The Worlds Best Rock Albums We regularly feature every album that you might consider for your collection. From Black Sabbath to Metallica, and from Jethro Tull to Meatloaf, it's all here. The elusive rock album, the popular rock album and the ones that make it because they just should.
00:01:58.180And I think it might very well be their best.
00:02:05.760And it's also that point where they, I mean, they developed a fan base for Speak and Spell.
00:02:15.140They developed a fan base among Basildon.
00:02:18.020Many of those people probably being their personal acquaintances.
00:02:21.480But this was a point where they developed a massive fan base in Europe, still outside of England for the most part.
00:02:34.760They developed a fan base in the United States.
00:02:39.020This was the album that launched the concert in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl, which I actually just learned hadn't hosted a music event for some time.
00:02:51.480The opening act was OMD, so it was almost like it came full circle.
00:02:55.960The people who inspired Depeche Mode were the opening act.
00:03:00.520And they never, I don't think Depeche Mode has ever been on the level of the Beatles, Taylor Swift, any just household name, etc.
00:03:15.320They're still an alternative band, but their cult following had grown to such a point that they were on the banks of the mainstream, but effectively a mainstream band.
00:03:31.420They probably had a larger, more fanatical fan base than mainstream acts.
00:03:38.280They aren't really charting that high.
00:03:41.980I mean, I remember I was reading actually the stripped biography and you get some, you know, charts at 17 and then collapses and so on.
00:03:50.460I think the album might have charted it at 9, it charted it at 2 in Germany.
00:03:53.600So there's obviously that, you know, theme we're talking about where they're speaking to Central Europe, apparently more than they're speaking to Brits and Americans.
00:04:02.920But at the same time, there's some of these funny news reports from the 80s that are on YouTube of like the album selling out in five minutes and people ransacking the store and just having this huge concert in the Rose Bowl.
00:04:21.680This is when it came together in the sense that they're not, they're certainly not going away, which might have been a danger with like a broken frame.
00:04:34.780They are confident in their new sound, which we saw with some great reward.
00:04:41.540But they're now putting out albums where I would say that every single track is really good, really great.
00:04:56.360They have a kind of repertoire of anthem-like songs that people are singing together, tens of thousands loudly before the band.
00:05:06.760They are, with this album, they're going more towards guitars.
00:05:10.160They're going more towards Elvis, Leisure, Little Treasure, which fascinatingly is a B-side and is probably, you know, top 10, maybe top 20 Debeshwood classics.
00:05:27.500Is an Elvis song, but an Elvis song with a twist.
00:05:32.280And I just, this, so you hear a lot of Violator in this album.
00:05:40.080You hear a lot of certainly some great reward.
00:05:44.680They've just mastered the industrial sound to a point that they're very confident with it.
00:05:49.900And also, you have this, you know, commie, fash-wave aesthetic of, first off, music for the masses, which I think was a bit jokey, the title, because the, you know, inside joke is that there are never going to be music for the masses.
00:06:11.060They have this fan base and, you know, they don't really chart that well, et cetera.
00:06:15.600But this is, it's kind of a joke about their unpopularity in some ways, but it's a just full embrace of 20th century totalitarianism as an aesthetic.
00:06:32.140And I'll have some quotes on this as we get into this.
00:06:38.360I mean, it, I think it is, it's not my number one album, but I think in terms of everything coming together, firing on all cylinders, becoming a classic band, it is here that the full achievement comes to fruition.
00:07:02.140We're flying high, we're watching the world pass us by, never want to come down, never want to move on, leap back down on the ground.
00:07:25.840Yeah, I think that, I think sonically, musically, this is a huge step up.
00:07:34.240I think that with this album, Depeche Mode is like finally able to grab America, where they might have lost them in 1986 with Black Celebration.
00:07:44.160And as good of an album as that is, it's, it's not as commercial as this one.
00:07:50.320And I think I mentioned this on our Black Celebration podcast that it didn't chart well at all.
00:07:56.840I think it was like in the seventies and the album itself charted like in the seventies in America or something, in the year end billboard charts.
00:08:04.160It's probably their most accessible album since Speak and Spell or Some Great Reward.
00:08:09.780I think those two are very accessible.
00:08:11.680I think this album is very accessible.
00:08:14.080So although music for the masses was a joke for the band, it actually is kind of music for the masses or in a lot of ways, at least with, especially with the singles.
00:08:25.860I think the album has a really good balance, just like Some Great Reward had a really good balance of darkness and light, sadness and triumph.
00:08:36.240And I think it is for a good reason that it's often considered their best album.
00:08:40.660This, in a lot of ways, it is their peak.
00:08:42.300Like they, they still haven't played to a bigger show than the 101 gig in Pasadena, where they played to 60,000, over 60,000 people.
00:08:52.400Um, and as far as I remember that gig, the, I think it was the Eagles who had played there last or something before them, I'm saying.
00:12:54.420We can think back to some construction time again, songs where I think I charitably called them like a kind of like an art song,
00:13:12.780like these attempts to do something that's kind of like an interesting idea, but is just really, you know, kind of strains listenability here and there.
00:13:29.320But with this, they're just completely confident where they know they can do, say, an instrumental track like Pimp for Agent Orange or which have been either B-side or some other things.
00:13:42.760And they can just make it really great.
00:13:46.940And again, it sounds like a movie soundtrack.
00:13:51.600I think I would say the same thing for Strangelove as well.
00:13:54.340So the improvement with this album is really, it's unmeasurable.
00:14:02.600I mean, I can't put it more strongly just in terms of an artifact of something that's perfect, something that you don't want to change anything,
00:14:12.100something that never really strains the year or anything like that.
00:15:51.480I think what draws me to the album is the fact that, like I said, they've got this, it's a summary.
00:15:58.560They've got the synth pop, they've got the industrial, and now they're going into a more guitar laden, you know, rock influence,
00:16:07.120which definitely comes to the fore in the song, like Pleasure, Little Treasure, with the guitar riffs on there.
00:16:14.200And I think at the time, the band was trying to shy away from the guitar influence, and they certainly were trying to shy away from using guitars, period, before,
00:16:26.440just because music in general at the time had been so guitar dominated.
00:16:32.320And I think that it's the use of synthesizers and using guitars through synthesizers that helps to really shape the sound.
00:16:45.940But as long as we're talking about sound, I kind of want to talk about the recording of this album, because I was listening to some interviews with their producer, Dave Bascom.
00:16:57.140So one of the things that he said during this time was he was striving to make the band a little bit less industrial, a bit less construction time again, and a little bit more, a little bit louder and a little bit more rock driven.
00:17:13.640And he admits that he was kind of hands off, and he said, really, the band produced the album, and more to the point that Alan was really the driving force of the band.
00:17:29.740I read that as well. I think Alan said it was the most self-produced album.
00:17:34.740And Bascom, yeah, he also, he corroborated what you're just saying, yes.
00:17:39.080And according to Bascom, he was the driving force, the workhorse, the craftsman, as the lore goes.
00:17:47.160And yeah, like I said, he admitted that he was a little bit more of an engineer, and Depeche Mode kind of produced it.
00:17:52.720And he said he would spend like hours or whatever with Alan in the studio, just as far as like crafting the individual sounds.
00:17:59.320And I think this, where Alan is staying in the studio and really crafting a lot of the sounds, starts on some great reward.
00:18:08.020There's a little bit in there where the Basildon 3 had gone off on vacation, and Alan, Gareth, and Daniel had finished producing it.
00:18:19.320And I think you could tell in an interview that Alan was a little bit resentful for that, because, you know, he's bearing the brunt of it.
00:18:29.260But what really, I think, begins here is Martin's coming up with the demo, Alan taking it home, and adding new sounds, rearranging something, taking stuff out.
00:18:45.000I mean, even to the point where Dave Bascom was saying, like, a lot of Martin's, some of Martin's ideas would be ruthlessly edited or deleted, taken out, rearranged, whatever.
00:18:56.120Alan had the vision. I'm not saying this is his album, definitely not, but he definitely had the vision as the sort of engineer type.
00:19:10.220I think, you know, look, they're all coming into their own.
00:19:14.600Martin is coming into his own as a songwriter.
00:19:18.520I don't think any of these songs are, like, I would describe as quirky, which I would use that adjective with a lot of Martin Gore numbers.
00:19:33.660And, you know, I look forward to getting into some of the lyrics as well and what they're about.
00:19:40.680Dave, you know, Vince Clark was unhappy with Dave, basically.
00:19:48.040He was, like, he has a very limited vocal range.
00:19:51.980And, you know, with Vince Clark, when he forms other bands, Yaz or Yazoo, you have this contralto woman, which is kind of a really weird voice in a way.
00:20:01.380It kind of almost sounds like a man's voice.
00:20:03.260And then you have, with Erasure, a tenor voice, very high singing.
00:20:08.300So he's obviously going for something that Dave could not fulfill.
00:20:13.880But Dave, as you get older, you know, you, I don't know, your body fills out.
00:20:33.440And you, you're getting a lot of Elvis.
00:20:37.680And he's starting to lean in to the Elvis sound of his voice.
00:20:43.680And I think it's, you know, it's kind of like if, you know, you have to play to your strength.
00:20:49.680You, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, might even not even peg him as a baritone with speak and spell because he's so young that it doesn't quite sound like that.
00:21:00.340Once we get into the late 80s and afterward, this is a lower male voice that really fits well with the clanging guitar, the kind of low notes and crooning or whatever you want to say it that made Elvis famous.
00:21:20.200And they're, they're kind of leaning into that where I don't, I don't think they were before.
00:21:26.440And so I, I think this is, again, they're, they're in their late 20s.
00:21:32.500They've been around, they've survived, whereas most bands don't, they have a fanatical fan base and they're, they're just playing to their strengths and, and kind of moving in to this almost ironic take on Americana or American rock and roll Elvis, the blues.
00:21:54.680This is also where they're starting to feel confident enough to kind of meld that with electronic music, which is seeming, you know, two things that are seemingly unmanageable together, but just somehow work if done right.
00:22:10.320Definitely. I think that the only criticism I have of this sound of the, the album is that a song like Strange Love does kind of sound dated with the reverb.
00:22:25.660I guess all of these big cinematic or anthemic qualities that you're talking about with the sound in a way, maybe, maybe it didn't bite them in the ass in a sense, but it's, it does sound like 1987, 88.
00:22:42.120Uh, but it's still nevertheless a great album with, uh, great lyrics, but that's about the only like criticism I have as far as Dave's voice is concerned.
00:22:53.460He has that if you listen to his voice isolated, which they have, for example, enjoy the silence they have, I've heard isolated tracks and I, you can't really hear how much vibrato he has, but it's like super fast.
00:23:10.660And it's super subtle that I honestly, I've not really heard on many singers getting it that subtle. I don't, I don't even think it's on purpose. I just think it's, it's something that I overlooked initially when, when listening to Depeche Mode, because when I started listening to Depeche Mode, had that kind of same Vince Clark attitude about Dave's voice.
00:23:34.440Well, it's limited. Well, it's limited. It's only a baritone, but I guess the, a way to put it is that it's rich and it's only gotten richer actually with, with age.
00:23:43.700Words like violence, 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, all I ever wanted.
00:24:02.300I don't think any of this works with the tenor, actually. I don't think it works with the female, definitely. And there's no Depeche Mode without that sound. With the low voice that's a little bit gruff and tough and a little bit barky sometimes, but also is, yeah, rich and deep. That's Depeche Mode sound. And it does not work. No one else can do that.
00:24:28.020And, you know, again, it's just these weird, or I shouldn't say weird, but just amazing coincidences of these people coming together, haphazardly forming a band and the stars aligning or, you know, the molecules combining into something new.
00:24:49.220Stranger, strange lies and strange love, strange love.
00:25:11.600That's how my love goes, that's how my love goes, stranger. Will you give it to me? Will you take the pain? I will give it to you again and again. Will you return it?
00:25:26.160So, Never Let Me Down Again is the opening number.
00:25:42.760Also very, it's not the first single. The first single is Strange Love, and the single was recorded in Paris, as was the music video, which is very cool.
00:25:55.820Anton Corbin, black and white. You're clearly in Paris. The shot of the Eiffel Tower.
00:26:02.140There's this, you know, intriguing woman that Dave is chasing, and it's very fashionable, very 80s, but also kind of timeless as well.
00:26:12.140This is no longer a kind of teeny bopper band. This is a, you know, interesting, mature band.
00:26:21.660But the opening number is Never Let Me Down Again, and it was also a single that did not do very well.
00:26:28.980But I would say Never Let Me Down Again. Because of the anthem quality, the just driving force of the quality of the chorus and everything, it has probably been played at every single concert since.
00:26:47.000It is a great song, and also an intriguing song, if I'm going to use that word, eyebrow-raising song is maybe a better adjective when it comes to the lyrics.
00:27:03.240I'm taking a ride with my best friend.
00:28:07.200Now, when you listen to the chorus of, we're flying high, we're watching the world pass us by, you get this sense of, it's an acid trip or something like that.
00:28:22.140And you're above yourself, like floating, looking down on yourself in a dream or something like that.
00:29:30.300But in the context of taking a ride with your best friend, it also just, your mind goes to, this is about something else.
00:29:41.460So I don't, I don't even know quite what to say about it.
00:29:47.200I mean, I, I wonder if this is a nut that you can't quite crack in the sense that it's, it's not like precious, which is about a child of divorce.
00:29:58.560And, you know, you don't really know of that on the surface, but once you just dig down a little bit, you feel it.
00:30:38.720You know, it's like, is my, what do they call Dr. Feel good or, you know, I want to take another hit from my best friend.
00:30:45.520It's almost like something you would say about it that that's there, but then it's more literally your best friend or, and I kind of ironic best friend, you know, in the, in a homosexual sense.
01:03:55.020I do think that there is a, you know, an interesting quality to letting go. You could, you could almost read this in a way of, oh, this is, it's a feminist song or something. It's like, you know, do what you want. I don't care. Tonight I'm in the hands. You know, you're behind the wheel kind of thing. Oh, little girl.
01:04:48.760Come pull my strings. Watch me move. I'll do anything. So again, it's this notion of giving up autonomy and becoming an automaton.
01:04:59.980Um, sweet little girl. I prefer you behind the wheel and me, the passenger drive. I'm yours to keep.
01:05:06.100Um, yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about the root 66 quality to it, but if you have any comments on, on this one.
01:05:15.440Yeah. I think that first of all, it just sounds like tough as hell. That baseline, the drums, the weird melody, then in the super weird chord structure, which literally does go around and around like a wheel with B minor to D minor to G minor to B flat.
01:05:32.760And then just, that's the entire song, just circling around that chord progression. I actually played it for my friends one time and they were like, what the hell is this Indian music? Cause they heard that melody that
01:05:46.100anyway, I think with the, the song is definitely about submitting, but like, I, like I go out to like bars when like playing this song to get myself like pumped up, you know, like it's just such a good
01:06:02.760it's like a hard dance song. I'm not really sure. It can be played. It can be played that way. Yeah. It is interesting. Cause it has the same. What, what is the chord progression again? It's a B minor to minor to D minor. Okay. To G minor. So you, you're flatting the five, a beam B minor has an F sharp, but then you're doing D F a for D minor. So you're already, this is, he's already gotten into this like weird, creepy chords that are out of tune.
01:06:32.760And then to G minor after that. And then to B flat. So. Wow. It's like, what chord, what, what key are you in really? I mean, maybe D minor because D minor and G minor.
01:06:44.840Well, you're doing minor thirds. You're, you're doing the B minor to D you're, you're just staying in the minor mode, but you're doing thirds. So it's B to D and then G to B flat, B flat. That's a bizarre chord in B.
01:06:58.200So yeah, it's, um, but it, it keeps repeating over and over and over again. This is quarterly. This is more interesting, just unusual, but I, I do think that.
01:07:11.080It's, I do think that that left an impression with Martin Gore.
01:07:22.920And he, he, he took that in and then he produced something totally new and totally different.
01:11:04.280So they're taking this old song, but then they're adding that weird chord progression in as a kind of bridge.
01:11:11.520So it's down to St. Louis, into Missouri, Oklahoma City. It looks so, so pretty. And then it's...
01:11:19.520It's just kind of blending those two things that are really discontinuous together and in an amazing way.
01:11:30.660But also with the Beatmaster mix, it's very interesting because they're using sound. They're using recorded voices, found objects, sound, which they will later on in this album.
01:12:14.220And so it's... I think it's brilliant because you kind of have this flip side of the 60s.
01:12:24.280So there's this fun quality of the 60s of get in a car and drive from Chicago to LA and have sex along the way and be free and all that kind of stuff.
01:12:36.920And then there's this flip side into the minor mode where it's like, oh, also, you're going to be drafted into Vietnam and you're going to die.
01:12:43.920It's an act of Congress. All registration is, is it gives them a pool of names to select them in case there is a national emergency.
01:12:55.060I'm just trying to tell you like it is. Male citizens and aliens residing in the United States, 460, 61, and 62,
01:13:00.960have a responsibility to register and to keep selective service advised of any change of address.
01:13:05.700So do it at any U.S. post office. Thank you.
01:13:09.040It's actually pretty brilliant in my mind.
01:13:22.900It's pretty brilliant from a commercial perspective, too, because it's an American song about an American road and American places.
01:13:30.940And this album really broke them in America. I don't think that's probably, that's probably not an accident.
01:13:36.520Yeah. And, and then, and then also with like pleasure, little treasure, which goes on this, that's also a very simple chord structure.
01:13:45.120It's actually one. It's, I think it might even be in C major or something. It's just the one chord over and over.
01:13:51.460And, and, but it, it, it also has this clangy blue sound where it's, you know,
01:13:59.960it's actually doing one three flat, three natural three flat.
01:14:09.360You know, it's, it's, it's doing that kind of bending of the three.
01:14:13.960So it's, and so it's both in the minor and major key.
01:14:19.960And the, the, the whole structure is just this one chord over and over again.
01:14:24.320And, um, definitely looking forward to personal Jesus, you know, in the meaning of the song and the, also just the, you know, personal Jesus is literally about Elvis and this is, or about Priscilla Presley, I guess.
01:14:42.060And this is also just full on Elvis music, which, you know, again, it's, it's not, we're not that far away.
01:14:49.860We're, we're seven to eight years away from speak and spell.
01:14:54.360If you would have suggested that they would be going here, you know, when we re-listen to that album, uh, you know, it kind of couldn't be believed, but it shows just like the distance they've traveled in seven years.
01:15:12.060Everybody's looking for a reason to live.
01:15:29.700If you're looking for a reason, I have a reason to give.
01:19:37.680I want you now. Tomorrow won't do. There's a yearning inside and it's showing through. Reach out your hands and accept my love. We've waited for too long.
01:19:51.680I want you now. Tomorrow won't do. There's a yearning inside and it's showing through. Reach out your hands and accept my love. We've waited for too long. Enough is in love.
01:20:06.680Enough is in love. Enough is in love. I want you now.
01:20:13.680My heart is aching. My body is burning. My hands are shaking. My head is turning. You understand? It's so easy to choose. We've got time to kill. We've got nothing to lose.
01:20:43.680To have and to hold. I love the chord progression. I love the music. Um, I just, I, I love the darkness of the song. I love how it goes back to some earlier themes with even like two minute warning.
01:21:07.560This is music for the masses and you can take that in a couple of different ways. Is it a album written for America? Is it evoking Elvis? Is it a totalitarian album? And to have and to hold definitely evokes the latter.
01:21:24.880So this is from strip to have and to hold, which translates. This is the, um, found object radio announcement in the middle of it, which translates as the evolution of nuclear arsenals and socially psychological aspects of the arms race was considered in these reports.
01:21:46.260Uh, that's said in Russian. So you're already kind of looking to the Eastern block. You're looking back at two minute warning or, or many of these other songs about nuclear Holocaust and et cetera.
01:21:59.260And, uh, but I, I think it goes even deeper than the sentiments expressed in two minute warning. Um, but you're also, you're, you're kind of slyly evoking the cold war, but in a way that's very difficult to, to, to even grasp. You're not just in their face talking about, you know, 99 red balloons.
01:22:21.260You're talking about, you know, 99 red balloons, and this is going to start Armageddon or something. It's, it's, it's much different than that. It's, um, it's kind of objectively in the way that I was using that term earlier, bringing in found objects from the cold war into this dark minimalist soundscape.
01:22:44.380Yeah. Yeah. As far as I understand, I remember reading on Alan's blog, which is, it's a shame because it was his old blog from 1998, right after he had broken up from the band. And he, I swear, he said on the blog, it's since been taken down that they didn't know what that said. I just can't really believe that they didn't understand, or they didn't know the translation, you know, the report observes.
01:23:10.220Yeah, I can't believe that either. Yeah. And someone knew, because it's so specifically chosen. It's not just a random Russian radio address or something.
01:57:14.360And, you know, the other thing about it is that, you know, as I mentioned multiple times, you know, music for the masses is a bit of an ironic nod to the fact that they're not making music for the masses. But doing this, this was a culmination of the world tour. And according to this documentary, Alan was saying that, you know, they wanted to do a free concert. They wanted to do some kind of celebration.
01:57:40.500And so they decided to do the Rose Bowl as this massive blowout. It was not free, but it was unusual. But at least the impression I got is that it was a risk. I mean, it's like, are you do you have the fan base to do this? Are people going to show up?
01:57:56.700And, you know, famously, it was raining. There was a thunderstorm during blasphemous rumors, which is kind of a, you know, amusing anecdote about, you know, God being mad or maybe having a sixth sense of humor or something.
01:58:08.420Who knows? But yeah, I mean, it was, you know, a culmination of things, but it was like they just got there. They just they're they're peaking. They couldn't have done this earlier. I mean, they were not setting the world on fire when they were they went to they flew to New York City and performed a broken frame or something.
01:58:30.300This is a point where they're just able to do this and they pulled it off. So I think it is a yeah, it's a really amazing event in the history of the band.
01:58:44.660Yeah, the sound was notoriously mediocre, according to the band, because I guess Dave was like really loud and Martin and Alan that you couldn't hear their voices and they were using like a basically an entirely different PA system because the Rose Bowl was so much bigger than every other venue that they played up to that point.
01:59:10.240And so as with all albums, they go back in the studio and they fill in parts, you know, and do a little bit of editing.
01:59:20.660But the I think Martin, the sound of the album is great.
01:59:49.660I mean, again, I think it was a celebration of fandom.
01:59:52.360And and this is where you again, I think I mentioned this two hours ago now of you, these just funny news reports.
01:59:59.540I'll I'll be sure to include one while editing this of, you know, kids ransacking the record store because they sold out albums and just, you know, they were just on a different level at this point.
02:00:11.460We've just gotten an updated figure on the number of kids here.
02:00:16.620Police say now there's maybe 15,000 kids here.
02:00:19.920A police helicopter is going overhead.
02:00:21.820There's lots of backup patrols in the area.
02:00:24.460The band's only going to be here for three hours.
02:00:27.440I'm afraid a lot of these kids will not be able to get in to get autographs.
02:00:31.100And at that point, who knows what they might do so far?
02:01:07.020And like you said, the interesting thing, though, of like OMD just like sort of fading by that time, because they were a big band in the early 80s.
02:01:20.320And it's like literally they just flipped with Depeche.
02:01:25.500Also, another interesting thing I saw about this was that there was a ticket that somebody saved from this concert.
02:01:30.660And I don't know where exactly he was sitting, but it was just funny to see that it said that the person paid twenty two dollars and fifty cents for the ticket.
02:01:40.100And I was just like thinking to myself, like I would pay a lot more for a nosebleed, you know, at that time to see that concert.