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But that’s just my opinion let’s hear yours in the comments.
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Playing The Angel and Exciter have their strong moments but it’s hard to compete with Some Great Reward, Violator, and Songs Of Faith And Devotion. So while the band continues to make memorable music - they’re releasing a new album next year, and the preview track suggests good things - all of these songs are culled from the band’s pivotal works. Depeche Mode was arguably at their creative peak from roughly 1983 to Wilder’s departure in the mid-’90s. While “Blasphemous Rumors” and “A Question Of Lust” receive ample playtime on my stereo, they don’t reach to the level of the 10 songs below.Īs blasphemous as it may seem to dissect such an impressive catalog - one that continues to expand, not to mention inspire new renditions and remixes - here are the 10 best songs from some of the most gifted songwriters of our generation. The hard work is distilling personal favorites - songs that feel eerily autobiographical - from the best work in their long career, particularly when there are so few duds. The band’s songs open small, Alice In Wonderland-esque portals that allow us to see the larger, often mystifying worlds inside. And they still can.Ĭompiling the 10 best Depeche Mode songs is a herculean task. I’m sure I’m not alone.Įven if your heart wasn’t broken, Depeche Mode could make you feel like it was. I will always associate early heartbreak with that record. The songs were imprinted on my brain for life. I wasn’t even sure why I was invited - just to get my ass kicked to the curb? The only music in her car as we drove around visiting strip malls, diners, and a rinky-dink zoo was DM’s 1984 now-classic, Some Great Reward. I was in another state after a long Greyhound ride and wanted to go home I was rejected within hours of arriving and had to spend a weekend at her house. They don’t leave marks they leave craters. In retrospect it seems like so much childish bullshit - and it was - but young emotions are runaway meteors. As we drove around in her parents’ Volvo, she told me that what amounted to a weekend fling (and a chaste one at that) wasn’t going to lead to anything more. I spent the ensuing weeks thinking about her angular but beautiful nose, the peculiar cadence of her voice. We met at the beach that fall and made out and danced and listened to Dead Or Alive. Me, I was 16, and I went to visit a girl who lived in another state, expecting that I’d leave with a new girlfriend.
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Most fans can remember the first time they heard Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode’s ability to provoke disparate reactions in a range of listeners is a rare achievement for a band that achieved enormous commercial success. Their work often feels like an endurance test: How much pain can you take?ĭepeche Mode was always catchy but they were never easy their material touched on suicide, regret, obsession, doubt, and faith. They did so by forcing their listeners on a journey inward to the parts of ourselves that are the most confusing and frightening, the places we need to go to discover what makes us human. Mindless music was a byproduct of the boundless consumption that defined the times.ĭepeche Mode proved that music often derided as simple synth pop was capable of the same expression as the most sophisticated rock and even classical music. The best music is, of course, meant to do this, but when Depeche Mode started their career in the early ’80s, pop music was as expendable as it was in the 1950s: a product meant for easy use and disposal. The singular genius of Depeche Mode’s music might be the way their songs inspire a gut-wrenching personal response.