voices.
*music*
Don't mess with my mind Don't question my space-time You
know, don't alter my headlines.
And there's this major key change.
They said, no war, no war, no war, no war, no more, no more, no more, no more.
No fear, no fear, no fear, no fear.
Not here, not here, not here, not here.
No rain, no clouds, no pain.
This way of isolating yourself off from the world and having your own cosmos, it's a metaphor of sorts for 2020 into 2021 of being isolated and feeling like there are all these wagging tongues out there.
Kind of shutting yourself off from that.
That was really the vibe that I got from it.
But of course, you could read it in other ways.
Like, is he God?
I don't think that's correct.
I think it's something else.
And so the no war, no war, no war, it's this kind of endless chanting message outside of your digital bubble.
But it's also how you interact with...
This is just my impression.
But this is just kind of an example of the way in which the songs evoke a particular time or they evoke something.
And there might be a little mystery that you can discover, like a puzzle you can unlock.
But then they also kind of exist in themselves.
I'm sure...
Many people could listen to that and not get the impression that I did, but just kind of enjoy the mood of it all.
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more.
No fear, no fear, no fear, no fear, not here, not here, not here, not here.
No weight, no gas, no pain, no stress, no fight, no rest.
No senseless death.
5 5 6 With My Cosmos Is Mine, I actually have the exact same basic note, is just that it reminded me of social media.
And basically, it's mine, kind of like losing your autonomy, basically, in the digital age.
Yeah.
Because...
It's that alienation is always a theme in Depeche Mode songs, or usually.
And with the social media self, you're kind of alienated, or even worse, with the anonymous social media self, you're kind of alienated from who you are in real life, your actual identity.
And that kind of resonated with me.
I think it's a good song.
It's not a single, right?
It didn't get released as a single.
It actually was.
Well, I don't even know what a single means.
It's definitely played live.
Yeah.
I don't even know what a single means these days.
Does it have a music video?
That might be the definition.
It was released early.
So Ghost Again is a natural first single from the album.
And that was released before the album was available.
It has an upbeat tempo.
Of course, I think it's actually the meaning of the song is darker.
But I could definitely imagine, you know, I understand why it was released early.
My Cosmos of Mind was also released early before the album was out.
So there was only those two songs available immediately.
So it was a single of sorts.
It's the first song.
I mean, they choose that.
And they usually, I mean, I've seen them live a number of times.
And at least recently, they've started the concert with the first track from the album.
Yeah, that was, I believe, I'm like 99% sure I'm trying to think back to April.
But I believe that was the first song that was played was My Cosmos Was Mine.
And you can always tell because of that.
That bass line, you know, the super fuzzy kind of distorted bass line.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I...
So I...
Well, I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Okay, so what I have basically to say about...
If I just take that particular song...
So we were talking about the ambiguity in Martin Gore's lyrics.
And he has said multiple times like...
They have a personal meaning for me, but I kind of want everybody to have their own meaning.
He likes when they're ambiguous.
And I would say that's probably the key.
I think that, if I could sum up just in one word their lyrics, it would be ambiguity.
And that's why I think they're so good.
They're definitely dark.
They're definitely personal.
But that ambiguity is...
You can kind of tell when Martin Gore is writing the song.
I think, you know, he is definitely one of my, if not my favorite, songwriter.
But if we just go track by track and talk about, if we want to talk about My Cosmos is Mine, there's a term called the loudness wars or whatever that basically just means too much compression.
And I feel like that is a...
It kind of starts in hip-hop, if you really think about it.
Everything is...
And the drums are kind of the driving force in rap music, which I think, well, in many cases for worse, but the sound of music, if you take that late 80s, early 90s, that has kind of, since that time, just kind of changed the sound of music, and things have been louder, the drums have been punchier, and rhythm has kind of been emphasized more than...
The melody, I would say, in the past, let's say, 35 years in music.
Overall, I like the sound.
I even like using the static noise as snares.
They've done that previously before going back 30-some years.
But that's the one thing.
I just felt like, man, this is just too loud.
It's just a little bit too in your face.
Well, it's undifferentiated.
Is that what I think you're getting at?
Where you can't really differentiate certain lines in the song and you just get this kind of wave of sound where it's difficult to differentiate instrumentation and vocals and lines and so on.
Yes, and there's a certain depth.
For the low end, you can only go solo, is what I'm trying to say.
And you can just hear that.
I mean, you hear that, like I said, most notably with hip-hop.
You hear that 808 bass.
You feel it from a distance, and then you really...
I just think that, yes, they're an electronic band, and that's fine and all, but it's just overall, I guess.
Not just Depeche Mode, but just...
Modern music in general.
It's so loud.
Undifferentiated is a good word for it.
It gets muddy.
I'm not really...
Okay, fine.
I can table that criticism because I could say that about almost everything that comes out.
I definitely dig the bass line.
I like that it's fuzzy.
I like that melody that you're saying.
I think Dave...
Dave's vocals are great, but the refrain, it's not really a chorus or a verse.
No, it's not, because I don't think they even care about creating a catchy chorus anymore.
It's like this weird, there's a key change, and it's almost like a different world that you enter in the song.
And it's kind of alien to what the...
The main verses are talking about.
And I find it interesting.
I mean, I think for better and for worse, and often for better, is that they don't need to write a pop album.
They have a built-in fan base.
They are old.
You know?
And they don't need to write a catchy jingle.
I mean, for instance, I I just noticed on when I was scrolling through Twitter that the Rolling Stones have issued another album.
I mean, these guys must be pushing 80 because they're both like Depeche Mode and, you know, the Rolling Stones are like technically boomers.
But it's clear that this is of a different generation.
You know, these are kids who were influenced by punk in the late 70s when they were in middle school.
Or in high school, maybe.
And David Bowie, which was...
I learned that was actually how Dave joined the band, is that he performed a David Bowie song, and they were like, you're in.
Do you know which one?
I'm curious.
I can go look it up.
It was actually in Stripped, which is filled with tidbits like this.
Yeah, which one is actually really interesting?
I, I would be king And you, you would be my queen For nothing could keep us together Oh, yeah.
The other thing, Dave's voice has clearly changed, you know, as our voices do.
He was probably more of a tenor early on, and then by the mid-80s, you have that baritone, you know, really distinctive, irreplaceable voice.
But anyway, they...
They're of a different generation than the Stones.
And the Stones, you know, who must be pushing 80?
I remember seeing the Stones in the 90s when I was in high school.
My parents went with me to this concert.
I think they might have dragged me there, but I'm glad they did.
With, like, another boomer couple that they were here with.
And it was at a stadium.
I mean, it was packed.
It was huge.
And even at that point, I mean, we're going on...
30 years from, you know, then.
And at that point, it was like, how do they do it?
Aren't they just going to collapse on stage?
Like, how are they alive?
And it's now, that was like 1997 or something.
We're now in 2023 and they're doing it again.
But that song they released, I mean, I don't remember it, to be honest, but I kind of liked it.
But it could have been released in any decade.
It was just there releasing a pop song.
And it has a Stones vibe to it, but it could have been written by a number of different bands.
And it was fine.
I'm glad they're doing their thing.
And I think the Stones are cool.
Actually, if there is an analogy to the second boomer generation that Depeche Mode is a part of, I think they are the Rolling Stones to someone else's Beatles.
They are the dark villains as opposed to the You know, cute, fun, or even hippie pop stars.
They're the alt alt, so to speak.
But anyway, what I was saying is that I think we all kind of like want them, secretly want them to release like music for the masses again or something.
Violator 2, yeah.
Yeah, just something where like...
I mean, Music for the Masses might be their best album.
I mean, Violator is obviously up there.
Like, every track is a classic.
Even, like, Clean or Little 15. Like, kind of oddball songs that don't always get performed live or anything.
Like, even those are classic.
You know, and they're, like, awesome, danceable.
But they're not going to do that.
They're not going to just, like the Rolling Stones, issuing a song that could have been...
Produced in 1967.
They're not going to do that.
They're not going to have Master and Servant Part 2 or Strange Love Part 2 and just do that standard format of a catchy minor mode synth riff and then anthem chorus and stuff like that.
They're just not going to do it.
And I think I admire them for that.
Another thing I saw So I'll probably follow some of the same Depeche Mode fan accounts on Twitter.
But there was actually an AI Depeche Mode song that was released.
I retweeted it.
Okay, I think...
Yeah, I think I saw this.
We might want to just play it.
If you send it to me, I'll add it in and post or something.
But it was good.
That was kind of the scary thing.
And obviously, the problems of AI and the threat of AI, that's a whole other different discussion.
But it was cool, and it did the same.
you know, it had a little blues rhythm to it, a synth riff, some, you know, chorus about pain and love or something like that.
It could be a blessing in disguise for those who know how to live it right forget about You say But it was AI.
It was fake.
And even though it actually was a pretty good song, like I'll You know, tip my cap to the computer that wrote it.
It was fake.
And I just, I don't think they're going to do that.
They know, they're spoiled in some ways.
They know that they have a built-in fan base.
They know that they're legends in the alternative rock community and actually beyond.
They know that we're going to appreciate things.
So they're kind of spoiled and that can lead to decadence or just unlistenable albums, which Memento Mori is not.
It is good, actually.
And I'm glad they did it.
But...
They want to experiment and they want to do what they want to do.
They don't have to write an anthem-like chorus.
They can kind of write this weird, haunting chant about, you know, no war, no war, no war, no war, no more, no more, no more, no more, no fear, no fear, no fear, no pain, no doubt, no, what is it?
No final breath, no senseless death.
Just this, like, weird...
Kind of like chorus from outside demanding an end to all suffering.
And it's awesome and it's haunting and they can do that because they don't need to write another album.
If they had just retired in like 93, they could have called it a day and been legends.
But they kept doing it.
And even with the death of Fletch, they just keep...
I mean, some of these, like, blues albums, cool kind of, like, post-country...
Blues, electronic blues.
I don't even know how to describe it.
But it's just awesome.
I love the Soul Savers, actually.
I think they've just done great stuff.
Really Depeche Modi.
gets to the blues vibe.
And I think they're just willing to do that.
Rock is dead, and I don't know if we're going to see a new band enter the scene that is comparable anymore.
I mean, I think this moment in time is kind of over and there are lots of reasons for that.
But just their willingness to write an experimental album and to say what they want to say and do what they want to do.
Ghost again, they can throw in something that's kind of poppy and major key.
They can kind of throw that in.
But there's still the mystery, there's still the dark because it's Ghost again.
If it's not in the music, it's in the lyrics.
Definitely.
I mean, I think that's a really profound sentiment.
Because it's...
So it is, again, about death.
This is all about soul.
Like, it's, I'm gonna take my soul with me.
Like, I'm gonna leave this world and go to a clear blue open sky and I'm taking my soul with me.
And My Favorite Stranger is about a doppelganger.
My favorite stranger stands in my mirror, puts words in my mouth, all broken, bitter.
My favorite stranger stands in my mirror, puts words in my mouth, all broken, bitter.
Yeah, some perfect stranger sneaks on tiptoes, steals my shadow and goes where I go as my favorite stranger, stands in my mirror, puts words in my mouth, all broken, bitter.
I mean, it's all about...
So he feels alienated from himself there.
But it's about death and soul.
And I had never heard that sentiment before of, like, ghost again.
This notion, you know, it's you're going back to a spirit again.
You were a spirit before.
There's, like, an embedded cosmology or theology to the song for that to work.
I don't know if those words have ever been put together.
In this sentence before this.
I never even really thought of it that way.
I was just going to say, you know, it's kind of funny.
I mean, upon listening to them, when I first really started to get into Peche Mode about five, six years ago, I remember that you were, oh yeah, it wasn't until relatively recent.
But I mean, I was, still am, obsessed.
When you got into them, you went all in.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I'm one of the devout, as they say.
I was kind of struck.
I was like, I wonder why Richard's into this band.
Because all, not all, many of the themes are seemingly Christian.
At least they're highly introspective.
Yes.
At the very least, we can say that.
And that's kind of...
You know, the self-examining conscience that you get in Christianity, you know, I'd say even more so than Judaism or Islam.
But, yeah, I mean, that's why at first I was kind of like, I wonder why is he like this?
You know, I mean, this was, you know, during the karaoke video that went semi-viral or whatever.
Which I would have been happy to have taken part in because I would have backed you.
I would have been the Martin to your day.
But anyway, that's all I wanted to basically say.
Well, I like them because they're a Christian band.
Just like you two.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, absolutely.
You two has a theology.
It's a millennia, a millennian theology, in fact, about...
Christ has won the world, and we're bringing it towards him.
It's a millennial theology of making the world Christ-like.
And so it's a very peculiar thing.
It's not the kind of pessimistic fundamentalist, like it all gets worse and worse, and then the apocalypse comes and blah, blah.
No.
It's something very different.
And I think that's...
Outside of the just cool vibe and sound that they have, which I do love, that's why I love them.
And the same thing with Martin Gore and Depeche Mode.
Yeah, it's a Protestant band.
And it's deeply introspective and deeply alienated from the flesh.
And all of their songs are ultimately about this.
And I really appreciate that.
So, I mean, whatever my own aspirations might be for this, or whatever my own criticisms of Christian morality are, or whatever, and I've made those clear, on some level, it just doesn't matter.
I appreciate the authenticity of both U2 and Depeche Mode in that regard.
If you're gonna do it, do it.
Be authentic yourself.
And I think there's also this element of these kids in Basildon.
So it's these young guys who grew up in a kind of synthetic world.
It was like a neo-futurist suburban community that was created post-war to take on overflow from London.
And so it has all of those, you know, it has all of those kind of, like, hopes and aspirations, but also alienation and self-loathing that we see in, like, the American suburbs of, you know, you're kind of achieving the American dream, or in this case, the...
You know, full expression of welfare, socialism, and futurism.
You're achieving it, and then you get it, and it's lacking and hollow.
And so there's almost this dual quality to Depeche Mode.
It's inherently an electronic band.
In a synthetic band, in that sense.
I mean, famously, they would perform concerts with a tape deck rolling in the background, where they were just open about it.
We're not going to pretend...
We're not going to have anyone accuse us of being synthetic.
We're just going to roll the tape while we play.
But they were playing instruments, but the backing tape was right there.
And so there is this kind of modernist, futurist, synthetic quality to it.
But I guess what gives them interest is that they're not just a kind of dance band.
They've never created a dance album, really.
They've influenced dance albums or techno or whatever, but they've never done it themselves.
Because it's like, overlaid on top of that is this self-introspective...
Maybe like loathing of the flesh, kind of like Protestant mentality that is in combination with something that is kind of, that's like commercial and synthetic.
And, I mean, I think, you know, it's very, it's interesting when you think about like the Vince Clark leaving the band.
But I do think that that was the best thing that ever happened.
I mean, obviously, Vince Clark is a very interesting guy.
And, you know, Yaz or Yazoo, great 80s stuff.
And, you know, Erasure, some great songs, maybe a little too gay at times.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
But kind of like it's fun, you know, and he's a great songwriter.
But if they had stuck with the just can't get enough sound, that I don't think they would.
I think they would have been just this like footnote on 80s pop, you know, like the new wave generation.
And they would have just been played at like 80s retrospectives.
Nostalgia Nights or something.
It would have been fun.
But instead, their band was deconstructed and then Martin took over songwriting and he brought his own truth to the band that was very different than Vince Clark.
Kind of night and day.
You can see some similarities and I don't want to limit Clark.
It went from day to night, I guess is maybe the right way.
It went to the minor mode.
It went to kind of sexiness, but in a creepy way.
Blues inflection.
Yeah, a kind of like twisted perversion, but then kind of like a guilt overlaid.
And also in a lot of Martin's songs, where he's singing kind of like...
Well, look at me.
I'm, like, forgive me.
I'm kind of like this cute-looking guy who I'm in a black dress and I have my fingernails painted black.
It's almost like he used to wear, like, stuff that would say, like, submissive and stuff.
In other words, like, he's the servant.
Like, he's the, yeah, I mean, I don't mean to throw gay accusations.
I'm not.
Well, he's apparently not gay because he's been married and has children.
You don't want to accuse him, but he's someone who will kind of go there.
And he probably is someone who would feel guilty about it.
And there's something with Never Let Me Down Again, which I've always felt like just some of the lyrics choice will be as safe as houses as long as you remember who's wearing the trousers.
Strikes me as homoerotic.
Now, I don't...
Maybe that's just the trousers or, you know, I'm taking a ride with my best friend.
Maybe there's just too many kind of, like, connotations.
But it does...
That is what it sounds like.
But he's...
It's not...
You know, it's very different than, like, you know, Erasure saying, like, you know, break these chains of love or something.
Like, that music...
And again...
I like Erasure.
But it is just open, liberated, gay.
I am who I am.
Take it in, world.
I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it, or whatever.
We can mess together, days will last forever.
Come to me, cover me, hold me.
Together we'll break these chains of love.
Don't give up, don't give up.
Together with me and my baby, break the chains of love.
I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it, or whatever.
Which is fine, you know?
But, like, Martin could also never do that.
Like, if he were to engage in some perversion or even, like, contemplate it or write a song about it, he would feel guilt-laden afterward.
Like, that's who he is.
And I think that gives it a kind of balance where a lot of erasure can be pretty cringe.
You know?
But Depeche Mode's never cringe.
You were talking about how their stuff wasn't dance-influenced.
And I say about the closest that it got to dance, like house music-ish, was probably on the World Violation Tour.
If you listen to even the Enjoy the Silence version, it's got a very house type of vibe to it.
Everything counts.
The World Violation...
version has a very like house kind of dancey kind of feel
you
And I remember Martin saying in an interview with Paul Gambaccini before the release of Songs of Faith and Devotion, he was like, you know, everybody's expecting us to make a dance album.
But it's kind of like that...
Forgive me, because I know you're not the biggest fan, but the Beatles were hippies and then it became cool to be hippies and the Beatles were already done with it.
In that sense, Depeche Mode was...
They dipped their toes they were influenced by, and they influenced house music.
We're already on to grunge.
We're going to the next thing.
They knew that and had basically planned to obviously have a twist with every album, but it's about looking forward to the next thing as opposed to...
You know, repeating a formula and not doing, say, Violator 2. Which is, you know, the reason that...
The fact that they would take chances and they never had...
That Mute wasn't owned by EMI, I think, not until 2004 or something.
They never had a major...
There's always literally what they wanted.
And I think with an album like Black Celebration...
Which was, I mean, I believe it was, like, number 70, like, worldwide.
It did not, or 71, it did not chart as they had wanted it to.
And Daniel Miller had been telling them, like, you know, don't expect, it was so moody and dark and, you know, we love it for those reasons.
Oh, yeah.
This album kind of reminds me of Black Celebration in the sense that there aren't...
The singles don't grab me nearly as much as the other tracks, the non-singles.
Ghost Again and Wagging Tongue and My Cosmos Is Mine all at the beginning of the album.
It gets better and better as it goes on.
What's track number four?
Don't Say You Love Me.
Yes.
Yeah, I think from then on, it just seems to get better and better.
Yeah, so I mean, and a lot of those, I think I have in my notes here that the ones written with Richard Butler from Psychedelic Furs, I don't know that those are my favorite.
I mean, with the exception of...
Don't Say You Love Me, perhaps.
Because he actually co-wrote that one.
Yes.
Anthony Fantano, I don't know if you're familiar with him.
He does all the music reviews.
He's kind of that stereotypical, super annoying millennial.
I might know him.
I've listened to a few audio documentaries on the new album on Apple Music and stuff like that.
But go on.
He famously...
I did an interview with Sam Hyde in 2016 and then backtracked.
Oh, interesting.
So he was reviewing Memento Mori and he said, you know, I don't really like the first half of the album.
And I'm not going to say that I don't like the first half of the album, but it does get better and better.
And it is mature.
And they were always, in my opinion...
Strangely pervy, but mature in their songwriting.
It was never too poppy, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
But anyway, like you said, they're at the point where it doesn't matter.
They don't have to make this album if they don't want to.
But it's what they want to do, and it's from this 60-year-old perspective, which I think everybody has this prejudice about in their...
In their mind that a pop star or any kind of musician has to be young and has to be...
But I can...
I mean, like you were talking about the Rolling Stones, I can still appreciate this album.
Despite the fact that I know it's coming from basically my dad's kind of place.
An older perspective.
Early boomer, or late boomer, early Gen X kind of thing.
Yeah, it's late Boomer, but it's like, these are the people who told the Generation X who we are.
They were older than us.
I think they're like 15 to 17 years older than I am.
Probably more than that for you.
But they kind of told us who we were when we were young.
My entree to Depeche Mode was overhearing it in my sister's room growing up.
And I believe I overheard it on vinyl, actually, because I think we kind of skipped tape decks and we went straight to CDs.
But we would make...
Everyone had a Walkman, and so you'd kind of make yourself a mixtape.
This was the 80s, 90s kid.
But I remember overhearing, and I don't know which album it was exactly.
It might have been Some Great Reward, or it might have been Black Celebration, or even Music for the Masses.
But I was just kind of coming into my own.
I probably was eight years old or ten.
Like, really young.
I mean, in a way.
I mean, my daughter is around that age, and...
Yeah, it's kind of funny to even imagine yourself in that kind of mindset.
But I overheard her playing this.
And she did have a record player and she had vinyl and then she had CDs later on.
But I remember her overhearing it.
And just I was hooked from then.
I mean, you said that you got into them, but you went all in five years ago.
I mean, it's been...
A journey.
I mean, I don't know of a time when I didn't love them and wasn't super into them, and they didn't just speak to me.
I mean, they were kind of like the first band that spoke to me, weirdly.
I even remember in my, like, there was a party when I was graduating from high school.
And there was a DJ at this party.
And then they said, oh, by request, we're going to play Master and Servant by Depeche Mode.
And everyone actually just looked at me.
They're like, Richard, they're just kind of lovingly mocking me.
Like, oh, we know who put that request in.
There's only one man who did that.
And so, I mean, they...
And I think even at that point, they were probably...
That's like 1997-ish.
At that point, I think they were probably remembered as an 80s band or something like that.
That's probably what a lot of people knew about them.
But again, I was following them.
I was attending their concerts.
I knew of the trajectory.
With Songs of Faith, of Devotion, and Ultra, and going into the 2000s.
But anyway, that's my story.
I don't think there's ever been a time in my life when I haven't been listening to them.
Maybe you could call this pathetic.
I've listened to these songs hundreds of times, and I heard them when I was eight.
They've kind of been with me.
So it's pretty remarkable stuff.
I was going to say, okay, so a quick little similar experience I had was I was at a few years ago, I was at my buddy's wedding and, you know, after a few cocktails, it was a really good wedding, a lot of people there.
And I'm begging the DJ, I'm like, you've got to play something by Depeche Mode.
And he's like, man, who's Depeche Mode?
And I was like, oh my God, you've got to play this song.
And I think there were only three songs available.
And I would have just played Enjoy the Silence because that's, you know, their most famous, at least I think most people would have gotten that.
But it was Personal Jesus.
It did matter to me.
And I play it, and I think I was the only one.
Everyone looked at me like, you know, we wanted whatever kind of hip-hop song.
I think I killed the vibe for everybody, but I was on cloud nine.
I mean, I think I might have been the only one dancing, and I was ecstatic.
But, yeah, so, similar situation as far as, like, oh, who played that song?
Gee, I wonder who.
Yeah, I've been, you know, since...
The first song I heard was Enjoy the Silence, I think.
And it wasn't...
The guitar was just perfect.
But it was also the...
When it goes from...
C minor to E-flat.
Yeah.
With the voices.
I was getting chills the first time I heard that.
And then I think the second song was Policy of Truth.
I was familiar with rap and the idea of samples.
That was all around when I was a kid.
And I knew of Depeche Mode as far as maybe my parents had one song by them.
But, which was probably, and I knew, I did know of Master and Servant, but when I'm talking about when I, like, actually, like, sat down and kind of, like, absorbed it, and I remember listening to, I think, I had to have been Violator, then all the way through, and then it just grew on me, and it grew, and, like, it really, with a lot of their albums, just took, like, hold, and it was kind of like these cobwebs of...
turned into chains kind of thing.
And I just became obsessed.
Similar, but from the millennial perspective.
That's good.
That's good.
No, I mean, this is a little bit off the beaten track, but I said earlier that Rock is dead, and I do believe that.
You know, I could go into this for, it had a moment where it was culture-defining and culturally transformative, and it no longer is.
And it is basically a source now of nostalgia, or in a way it's a source of kind of like Muzak, that is background noise.
That is sad, but all good things come to an end.
Cinema is coming to an end on some level.
Opera had a 125-year run of being culturally defining music, and no longer.
Now it's a museum piece for the rich to enjoy.
It just is what it is.
Yeah, I mean, I think in a way these like Gen X and Boomer bands are the still ones, they're the last ones producing albums and thus like creating new content in a way that everything else is like radically fragmented, where it's like someone's creating AI music, someone's creating some like he's a SoundCloud artist with...
Tens of thousands of followers doing whatever.
You know, this and that.
Someone's just into nostalgia.
I mean, I was talking with someone who's younger than you, I presume.
He's like Gen Z. He was saying that there are all these Gen Z girls who will listen to Nirvana on vinyl.
And so it's like this...
You know, we weren't listening.
In the 80s, we all knew of the Beatles or the Stones or whatever, but we weren't defining ourselves personally through them.
It's weird to think of that.
And it was something like Nirvana that was coming in and just smashing everything.
Yeah.
But I mean, I think it's like these older, like the Gen X band is the last one to produce an album, like an actual work where you're like, let me sit down and listen to this.
And I don't think that exists anymore.
I think it's just, it's radically fragmented.
It's like a cool thing some kid does on SoundCloud.
It's having a 90s playlist on Spotify.
Buying a vinyl album of Pink Floyd or Nirvana and listening to it on vinyl to be the ultimate hipster or something like that.
But it's very rare that a band is producing something new, telling you something, speaking to you, and producing something original.
I think we've just seen the end of that.
Yeah, that's interesting that they would choose Nirvana because It is obviously a, you know, smash everything.
I mean, I was listening to an interview that Kurt Cobain gave.
I don't know what year exactly, but he's saying, he's like, I don't know anything about, like, Dorian modes or any of that shit.
He's like, that's just bullshit to get in the way of originality or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah, I kind of disagree.
A bit cringe, yes.
Yeah, but, you know, it's just like when he said that shit about if you're racist, don't buy our records or whatever.
He just, you know, whatever.
That's a personal thing.
But, yeah, I'm certainly no music snob, but I think that attitude is ignorant, to say the least.
But as far as people in the millennial, Gen Z, I think I can group them together in this case.
It's like a replaying of like, well, what did my, what were my grandparents and parents listening to?
Because we've, yeah, like you were saying, we're at the top of the mountain.
Yeah, like, what was revolutionary back in the day?
I mean, because Nirvana, everyone had an opinion on Nirvana.
I mean, people, there were like news reports on Nirvana, local news reports about, you know, what do we make of this?
It's...
It's grungy and out of tune and nihilistic.
What does this mean for the youth?
How did this band that no one had heard of sell out?
Why is this band...
All the pop stuff from the 80s is gone.
This band is outselling Madonna.
What has happened to the world?
They're looking back at a time when something actually was transformative under the assumption that No music created today, however good it might be, has any cultural impact whatsoever.
Yeah, and what did Nirvana end up leading to?
I mean, the early part of the...
We take what Bleach comes out in 89, and then Nevermind, their biggest one comes out in 91, which goes on to really change music.
So I would say if you split the 90s in half, that early half is grunge.
It's dark.
It's Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden.
Soundgarden.
Yeah.
And then the later...
Songs of Faith and Devotion.
Yeah.
And Songs of Faith and Devotion.
But the later half of the 95-ish shot, it's Spice Girls, Britney Spears, NSYNC.
Yeah.
And then we get to 99. That's when Eminem really takes over.
And it's just a different kind of...
Blend of nihilism, I guess.
But I think I've said this before, but the 70s punk stuff, Nirvana kind of mirrored that.
In the 80s, more glamorous, kind of poppy stuff.
The later 90s, early 2000s kind of mirrored that.
Because I remember being in elementary school and all that was on MTV that you could watch until maybe 10am was just...
Britney Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, that's what dominated it.
And those obviously have not aged well.
I mean, their sound isn't...
Wow, man, I really need to hear that, you know, maybe as an irony, which is another thing that's super common for the millennial and Gen Z. Yeah, or like this Europop parody that was so hilarious.
Danger and Dance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clapping the hands.
Clapping the hands.
When the rhythm is glad, there is nothing to be said.
When the rhythm is glad, there is nothing to be said.
Yeah, okay.
Danger and dance, clapping behind.
When we all end this race, on the planet of the...
The race.
Yeah, it's this, like, journey back to when you were, when a millennial was, like, five, and they overheard some, like, Europop band.
You know, it's just a pure, I mean, I even like that song.
I mean, I think it's fun, actually, but it's just pure irony and nostalgia.
Like, there's no sense that this is leading anywhere.
It's just going back and rehearsing or reiterating something.
Over and over.
I mean, it's kind of sad.
Yeah.
And, you know, you've got 12 notes in the Western scale of music.
But, you know, there's still other...
I was thinking about this.
There's still other scales and things to be explored.
And, you know, they might...
Like, for example, if you did like a Byzantine scale or some kind of like Egyptian scale, yeah, it would sound, you know, kind of like...
Weird to the Western ear.
It doesn't necessarily...
It's not A to E or A to D or something like that.
My God, just to do anything to change it up.
I think that's where lyrics come in.
It's a total artwork.
It's combining a sentiment and poetry and music.
That's the thing.
That's the thing that's special and different and unique, and you can't really put your finger on it or define it, and you can't really imitate it.
But, yeah, I mean, to go a little bit, to go back to the album a little bit, so one thing Depeche Mode did...
And this is actually a song co-written with Richard Butler, but Don't Say You Love Me.
You said that you didn't really like the first half of the album or the first four tracks.
I might disagree.
I actually do like those.
But one of the things why I like Don't Say You Love Me is that the vibe I got from it actually was like it's a Bond song.
And it had the...
Flat seven or sharp seven chord, like the...
You know, kind of like clangy, kind of 60s chord.
And it's singing about love in a kind of croonish way.
Like, you are the singer, I am the song, the tune that will linger, the bitter taste left in your tongue.
You'll be the killer, I'll be the corpse, you'll be the laughter, and I'll be the punchline, of course.
You'll be the scream You'll be the promise And I'll be the end of your dreams So don't say you love me 'Cause you'll never love me Kind
of self-deprecating.
He's singing about a woman who's kind of winning or he can't have her and she's just, she knows it.
Something like this.
But just this, the vibe of it, there's even some strings in the chorus.
It struck me as like a crooning Bond song.
Like a really cool Bond song.
Actually, that would come in the title sequences.
And I don't think they've ever really done that before.
I think that was a totally new direction for Depeche Mode and Martin Gore in particular.
Yeah, I definitely liked the...
Well, first of all, I wouldn't say I didn't dislike the first four tracks.
That's what Anthony Fantano said.
But I understood where he was coming from as far as...
I didn't come to listen to the whole album for singles.
In fact, I think Soul With Me is probably my favorite.
We'll get there.
But I definitely like the string section on there on Don't Say You Love Me.
I mean, Dave's voice, you had mentioned this earlier, changing.
It kind of reminds me of, I don't know if you're a Sting fan at all, but Sting's voice, as it got lower, because when he started, you take a song like Roxanne, it's way up there.
But as he gets older, About ten years into it, it's kind of like a wine or a bourbon or something like that.
It's got the age to it.
Now it's kind of rough and smooth at the same time.
That's what I think.
I mean, obviously Dave's a baritone and Sting's a tenor, but his voice, it's powerful still.
And it's got this, like, little bit of grit, but it's still smooth, kind of.
I don't know how to really describe it, but yeah, I definitely like Don't Say You Love Me.
Yeah, and the other one is People Are Good, which isn't really one of my favorite songs, but I do find it interesting because the immediate song you want to compare it to is People Are People.
I think this also, and I think it's almost like, and Martin Gore wrote it, it's almost like a rejoinder to People or People.
Which, wasn't that, was that a part of Some Great Reward?
Or was that just like a single on its own?
Because they have a couple of interesting singles, like Shake the Disease and a couple of others.
People or People?
Yeah.
People or People is on Some Great Reward.
Oh, that's on Some Great Reward.
Okay.
I think it's the third track.
Okay, so you have Construction Time again, where Everything Counts is like a real single.
And I think that was actually like number one in Germany and things.
There was some funny interview that they had where they said like, where, you know, where are you popular?
Like, oh, we're popular in Europe and the Soviet Union.
They're like, where are you unpopular?
They're like, oh, at home, which is kind of funny.
They were like more, they spoke to...
They spoke more to Eastern Europe or Central Europe or someone closer to the Soviet Union.
And there is a vibe to that with the scythe-wielding woman on broken frame and music for the masses and so on.
A kind of Cold War vibe, which is interesting.
Hopefully we'll talk about that when we get to those.
Yes.
People are people, so why should it be?
You and I should get along so awfully.
We're different colors and we're different breeds.
We're different people who have different needs.
It's obvious you hate me, though I've done nothing wrong.
I've never even met you, so what could I have done?
Can't understand.
yeah yeah what makes man hate another man help you hate me though i've done nothing wrong i've never even met you so what could i have done i can't understand what makes a man hate another man help me understand people are people so why should it be you and i should get enough so
awfully people are people It's coming from a very peculiar perspective because it's about racial hatred, I would say.
But then it's assuming that we're all people.
Like, why should it be?
Like, we're different colors and we're different breeds, but why should it be that you hate me?
You know, how is this possible?
And so it's a kind of, like, disappointment expressed, which I think is also expressed in, like, where's the revolution?
You know, like, how long are they going to piss on you?
Where is the revolution?
Why haven't you done any?
It's a very peculiar kind of perspective, actually.
And then...
People are good, which it doesn't have the anthem-like chorus of people are people.
It's not going to be played at stadiums, etc.
But it's an interesting sentiment.
And I think this is his most literal song.
But keep telling myself that people are good.
Whisper it under my breath so I don't forget.
Keep fooling myself that they do all they can.
Sometimes they simply slip up, but it's not what they meant.
Heaven help me.
Heaven help me.
Heaven help us.
Heaven help us.
Keep reminding myself that people are good.
And when they do bad things, they're just hurting inside.
Keep fooling myself.
So what he's saying is that they're not that.
He's fooling himself to believe that people are good.
Keep reminding myself that people are good.
And when they do bad things, they're just hurting inside.
Keep fooling myself.
Everyone cares.
And they're all full of love.
It's just that patience gets tried Heaven help me.
Heaven help us.
Everything will be.
It's a kind of rejoinder to people or people, which assumes that people are good.
And this is actually selling no.
All that leftist garb...
Again, I don't think Depeche Mode is necessarily a right or left band.
I think they kind of flirt with right-wing things.
They flirt with communism.
I definitely don't think they're a left-wing band, although I guess you could kind of sort of see that with Where's the Revolution?
I don't, actually.
And I think that's what makes them good.
I mean, heaven help us if they became a Christian rock band or something like that.
They would have nothing to say.
But it's basically saying that people are bad.
You're inherently bad.
And I can tell myself, I can fool myself, whisper to myself that you're hurting inside and that's what you did.
That's why you did this.
But actually, you're just bad.
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's an interesting sentiment.
And it's kind of like a good rejoinder to the heady post-racial liberalism of people are people, if I don't say so myself.
Yeah, it's kind of like the people are people is kind of like that idealistic, I'm a young kid, I'm...
What's the stupid-ass cliche quote?
If you're...
Not a liberal in your teens.
You don't have a heart if you're not a conservative.
I mean, that's kind of what you're making me think of when you say that.
But, you know what?
When you said disappointment, I didn't really think about that being a lyrical theme in their songs, but it definitely is if you take a song like Things You Said.
I heard it from my friends about the things you said.
Never felt so disappointed.
Whatever.
That is definitely a theme.
If we go to the next song, Wagging Tongue, didn't that kind of sound like Vince Clark could have been involved in the studio as far as the arpeggiated synth?
It was kind of like taking you back.
Not in a bad way or anything like that.
Another thing too, I think, is the lyrics in all these songs seem oppositional.
There's the writer or singer versus somebody else, whether it's a woman, whether it's a person.
I don't know.
Maybe that sounds really, really obvious.
But, you know, it's like, or like adversarial, kind of.
And, you know, maybe that's gone.
That's just a theme that's just continued since People Are People.
Which, by the way, I did want to mention, being that it is more obvious.
I don't think it's been played live since the 101 show in Pasadena in 88. So, which I think is interesting because, you know, they're most on the nose kind of songs.
Yeah, and it is just a fun song.
Yeah, it is just a fun song, for sure.
Yeah.
I do, and then, see, even with that kind of upbeat, Vince Clark-y sounding feel, how do they end it?
Watch another angel die.
You know, that kind of, watch another angel die.
And I did write down the chords for that one.
The chords aren't anything, I mean, at least if this website is to be trusted.
They're not anything...
It's literally a 1-4-5 and then a 4-5-1.
They switch keys really quick.
That's it.
There's nothing...
And not saying that their songs need to be that way, that everything needs to be an experimental thing, obviously, but it just goes back to that opposition.
Even when it's a happy song, it's not really a happy song.
You won't do well to silence me With your words a wagging tongue With your long-told tales of sorrow Your song yet to be sung
I won't be offended If I'm left across the great divide Well, what do you think that one is about?
I mean, again, I feel like to go back to my theory that this is a COVID album, it strikes me a bit like cancel culture or something.
You won't do well to silence me with your words or wagging tongue, with your long, tall tales of sorrow, your song yet to be sung.
That's obviously sarcastic.
It's weird.
I'm genuinely not trying to make them a right-wing band, but I'm not trying to make them a left-wing band either.
But this is your long, tall tales of sorrow, your song yet to be sung.
This sounds like just...
I don't know, like someone who's singing the sorrowful song of George Floyd or something.
And just kind of them just being like, you're not going to silence me with this.
I won't be offended if I'm left across the great divide.
Like, you all can go forward into your new world and I'll just be back there.
Believe me, they will follow.
Just to watch another angel die, watch another angel die.
So what do you think that means?
I mean, immediately the thought, I think, of a police shooting or something like that, watch another angel die.
Yeah, we're talking about martyrs, modern day martyrs.
I mean, that would make sense continuing with their obvious Christian themes, you know, with what you said with George Floyd.
Dare I use that cliche again?
But are they becoming conservative in their old age?
I highly doubt it.
Well, they're not like magatards or anything like that.
I'm not saying that.
But I think they're expressing something pretty serious in this.
Yeah, they stood behind the J6ers.
Yeah, I...
Martin Gore was at J6, yes.
Could you imagine?
Yeah.
Alan Walder, also known as the QAnon Shaman.
Once he left the band, he really let himself go.
Yeah.
He's been walking dark paths ever since.
Yeah.
But I'll Meet You by the River, maybe on the other side.
Again, this evocation of baptism and so on.
But it's kind of like...
It's convoluted in a way.
It's also connecting it with watch another angel die.
Like you're enjoying it and that's what you're about to do.
And again, I know this almost sounds like too literal or too easy, but my impression listening to the first two tracks in the album is that they're about cancel culture.
But in a good way, like if some dumb conservative...
We have free speech rights in this land.
I can tweet what I want and I'll defend your right to tweet what you think too.
But you shouldn't censor me.
It would just be unbearable.
Just unlistenable garbage, you know, akin to rich men from Richmond or something, which is just terrible.
But when you do it this way and you bring in religious imagery, it becomes kind of interesting because it can be it can be about whatever you want in a way.
I can't disagree with anything that you've said, or really...
Add to it, but as far as the watch another angel die, I don't even know if they know what it's about kind of thing.
Yeah.
The contemporary martyrs, I guess.
Exactly.
And Martin Gore is resisting it, which I think is very interesting.
I would have thought due to his ancestry that he would feel some sympathy with the...
Oh, you don't believe that.
I'm joking.
I don't believe that.
I read that in script.
And I'm not saying...
I don't care, actually.
I would still love the band just as much if...
So, in script, it was revealed...
I don't even know if it was the book that revealed this or it's mentioned somewhere else.
He definitely doesn't wear it on his sleeve.
The notion is that his father was like a black American soldier or something?
Yeah, like...
It wouldn't have been that.
There were no soldiers stationed in the 60s.
Weren't there soldiers?
I'll go look in strips.
The empire is everywhere.
True.
Not that it's impossible.
Obviously, if you're a soldier, you're traveling around the world.
So there's this notion that his father is black.
He was not raised by his father.
His father is absent from his life.
He's raised by his mother.
And then there was actually a line from Strip, which I remember, they were like, oh yeah, we noticed that because of his pee or something.
I don't know if they were saying that he had a big dick or whatever.
It just sounds extremely inconclusive.
It sounds like a story his mother told him.
And I'm sorry, but if you're half black, you look like Barack Obama.
You don't look like Martin Gore.
It's possible.
There could be some weird fluke of genetics that he looks as white as he does, but he's actually half black.
I don't even like doing this because I don't want to really go after him.
It doesn't matter.
He could be from, you know, Swahili land or from China, and I would still appreciate his music and perspective.
So it genuinely does not matter.
But I remember reading that and thinking to myself, this is just, this is some story his mom told him.
Perhaps to, like, gain social credit or something.
I just do not believe it.
I actually wanted to backpedal for a second.
Okay, so...
I don't know what you thought of...
I liked playing the angel.
I liked...
Yeah, I liked playing the angel.
I didn't care for...
There was three albums.
Sounds of the Universe, not a fan of.
Yeah, that one.
Delta Machine wasn't...
Might have been a hint of something here or there.
And Spirit, I wasn't a huge fan of.
I mean, I remember...
When it came out, that was actually, was that right?
That might have been right before or after I started getting into them.
But I remember listening to Where's the Revolution, and I just felt like the Marxist imagery in the video, I was kind of like, maybe I'll have to, well, I know I'll eventually revisit all of them.
But the problem is, at least...
For me, and I'm just echoing Alan Wilder here, but he said in interviews, without sounding polemical or anything, he's basically just saying, you know, what we did on Songs of Faith and Devotion and what I had been trying to do more of is get like a clip or a loop or a piece of performance and add it.
I mean, obviously he was playing drums back then, but...
The point is that the sound has become too robotic.
Like on these drum machines, they all have this, in some form or another, they have this swing where you can put it and you can place the hi-hat or the snare or the kick drum just behind the beat or just in front of the beat.
So it sounds like a drummer's playing extra anxiously or something.
And what he's saying is something that a lot of rap producers will do.
Is take that whole drum loop and so you get the feel of an actual drummer.
You know, every song doesn't have to be this way, the way that I'm explaining it, with a kind of humanized, electronic feel.
What he was basically getting at is everything is so grid-like.
And that's something that I would have to agree with.
It's not so much on Ultra.
I think Ultra, they were still doing it.
They were still having that...
There's, well, some of the songs just flat out have.
What's the line?
What's the name of that song?
It's on All Truck.
Damn it, it's going to tip my tongue.
Like a cat dragged in from the rain.
Anyway, that one.
Dragged in from the rain.
We'll go straight back out to do it all over again.
I'll be back for more.
It's something that is out of our hands.
The drums are actually played on that, but the point kind of remains is especially on, from Exciter on, just everything to me is just cold and rigid.
And that's why I can appreciate in a song like, how's this for a segue, in a song like Soul With Me, the drums, yeah, they're electronic and they're, you know, on the beat and the bar, but there is a kind of...
I kind of feel where it feels like there could be a band playing that song.
I just like the intro, the way the intro of that song starts.
It's kind of like these synthesized strings.
I'm not going to imitate the rest of it, but you understand.
I think it is.
I just think, no, you'll disagree with this.
I like his voice better.
However, big caveat is he's not a lead singer.
He's good for the ballads.
He's good for...
I just like tenor kind of singers.
But Dave is...
It's like...
I would prefer Paul McCartney's voice over John Lennon's.
John Lennon is the more baritone singer.
He's the lead singer.
Do you know what I mean?
And I like those kind of higher harmony singers.
That's just personal preference or whatever.
But he kind of...
In that song, he's kind of...
Going for, like, death as a sort of liberation.
I'm heading for the ever after, leaving my problems and, you know, world's disasters.
I'm heading for the open sky.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It kind of sounds like he's, you know, headed to paradise.
And I'm taking my soul with me.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I see the beauty as the leaves start falling.
Follow the light towards the voices calling.
I'm going where the angels fly.
I have taken my soul in me.
Just a critique of the actual song itself.
I just kind of wish there was a little bit of a build-up to where I could...
Because his voice on that song is, to me, it's really rich.
Like, it's just, you know, it's in the right key and everything is what I'm trying to say.
And I just wish there was a little bit of space.
I guess I could make that overall criticism of the album.
I wish there was a little bit of space between voice and music.
You know, maybe start off a little bit slower, you know, and add instrumentation with the choruses and verses.
But yeah, I definitely really like the chords.
Textbook, like Martin Gore, there's always...
They make sense, but then there's that one that's just like, wow, how is this?
Why is this here?
Yeah, that kind of thing.
But I'll let you...
I'll let you marinate.
Yeah, that is something.
shake the disease.
Like, oh, whoa.
Oh, whoa.
It doesn't make sense in music theory.
He's like going in...
What is it?
It's like 5-3, 5-3, and then like flat 5. It's a weird...
I could go look at my scorebook that has this in it.
But it's creepy.
It's out of tune, but you know that it's intentional.
It's just kind of creepy.
I think there is something unique about that.
I could just hear that one little bit and know it's Mardi Gras that he would do that.
Even with Enjoy the Silence was their most pop song.
Although it was written very differently.
This was something in the Stripped book, which is that Martin writes with a guitar.
And Wilder wrote with keyboards or piano because he was a pianist.
And so I don't even know what he's doing.
He's coming up with some weird chordal formations in the guitar.
But that song, Enjoy the Silence, was written originally.
I don't know if you've heard the original backing track, but it's this like...
You know, like very slow, dark, weird.
And then Wilder listened to it.
like this could be a pop dance track.
Break the silence, come crashing in.
Into my little world.
Painful to me.
Pierced right through me.
Can't you understand?
Oh, my little girl.
But even that ends on a, what is it?
It's in C Sharp, I believe.
Yeah, so, yeah.
It's in, they never, as far as I know, they never released an official, official, Like, Chord Book or anything like that.
I remember reading an interview with Alan saying, like, a fan had basically asked, why don't you release a Chord Book and explain, or, you know, show in notation somebody, you know.
But he said, I mean, this was in 1998-ish or something like that.
He said that they hadn't done that.
He wouldn't be interested in doing something like that because he said he never really played it the same as the record.
But the version that I've always...
Practiced or played is in C minor.
You're talking about Enjoy the Silence, right?
Yes.
So it's just a half-step difference.
But it ends in C major, so it's like unnecessary, they can only do harm.
So you end on the E and the C minor chord, but then the bass goes down to C major.
All ever wanted, all ever needed is here in my arms.
Words are very unnecessary, taken only to one.
And so it's just this weird, obviously intentional, but out of tune.
Like, there's no music theory that would suggest that you do something like that.
It's very surprising and strange.
But it's just so Martin Gore.
You know, like, it works.
Let me see what Shake the Disease is that I was going to before.
I'm going to guess it's in D minor because it goes...
I don't know if I should lower my keyboard.
Again, he goes down a semitone.
It's this falling sensation or something.
It's...
You're doing a flat five while the bass goes down from D minor to D flat major.
Again, I don't even know.
There's some...
Dorian mode that we haven't discovered yet.
I don't know any music theory that would justify doing that.
And so it almost has a blurring...
I've got to get to you first.
It has this blurred effect to it.
So that's bright, but it's...
It's...
It's great.
I mean, it shows he's just doing it on his own.
Like, he's coming up with a sound that's very intentional, and it just kind of works.
There is a word for that kind of progression, and it's...
I feel like I'm giving away his secrets, because once I, you know, I had to know how these chords, like, fit together.
Well, it works on a common tone, so, like, you can...
If you flip between the major and minor modes, you can find a common tone between two keys that are semitone apart.
So, like, C-sharp minor has a common tone of E with C major.
But otherwise, you couldn't get any different.
But there's that one common tone, that E. Because of the...
Yeah, and it harmonizes, but...
But again, that works on a well-tempered clavier.
I mean, it works on a piano.
Yeah, it's just strange, but it's almost suggesting, at least to me, it's suggesting a falling feeling.
It's like the whole key is kind of dragged down.
Okay, yeah.
Great stuff.
Definitely agree with the falling aspect.
And there is, which is the one that Dave...
Dave wrote...
Did he write two songs on here?
Yeah, he wrote Speak to Me.
Yes.
Okay, so there's a lift in Speak to Me.
It's like C minor, E flat, F minor, A flat, whatever.
That's fine.
That's all in the same key, but then it goes from C minor to C major to...
I have to find that.
But anyway, what I'm...
The point I'm getting at is I noticed in his song the lift.
But yeah, just basically that lift being there was kind of like the yin to Martin's yang because I know exactly what you're talking about because Martin usually...
It's a minor key, but then it goes to another minor.
So like...
That kind of thing, which is extremely dark.
It's the chorus there in Speak to Me that is really interesting.
Lying on the bathroom floor No one here to blame There's a message I know can be found I'm listening.
I hear your sound.
Speak to me in a language that I can understand.
So I think that was, especially that end, the...
Yeah, what is that?
That is E-flat to B major.
Oh, wow.
To D-flat, back to E-flat.
So kind of like that.
Which you get in a song like Instant Karma by John Lennon, where it's like...
Whoops.
Don't want to get...
Don't want to get back into Beatles territory with you.
Anyway.
You're kind of making me into more of a Beatles hater than I actually am.
But yeah.
No, I appreciate it.
But yeah, I mean, just to kind of go through all of these, it's variation on death.
Variation on the soul.
Ghost again is a poppy song about dying, but it's becoming ghost again.
We were born as spirit and we're going to be ghost again.
Soul with me is I'm taking my soul.
As you say, death is a liberation.
I'm going to the open sky and I'm actually going to take my soul with me.
So it's this kind of like, I'm going to go, I'm going to retreat into death, but I'm going to be there.
And it's not, my soul isn't just going to vanish or something.
I mean, you could say it's a kind of image of heaven as well.
So it really is suicide and death.
Maybe not suicide, but perhaps suicide and death as liberation.
Yeah, I definitely get that feeling from soul with me.
I mean, it's...
Yeah.
Yeah, I think Ed Dutton would have referred to those lyrics as sick or something because he's kind of, you know, excitedly, not excitedly, he's kind of, you know, he's not upset about it, basically.
No.
No, definitely.
But, you know, I'm not sure.
Can you figure out Caroline's Monkey?
I can't, like, totally figure out that song.
You mean in terms of its tabulature or something?
No, no, no.
What it's about?
Yeah.
Anytime I hear monkey, I think, okay, maybe that's like heroin or something.
But I'm...
I think it's someone who has a tremendous amount of baggage.
That was definitely my...
Caroline's monkey lives where she lays, sleeps like a thief and steals through the days.
Caroline's monkey makes up all the fun, leaves chaos and ruin on Caroline's tongue.
It's I mean, I think whether he knows someone named Caroline is up for debate, but I mean, it's someone who has this, like, you know.
Devil Inside or something.
or some big baggage that's dragging her down.
Caroline fills the ice in our veins, the minutes and hours, the naming of days.
Caroline's monkey and Caroline's friends.
Yeah, because when I first heard that, I was like, Caroline's monkey?
What the hell was that?
I like this also.
It's kind of like giving up.
Fading's better than failing.
I think fading is a euphemism for smoking out, isn't it?
Like fading.
I don't even know if that's necessarily what he's indicating, but fading's better than failing.
Falling's better than feeling.
Folding's better than losing.
Giving up is better than losing.
Fixing's better than healing.
Sometimes.
Which is kind of a reference almost to like, you know, I'm clean, as clean as I've been.
Sometimes.
Falling's better than feeling.
Holding's better than losing Fixing's better than healing Sometimes Bye.
you Bye.
you There's like an inner dialogue, I think, with this album.
I don't know if you can find other instances of that with other Depeche albums.
They're kind of like revisiting and offering a rejoinder to some things they talked about in the past.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Let's kind of sum up here.
What are your feelings about the whole thing?
I think that it's a really good album.
And I think that it's the best album they've done since playing the Angel, definitely.
And it's kind of deeper and slower.
None of these tracks are...
You don't get vibes of youth, even if you didn't know who the band was or anything about them or how old they were.
And I think that Fletch's death, which we didn't talk about yet, but I think that his death, and I believe Martin said this, kind of cemented in his head that it was like, because at first he was like, well, now that Fletch died, do I want to name this Memento Mori?
And as far as I understand, he didn't even know what the album, Fletch didn't even know what the album was going to be titled because he wasn't involved in that kind of thing.
Yeah.
I think that it's unfortunate, but he kind of, in a way, kind of contributed something to...
Please don't take this the wrong way.
He contributed something for the first time?
Yeah, I was going to go for that, but I was just like, I didn't want to.
Well, we can talk about it.
I mean, I do feel like...
And I hate to say this, but Fletch was the most dispensable member of the band.
And, you know, in a way, you could say that, like, early Depeche Mode, Vince Clark was indispensable.
I mean, he founded the band.
He created the sound.
I mean, yeah.
But he was dispensable.
But I think, in a way, he was indispensable in the sense that it just became a totally new band.
I mean, Speak and Spell is...
Not a Depeche Mode album in many ways.
Right, yeah, it's a pre-Yazoo or something.
Yeah, exactly.
It's more...
Right, exactly.
It's like an erasure album or something.
Or Yazoo is probably more like that's the vibe of it.
Yeah.
And so...
He was indispensable for that early stage, but then it became Martin Gore's band.
I think the sound of Dave is indispensable because he's Elvis.
Yeah.
Bass baritone voice even.
Definitely a baritone voice.
It's tough.
It can croon a little bit.
It can even seem raggedy sometimes, but...
I think Wilder was maybe dispensable,
but definitely I don't think they would have had the musicality without him.
I think he contributed songs himself.
I think he's a great artist.
I think he's an essential component.
But I guess you could say Dispensable in the sense that they kept going on.
But yeah, Fletch.
And it seems like a battle with Fletch of what is it that you do?
What are you contributing here?
Contributed to Wilders leaving the band.
But I do think he was dispensable.
At least the impression I got reading Stripped, and granted, I read this book a number of years ago, but it did stick with me.
He was definitely the most normal guy in the band, but I'm not even positive he was like The glue that kept them together.
No.
Maybe the opposite.
Yes.
Actually, I think I tweeted this out a while ago.
It was a clip of Tepeche Mode leading up to Playing the Angel.
They had a documentary per each album that they had made starting from Speak and Spell.
And when you get to Ultra, Alan Wilder is still featured in the documentary.
And the closest he gets to saying, you know, here's why we broke up.
He said, you know, I knew Dave had problems, but that wasn't necessarily the biggest deal for me because he was most helpful, I guess.
His biggest impact was in the studio.
And he said it was really that his and Martin's communication was at a low.
And, you know, I think Flood says that on the making of, it's like the last song that they were doing was Judas.
I think they were the last, not last song, I think it was the mixing.
It doesn't matter.
Anyway, they're working on Judas and Martin and Alan were just like yelling at each other as far as like the direction of the song.
I think Alan said something like, in an interview afterwards, that basically he got his way on that song, and that's how he intended the song to go.
I can't say for sure.
Who really knows?
But the point is, is that Fletch had also said, I had been saying I wasn't going to make another album with him talking about Alan.
And it's like, dude, who the hell are you?
I mean, yes, you're in the band, but like...
You're not going to make another album with Alan?
He's notoriously the one that is in the studio late at night, working on the sound, and basically doing all these jobs for which, on Ultra, they would have to hire five or six different people to cover.
I just thought to myself, what audacity.
The guy that doesn't play anything live, doesn't play anything in the studio, doesn't really, like, outwardly doesn't, he admits he doesn't contribute to the band or hasn't since, you know, 1980.
But, yeah, I just thought that that was, always thought that that was interesting, that basically he had not contributed and had kind of helped to push.
And I do think, as much as I love Ultra, I do think that the sound is not the same.
Whatever.
I'm sure that he did want to...
I'm sure that he did...
He's kind of like the structural engineer to Martin's architect.
Yeah, to architect.
I agree with that.
Yes.
Yeah.
He's the...
Allen's the Rome to Martin's Athens or something.
I mean, he is...
It's...
It's a shame, but, you know, you find that in bands like Pink Floyd or The Beatles, whoever, you know, where there is that antagonism in the studio and, you know, they're basically at each other's throats.
And, you know, out of that turmoil, you get, you know, some of the, which I do think that that is my favorite album of theirs is Songs of Faith and Devotion.
Yeah.
But as far as Fletch's death, yeah, I definitely thought of that earlier when you were saying, when we were talking about the beginning, just the name of the album and all that.
I'm thinking, is this like the first time that he's contributed something?
But yeah, that's, I don't, you know, totally think so.
But I mean, when they're asked about in interviews about Fletch, they just say like, He's our number one fan.
Yeah, it's interesting.
In the album release interview that I watched, they said, oh, is this about Fletch?
And so on.
And they're like, oh, no, we actually had this before his death.
I think that's true.
I don't know.
They weren't a year after the fact or something, but they weren't just totally devastated by it.
The album is dedicated to him.
I have the vinyl.
It's great to listen to on vinyl.
It's right there.
It's hard to imagine Depeche Mode without him clapping or something on keyboards, clapping with everyone.
But you also have to be accurate about what he added.
It is what it is.
I guess he was a good communicator between Martin and Dave, especially.
On Spirit, I guess they were really not seeing eye to eye.
But also, I remember reading an interview where Vince Clark, basically, when he formed Composition to Sound, which is a precursor to Depeche Mode, that he said, like, you know, Clutch is really good at bass.
And it's just like, well, dude, why didn't you play bass?
Like, why don't you do something?
I just, you know, I don't know, have an ego or whatever.
But if you're in a band, like, I would just be all day long.
That's all I would be thinking of is trying to contribute ideas and something.
But I don't know.
I mean, yeah, I can only really speculate.
But yeah, I certainly think that the album's title and content was further cemented by his passing.
Yeah.
Where would you rank this album?
It's hard to do these rankings because it's not If it were a band that only lasted 10 years, you could rank their five albums.
But they've had such different eras.
There's an era stretching.
There's a one-album era, which is Speak and Spell.
And then there's the 80s.
Maybe even you could say Depeche Mode finding themselves with a broken frame and so on.
That is its own album, too.
Yeah, with some great reward through Violator.
Maybe just this prime Depeche Mode.
Then, kind of like late Depeche Mode, which I think starts in the 90s, actually.
I think there's almost another genre or era of perhaps created with Delta Machine where it's like we're no longer even pretending that we're young.
20 or 30-something pop stars.
We're celebrating the 30-year anniversary of this band.
We're going off on our own way, and it is very mature and introspective music.
But I do think, I would agree with you that in that, it's a better album than Spirit.
It's better than Sounds of the Universe.
I like Delta Machine.
I like a lot of the songs on that.
It's a good album.
And I'm glad they did it.
I hope they do another one.
I hope this isn't the last.
Yeah, quick comment on...
Have you seen them live yet?
I haven't seen them live with this album yet, but I will because they're coming back to North America shortly.
Yeah, I'm going to make sure I see them one more time.
Good.
Yeah, definitely.
They're, you know, very, very, very, very good live.
There's nothing missing.
You couldn't add anything more and you couldn't take away anything.
I think their performance when I saw them in April was, I mean, it was perfect.
I mean, I'm sure I was bothering the hell out of the people next to me because every song, I just knew every word and just screaming it.
But yeah, it was moving and yeah, it was awesome.
Could not have been happier with it.
All right.
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