Depeche Modeļ¼ Speak & Spell
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 18 minutes
Words per Minute
140.39635
Summary
In this episode, we re-listen to 1981's Speak and Spell by The Zapsplatonic, a classic hip hop album from the 80s and 90s. We talk about the history of the album, the new re-release, and what it means to be a hip hop head.
Transcript
00:00:30.260
Think you only know me when you turn on the light
00:00:36.340
I found the re-listening to this very interesting.
00:00:41.600
For one thing, it was the first time I listened to it on vinyl.
00:00:47.800
So I'm listening to it just off of YouTube music, actually.
00:00:52.360
And I did listen to the most expansive version with the 16 tracks
00:01:22.700
I believe, yeah, Dreaming of Me, their first single,
00:01:28.260
And there are other ones that weren't on there.
00:01:33.820
I'm not sure if Shout or Ice Machine were on the album either.
00:01:43.280
So I have a reissue 180 gram vinyl that is a single vinyl record.
00:01:52.620
But you said you showed it, or you showed the album to your brother
00:02:04.540
I mean, he just said, this sounds old kind of thing.
00:02:08.360
Yeah, I don't, look, I think when people go back, Zoomers go back to listen to older music,
00:02:17.820
I don't think, I had that kind of same opinion when I was about his age.
00:02:23.220
Oh, this sounds kind of like dated or whatever.
00:02:25.440
But I guess seeing past that and just appreciating the songs is kind of for their work.
00:02:31.820
Yeah, I guess I had that opinion too, because my parents had a record collection.
00:02:40.420
And I was actually joking with my mom a few months ago, because I've only recently adopted
00:02:51.120
But I got into it, and I have a nice turntable and some good speakers, and I'm just kind of
00:03:04.180
But I was looking at like discogs and things at some albums, and prices are just bizarre.
00:03:11.200
Like things that you think would be expensive are selling for like $3.99.
00:03:15.580
Things that you've never heard of, or something like that, are selling for like $30,000.
00:03:25.560
There probably is a rhyme and reason to all of it.
00:03:34.000
I was like, I bet that vinyl collection you guys had, which you assembled in college,
00:03:39.560
they graduated from college in 1969, I believe, multiple first editions, maybe first pressings
00:03:53.340
I remember that listening to their album of it.
00:03:57.140
But even in the mid-80s, when vinyl was starting to go out of style, I remember thinking all
00:04:03.260
of that music was goofy and kind of old and 60s and stuff like that, even though we were
00:04:13.000
I mean, less time had passed between when I listened to my parents' record collection
00:04:17.320
and your Zoomer kid brothers listening to 1981's Speak and Spell.
00:04:28.080
I would have loved to have had like an Abbey Road, you know, original pressing.
00:04:34.840
I'm sure they gave it away at a garage sale or something.
00:04:39.840
Of course, as I said, the prices are very weird, but who knows?
00:04:42.360
You might have some first pressing of some album that's worth tens of thousands.
00:04:46.660
I think some of the vinyl that you would think is useless, that goes for such high prices,
00:05:00.000
Like a lot of, especially like rap producers, you know, they'll sample the entire loop of
00:05:05.780
So these records that may have only sold a few, but a few thousand or whatever, or tens
00:05:13.380
of thousands now are rare finds because they have a certain drum break or a certain sound
00:05:20.100
that has been sampled repeatedly by rappers and not just rappers, but house music in general.
00:05:35.780
Well, I think there's, I mean, we're, we're going off field here, but I, I think there
00:05:39.460
were some genuinely historic records that are on sale that probably would deserve to
00:05:47.620
be in a museum or something like this, but yeah, first pressing of the white album or something.
00:05:56.960
It's, um, you know, a lot of this vintage stuff though.
00:06:01.000
At the same time, you've, you've got to want it.
00:06:04.380
It, you know, like there's a, a global market for vintage cars.
00:06:12.220
Uh, there's a global market for vinyl because, because you have these collectors, some of
00:06:17.880
And, and even the, the smaller, like less wealthy collectors are willing to pay, you know, a few
00:06:22.700
hundred bucks or something that they find really special.
00:06:25.480
And so there is a market for it, but the, the market goes away and all of that stuff,
00:06:40.540
Mark Brahman is, is here visiting and he's staying and he, I was listening to the album just in
00:06:53.280
I mean, he's, he's a, he's slightly older than I am.
00:06:57.840
So he was basically saying, he was like, you know, all of that early stuff, like you
00:07:02.900
can kind of tell it's a first album and it's, there is a youthful juvenile quality to it,
00:07:14.500
And you could almost see them like cranking out something that maybe is half baked or maybe
00:07:21.400
is not never, ever destined for the pop chart, but being genuinely creative and interesting.
00:07:31.820
I don't think he's a big Depeche fan, but, um, yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with
00:08:06.100
Which for good and bad, you know, like you said, there is a good, youthful, energetic
00:08:12.760
quality to, to the music in Dave's voice and, um, and the production itself.
00:08:23.880
I mean, it's, I don't know how I would classify him, uh, at this point, but it's clearly his,
00:08:34.220
Like he hadn't fully gone through puberty or something or gone through growth.
00:08:38.300
And you can see that when you see these interviews of him, he looks like 14 or something.
00:08:44.200
And, um, he, you don't really hear the full sound.
00:08:48.440
And this is an album written by Vince Clark, which we'll, you know, get into later, but,
00:08:54.780
uh, so it doesn't, it's not a Martin Gore, um, album.
00:08:59.180
I, so you, you mentioned this before we went on, but Martin wrote Tora, Tora, Tora.
00:09:07.020
Uh, he also wrote Big Muff, which is an instrumental, that kind of sounds vaguely like a video game.
00:09:14.500
Yeah, it does sound like a, or a soundtrack to like a Soviet Union knockoff of Rambo.
00:09:50.080
I mean, even by, um, even in broken frame, his voice is lower.
00:09:54.260
Certainly by the mid eighties, he's got a low voice.
00:09:57.920
I mean, I think that's actually a really interesting thing about the band.
00:10:02.060
Um, that's not what you, I mean, there's all of us, of course, but it's not what you associate with pop music.
00:10:12.360
And I think that is one of the things that has really separate, set Depeche Mode apart.
00:10:19.000
I mean, you can't, you know, we were talking about these like indispensable qualities.
00:10:27.980
You don't have the, uh, you know, the darkness, the kind of grit, a little bit of crooning, a little bit of Elvis thrown in.
00:10:44.380
What was he 18 or 19 when they, when he was singing these?
00:10:47.260
Yeah, I believe 19, uh, years old when he was, when he was singing, uh, when I think, what is he born in 62?
00:10:56.040
Um, but so, yeah, as far as his voice, it's definitely, it's, it's softer too.
00:11:04.420
His voice is definitely, the whole project is just green.
00:11:08.440
You know, you can, like I said, you can feel the youth, but also in certain lines, like, I apologize for making this kind of noise, but he'll, he'll do the kind of seductive, like, you know, in some of the, in some of the lines that you'll hear in singers.
00:11:23.920
Like, like Bono kind of overdid it in my opinion, but, you know, just, just to add that kind of seductive, uh, sort of quality to, to the lyrics, to the, to the music.
00:11:39.580
I mean, he'll do a lot of sighing and grunting later on, but yeah, there, there's something very poppy.
00:11:53.920
And it, and I think it was what they were going for and, and so on.
00:11:59.200
But before we dive into like the history or we look at individual tracks, um, I, so my, I think I mentioned this on the first one on Memento, but my first impression of Depeche Mode was overhearing my sister, my older sister playing Depeche Mode.
00:12:33.480
And by the late eighties, when I was becoming, you know, 10 or, um, you know, thereabouts, um, maybe even kind of an early teen, I, it was on CDs.
00:12:45.840
And I had the, the, um, catching up with Depeche Mode album, which is a compilation.
00:12:53.040
And I don't even know if that is in print or out there anymore.
00:12:56.940
I bet you obviously could get a used vinyl copy, but it was a best of released, um, in the mid to late eighties.
00:13:09.620
And, um, let me actually call it up real quick.
00:13:13.340
The, the one that, uh, they shot where, uh, Martin's like nipple is out.
00:13:19.660
Um, I remember Martin Atkinson, one of those documentaries from 2005 was talking about that cover and saying, uh, he's like, did that sell a lot of records?
00:13:29.600
You know, kind of laughing about, um, just, just the, you know, the, the cover itself, how, um, provocative it was.
00:13:42.200
So it was, it was, it was, it was much earlier, but I remember listening.
00:13:46.200
Listening, so it, the first three tracks were dreaming of me, news can't get enough.
00:13:52.380
And then it ended with flying a lid, windscreen.
00:13:55.980
So it was going through the, um, uh, black celebration album.
00:14:00.820
I think like something in here and beating us on my body.
00:14:03.780
I think that was like an original song they added or something, something like that.
00:14:07.280
But it also had shake the disease, which isn't, I think not found in an album.
00:14:15.720
And so it, it was actually an important one, but I, I did remember even then thinking that
00:14:22.780
like, I didn't even know about Vince Clark and the breakup and so on, but just thinking
00:14:29.040
that it was a different band and it was really, I guess when you hit track seven, halfway through
00:14:36.180
Master and Servant, when I was like, all right, this is Depeche Mode.
00:14:44.200
Uh, and, uh, but that, that was my perspective then.
00:14:49.460
You said what year would that have been that, uh, late eighties?
00:14:52.460
I know it came out in 85, but when you heard it was late eighties, as far as me hearing
00:14:58.640
them, I think, I can't remember exactly where I was when I heard, I just know it was Enjoy
00:15:06.180
And, uh, it was one of those that you recoil from.
00:15:09.400
Uh, and, uh, certainly that's something, well, yeah.
00:15:15.460
I mean, it's just one of those, and from, from there it was Violator would have actually
00:15:21.240
So I had to kind of start in the middle and go back.
00:15:24.600
Um, but a lot of this stuff I wasn't impressed by on the first listen.
00:15:32.560
Now with a song like Enjoy the Silence or Policy of Truth, I was immediately impressed by those.
00:15:37.040
But these, for me, same with like bands like Radiohead, um, or even some of the Beatles,
00:15:45.160
they took, it had to really, I had to sink my teeth into it.
00:15:51.400
And I think I, I've, it did happen to grow on me.
00:15:56.560
I don't know if this is like almost an insult or maybe a compliment.
00:16:00.580
Maybe it's a little bit of both, but listening to the albums more and more.
00:16:06.080
However, I like them more and in the way that I don't, I'm not immediately grabbed by them.
00:16:11.580
Now I was immediately grabbed by the first time I listened to mid eighties Depeche Mode.
00:16:17.580
When I, when I heard like black celebration coming out of my sister's room, I was mesmerized.
00:16:24.880
I was just like, this is like, I didn't, I never heard anything like that.
00:16:29.640
There was, it's the darkness, the kind of starkness, the, the, the kind of monotonous
00:16:40.800
And I just, it was, I was, I was absolutely hooked, but, but also it was just totally different
00:16:46.280
than any sound and it was electronic, but it certainly wasn't disco or something.
00:16:51.060
Um, but yeah, I, I like a lot of these albums more and more, maybe it's getting used to
00:16:59.420
them or kind of, you know, getting that groove in your mind of knowing the song.
00:17:05.380
Um, and, and I think there are some genuinely fun ones.
00:17:08.500
I mean, just can't get enough is a fun song that that's on every, you know, greatest hits
00:17:12.880
hits of the eighties album and things like that.
00:17:22.520
Um, I like, I like even songs like puppets and, um, uh, photographic.
00:17:28.800
I, I like the second half of the album or the B side of the album more, but anyway, uh,
00:17:34.940
it's something that you, it kind of grows in you.
00:17:37.780
And I guess maybe it's, you know, in light of what they've done in the, they, they'll do
00:17:42.520
subsequently, you kind of can hear that in the music, but would I have been totally hooked
00:17:50.060
on Depeche mode if I were, you know, living in Basildon and, uh, you know, buying a single
00:17:58.980
on a whim after hearing on a radio in 1981, I'm not sure.
00:18:03.480
And I, I probably would have thought of them as a pretty dispensable interchangeable band
00:18:12.640
And there were probably some other bands, uh, like, uh, you know, I don't know, OMD,
00:18:18.520
for instance, that just seemed to be doing it better.
00:18:23.820
OMD certainly had a, a liver, um, aspect to, to their music.
00:18:40.800
I, and that's a question that I actually, I was thinking about was, were people ready
00:18:58.640
From the word go, were they really ready for, I, I just, I mean, the, if you look at the music
00:19:06.980
scene, it's 79, 80, the people that are dominating, uh, are like the kind of new romantic, you know,
00:19:15.100
human league, uh, Roxy music, David Bowie, those, those kind of, uh, who were their inspirations
00:19:23.520
But it's also like in America, something like Van Halen or the police rock and roll, uh,
00:19:32.060
And I just feel like their approach to music was obviously it was programmed, but it was
00:19:39.720
like hyper pop to the point where it was like beyond poppy.
00:19:43.640
And I think that's kind of how I would describe, uh, this album.
00:20:18.160
Developed around this time into new wave, new wave kind of develops into synth pop.
00:20:22.700
It's like, it's, it's its own kind of thing, which is not to say that there aren't other
00:20:32.960
I mean, that was the whole label, but I just think that they were, Stones is a better comparison.
00:20:39.760
But when I originally thought about them, I said, you know, these guys are the Beatles
00:20:43.040
of, um, of synth pop of, you know, they're really original basically.
00:20:56.820
And I, you know, I might a year from now, I might be like, Oh my God, I said, this was
00:21:03.760
I didn't notice this, you know, whatever it was, it didn't click.
00:21:08.760
And I do think, you know, they attract that kind of quality fan.
00:21:14.560
If I, uh, can say so about myself, they can attract that, that fan who's going to listen
00:21:19.760
to them again and give it, give their, give their song.
00:21:25.280
They might like track four, but track five and six, I'm not.
00:21:28.260
And then you keep playing the actual album over and over again.
00:21:32.320
And then you're like, okay, I'm, I'm locked in.
00:21:34.940
This is, I can feel this as a cohesive piece and enjoy it all the way through.
00:21:45.020
Um, so why, why don't we talk, um, a little bit about the, uh, the genesis of this, and
00:21:55.320
then we can talk about, um, you know, you know, things we noticed on individual
00:22:04.880
Uh, so I mentioned Basildon earlier in this podcast, and I mentioned it on the Memento
00:22:12.680
It's a new town outside of London, and there's a way in which it's both futuristic and industrial,
00:22:21.280
but then also middle to lower middle class and boring all at the same time.
00:22:27.760
Um, and it was built to, you know, take care of the overflow, um, from London post-war, all
00:22:36.980
It's a, it's a kind of version of suburbia, I guess would probably be the best comparison.
00:22:43.160
And, um, these four guys were there roughly the same age.
00:22:50.460
Um, another thing that I noticed, I was, um, just reading from, uh, Just Can't Get Enough
00:22:57.200
by Simon Spence, which is a, um, it's a good book.
00:23:00.800
Um, you know, as, as an aside, I was thinking about this.
00:23:04.020
I, I feel like some of these rock books, I've, I've read a few of them.
00:23:08.240
I've read a few on U2 and, uh, and, uh, uh, two, I guess now on Depeche Mode and, you
00:23:16.880
know, I guess they serve a purpose and they're done in like an academic way, but they are
00:23:24.380
Like they, you go album by album more or less, and they interview a lot of people, interview
00:23:31.560
They'll interview the roadie, the school teacher, knew him, the blah, blah, blah.
00:23:34.980
And they'll get these quotes that are pretty mundane or quotidian, you know, if, if maybe
00:23:41.920
anecdotally interesting, but it's rare that you really get analysis.
00:23:47.960
Like one thing that I would say about the Simon Spence book is the, the first two chapters
00:23:53.200
are on Basel then, and he's done research on like the history of this suburb, et cetera.
00:23:58.660
I, I actually found that more interesting of like, what is the background that made these
00:24:05.440
people, the class background, the time, the, you know, all of those kinds of things.
00:24:13.480
So I would actually recommend that he goes into like the building of, you know, the building
00:24:19.940
Um, but, uh, one of the things that I did find interesting that he also stressed was the
00:24:27.800
So they really met at church or at Sunday school or at the very least, um, uh, uh, Fletch
00:24:43.820
And I don't know exactly what to put into that, but the kind of youth pastor also had a band
00:24:54.160
It was actually a Methodist church that would bring together Vince Clark and Andy Fletcher.
00:24:59.320
Churches flourished in early new towns, often appearing on the newest states ahead of schools
00:25:05.500
Fryer's Baptist church, for instance, opened in 1954 and he goes onto it.
00:25:10.340
So they, they had some church of England, but then the, there was, there seemed to be a
00:25:17.840
But I, I don't know, I mean, what do you make of this beyond, you know, it was a simpler
00:25:25.400
Uh, it's not terribly surprising if you grow up in a suburb or a small town of, in the
00:25:30.300
U S at least in many places, you might very well meet your friends at church group or something.
00:25:45.620
I think when I heard about, uh, them releasing blasphemous rumors, I know Martin and Fletcher,
00:25:54.880
um, who it seems to be were the most religiously schooled, uh, of, of the group, uh, that they
00:26:03.560
were afraid to, to release that song and kind of, it was ambiguous whether they were afraid
00:26:11.880
to release it as like, we don't want to piss people off or we're afraid to release it,
00:26:17.640
uh, in the sense that we're kind of like paranoid that maybe God might strike back or, you know,
00:26:23.220
in a, in a kind of a superstitious manner that I, that I wasn't sure about, but as far as
00:26:28.780
their overall religiousness in, um, it does, it's like I said, it strikes me mostly in Martin's
00:26:37.220
writing, not, it seems like maybe Vince and Dave were kind of turned off by it.
00:26:45.960
Um, just, you know, speaking from experience, uh, but yeah, I think.
00:26:55.420
And I think there's some obvious examples like blasphemous rumors is a very obvious example
00:27:00.540
or John the revelator or something like that, but I, I think it actually goes in all of them.
00:27:05.940
I, I can't wait to do songs of faith and devotion.
00:27:08.360
I guess that one's pretty obvious, but he's making, um, uh, if not biblical kind of Christian
00:27:14.880
references and there's a song called Judas, et cetera.
00:27:19.100
I mean, it, I, it, it is part of it, but I also, how do I say this?
00:27:29.260
I think it does come from a Christian perspective in the sense that the, their depiction of
00:27:38.600
love and sex and even sadomasochism, et cetera, there's a kind of guilty consciousness or, you
00:27:47.840
know, indulgence in sin that I think is lacking from other pop stars.
00:27:54.840
So I'm just going to use kind of a terrible example.
00:27:58.060
Um, I, I was just going through Twitter last night and I seeing all this talk about Taylor
00:28:04.820
Swift and she's dating Travis Kelsey and blah, blah, blah.
00:28:09.220
So I actually, I can't even name a Taylor Swift song, but I just went to go, I just put
00:28:16.340
her into YouTube and just listened to like the top number.
00:28:20.540
I can't even remember what it's about, but it's all this kind of knowing.
00:28:24.540
Like I'm a bad bitch and you're going to fall in love with me.
00:28:28.000
He, he is how I would basically describe her music.
00:28:37.400
Like that's like literally what this song is about.
00:28:41.000
There's something about it that's just so fundamentally shallow that it's almost evil or just at the
00:29:11.180
And I don't think that, you know, there's a new game.
00:29:22.680
When you indulge into the sadomasochistic aspect, there's inherently a kind of darkness and
00:29:29.840
guilt concept, or you're acknowledging turning tables.
00:29:35.080
You're acknowledging like self-abasement and so on.
00:29:38.060
These are all aspects of Christianity first off.
00:29:40.380
But then I also, I don't think any of those things have the same like edge to them.
00:29:45.760
If you're not coming from a place, like if you're just a basic bitch, like Taylor Swift,
00:29:58.680
I mean, when, as far as I understand, she has, I think her father's pretty well off.
00:30:06.880
And so well off to the point where he's got connections kind of thing.
00:30:11.700
But as far as her lyrics, I remember being in high school and there was something, because
00:30:19.480
I think she's only a year older than me, but it was something like,
00:30:22.400
She wears short shorts, I wear t-shirts, something, she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers.
00:30:29.580
But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts, she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers,
00:30:40.660
Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find it, what you're looking for, has been
00:30:48.620
It was kind of underdoggy, but it was, yeah, extremely shallow.
00:30:53.120
And now I know she's, you know, picked up some quote unquote, woke talking points and
00:31:06.680
She's woke only in the most like shallow conceivable way.
00:31:11.520
Like, I remember dating a girl and she was like, did you know that Taylor Swift, she wrote
00:31:17.900
a song about this guy and this song is about that guy.
00:31:28.260
I was just like, well, there's kind of no mystery in that, you know?
00:31:31.440
I mean, that's one of the things about Martin's reign.
00:31:35.380
I mean, in mystery in the, in the religious sense and, and just ambiguity.
00:31:40.540
There's no, like, yeah, I, Taylor Swift is, but it's all, I mean, that's how we've talked
00:31:51.200
It's extremely, extremely hard to get to the top, but even harder today, probably easier
00:31:57.860
to release your own music or, or whatever today than it was.
00:32:02.120
It's, it's easier to release your own music, but from what I got and I, I, I, again, I read
00:32:08.960
a few chapters and just can't get enough and that we're centering around this period.
00:32:14.380
And then I, I watched, there's an interesting documentary that's available on YouTube.
00:32:19.120
I don't even know who did it, but it's well done.
00:32:20.880
It had original interviews with all of the bandmates and Daniel Miller and, and Griffin,
00:32:28.460
I believe is the name of the photographer who did Brian Griffin, Brian Griffin, who did
00:32:33.400
really, I mean, this, this album is kind of weird and maybe not great, but broken
00:32:43.740
Anyway, I would say today, obviously it's easier than it ever has been to just produce
00:32:51.740
You just get a SoundCloud account, use GarageBand and some kind of mic, Blue Yeti mic and GarageBand
00:32:59.680
and there you are, you can do whatever you want.
00:33:04.600
But I do, I would say that they're reading this, there, there just seemed to be this
00:33:16.080
Kind of idea of creating this band, performing the shows, developing like a little teenage fan
00:33:23.520
bass of 50 people and performing live and then going into a studio, getting kind of your
00:33:32.300
older brother type, Daniel Miller figure to, to work with you with the album, releasing
00:33:39.900
It gets played on the radio a few times and people buy your single, like it was, and you
00:33:44.040
go to national tour, which is, you know, national tour of Britain or even England, a 14 day
00:33:50.460
national tour, which is what they did after this.
00:33:53.760
There was something kind of homey and fun about it all.
00:33:59.700
I, you know, they, they had to meet the right people.
00:34:05.160
But again, the, the kind of ease to get a record pressed and the, the, the personal,
00:34:14.700
I mean, I don't think I would see this now to, there, there was a kind of ease to doing
00:34:19.500
it at that point that I think is probably gone now.
00:34:31.620
And Depeche Mode's like, it's, I mean, I think I watched the same documentary that you did
00:34:38.080
and it just seemed like the way that they, they described the band's reaction to, you
00:34:46.000
know, getting signed as, well, you know, it's kind of like, they're so humble.
00:34:51.800
They're almost like, they seem like almost afraid to like make it.
00:34:56.140
I mean, Vince was definitely, I mean, according to Andy Fletcher, he was the driving force.
00:35:00.880
He was the one he really was pushing the band forward.
00:35:04.200
But it kind of seemed like everything about them is so humble that they were just like,
00:35:09.340
well, like, this is kind of the last, you know, we'll stop at rough trade to try and
00:35:16.320
And we'll, if this doesn't happen, then it's back to, you know, day jobs or whatever.
00:35:20.960
And, um, they, I think the, in their entirety, I think humility is, is a theme for them.
00:35:30.000
I don't, I think they kind of think this album is rubbish, you know, uh, mostly, uh, and I
00:35:40.200
think they thought themselves as musicians were rubbish and they might not be the best.
00:35:46.700
But for, I mean, if you have a great songwriter and Martin Gore and, and the, the, the kind
00:35:51.360
of attitude and, and, um, uh, Dave, you know, possibilities are, are, are limitless.
00:35:59.100
But so I, what, another aspect of their humility is the fact that Daniel Miller was running a
00:36:05.420
quote unquote label out of his flat in London until like 1980, I think.
00:36:11.740
I mean, it was very, the guy was not even offering them money and, um, I mean, they're
00:36:22.680
And as we know, humility is a Christian virtue.
00:36:31.160
You do get the impression of middle to lower middle-class kids.
00:36:36.060
I mean, they, uh, affording synthesizers were saving money.
00:36:39.380
Vince Clark was, uh, from what I've read, just a kind of extreme penny pincher actually,
00:36:48.980
Uh, they're, they're taking their, you know, synthesizers with them in a cab and so on.
00:36:54.700
They, they certainly weren't the first all electronic band, but do you, do you, what was it?
00:37:00.400
I mean, do you think there was just a kind of hook that they had by, by being all synth
00:37:07.080
and not bothering with a drummer, which was extremely strange in terms of all of their
00:37:15.640
You know, I, I think it's their, their work ethic, actually.
00:37:20.400
I think it's the fact that they were all, they were going to tour every album, no matter
00:37:28.920
what, like, there was no, well, we'll release the album.
00:37:38.180
And then you get that like kind of grateful dead kind of cult following with the quality
00:37:43.140
fans, um, as opposed to, uh, just mirror, you know, numbers on a chart or something like
00:37:50.640
But, um, yeah, I, I think the, I didn't really think about this until now, but I think their,
00:37:55.980
their work ethic, maybe that has to do with their Methodist upbringing.
00:38:00.960
Um, I think it had something to do with their success.
00:38:04.380
I was raised Catholic, so I'm not familiar with, um, the Methodist church really at all.
00:38:09.820
And I'm not sure if there's a, a big stressing of, uh, of the Protestant work ethic.
00:38:14.940
Uh, I don't know if you could, uh, attest to that or.
00:38:21.140
I mean, I, I, I, I think it's the types of people you're around who are attracted to
00:38:26.580
But, um, yeah, I think also the synthesizers were a way of getting away with lesser musicianship,
00:38:35.600
I mean, the Vince Clark supposedly was a good guitar player.
00:38:39.780
Um, Martin Gore plays guitar, but I, you know, I'm sure you could find a guy living in your
00:38:46.000
town who's a better guitar player than Martin Gore.
00:38:49.280
I think the synthesizer, your ability to create tracks on your own, I, I think it was a kind
00:38:56.960
of crutch in a way, but it's what allowed them to do something very different.
00:39:03.940
I mean, this is a, um, this is an interesting quote from Stripped.
00:39:14.900
Uh, let me just see when that was, this, uh, came out in 2003 and then there was a kind
00:39:22.680
Um, yeah, so Clark said this at, to, uh, Paul Colbert, I'm sure this was like a magazine
00:39:37.940
The techniques were improving to an extent the way we're playing.
00:39:41.400
But even then I found there were things in the way preventing us from experimenting.
00:39:47.680
That might've had something to do with it, but.
00:39:50.240
But it's interesting because this is the next paragraph in a, in a more candid conversation,
00:39:55.520
Clark admitted overall, I could say it was just the fact that probably I felt I was the
00:40:00.600
person doing most of the work and it was the most committed.
00:40:03.800
And I probably felt I could do it all on my own.
00:40:10.260
And it was, there was another, I think this was mentioned in that documentary of like,
00:40:14.960
once you enter the realm of synthesizers and you have a drum machine, you have a backing
00:40:19.380
track on a tape that's playing in the theater, you're hitting keys.
00:40:27.740
I mean, maybe in the singing, but even that clearly not the case.
00:40:33.360
It's a pretty limited vocal range, particularly in these albums, these early albums.
00:40:38.980
So it's, it's basically, you can do the entire thing yourself.
00:40:44.060
And I think that that's what Vince Clark wanted to do.
00:40:48.600
It's like, I don't, I, I don't want, I can just leave these friends that I met along the
00:40:57.120
And I mean, he accomplished that in so many ways.
00:41:01.900
I mean, he's, he's had a number of different bands, Yazoo or slash Yaz, Erasure, just himself.
00:41:10.840
I mean, Erasure is probably the longest standing one that has a fan base.
00:41:18.820
I was just going to say, he recently released his first solo album, which I've not listened
00:41:34.880
So, I mean, he's done that, but he, he missed the magic of Depeche Mode, which I think is Dave
00:41:45.300
Gahan, Martin Gore, and maybe even the name and maybe just the very idea of it.
00:41:54.700
And so it's, it is one of the more curious things from what I can tell, you know, again,
00:41:59.120
from reading these books at the time, when Vince left, you know, there was a lot of thought
00:42:04.800
And I think Daniel Miller kind of wanted to keep it going.
00:42:10.220
And Martin Gore was tasked with songwriting, but there was this notion that like, you know,
00:42:17.220
He's just going to go off on his own and not that he hasn't been successful, but he's
00:42:24.220
not, I mean, clearly not been as interesting as Martin Gore in my humble opinion.
00:42:33.300
I don't know of an example of like Vince Clark and Erasure playing the Rose Bowl in 1988
00:42:39.600
or going on this massive tour that Depeche is doing right now.
00:42:55.760
I don't, I don't think he cared that much for performing live either.
00:42:59.160
I mean, from what I've, the few interviews I've seen with him, he said basically as much,
00:43:03.260
I just, I liked the studio more and he, I mean, he's good, I guess, but he's not a virtuoso
00:43:13.020
But as far as their, their music, I think, you know, around that time of 79, 80, you had
00:43:20.380
in bands like, like Duran Duran, where Nick Rhodes would set up a sequencer and it would
00:43:30.680
play a kind of robotic, you know, kind of drum beat.
00:43:35.140
And that was there to aid the rhythm, but it was never there to replace it.
00:43:41.080
It wasn't there to be solely the, the, the rhythm, you know, it, it was me, Nick Rhodes,
00:43:50.840
And it's the same thing with Human League or a lot of these bands.
00:43:56.920
Now there were synth pop bands, like I said, like Daniel Miller's, The Normal, but they
00:44:03.040
were just too quirky and almost like low effort.
00:44:07.100
If you ever listen to those records, and I think that's what, Depeche was just more serious.
00:44:14.960
And I think, you know, that's why they were actually able to chart on, on mute.
00:44:20.100
Um, whereas I don't know how far, uh, Fad Gadget went, I mean, not far enough for, you know,
00:44:27.780
me to really recall or, or, or any, or either of us, you know, but as far as their, their
00:44:39.000
I mean, sampling was very, very limited, but they're kind of, it's almost like, um, a Dada
00:44:47.760
It's like, we're, it's only, it's not to say like, look how untalented we are.
00:44:53.220
We're going to leave the drum machine out here and we're going to play and look, this
00:44:58.460
It's not necessarily that, but it is basically to put it in like economic terms, it's kind
00:45:09.880
I remember in an interview with Vince Clark, he said, I was so happy when Daniel got the
00:45:14.640
ARP 2600 because it could keep everything in time.
00:45:18.880
And we, I didn't need to rely on my ability or Martin's ability or, or Ben's or I'm sorry,
00:45:26.780
That's really, as far as the, the synthesis and the quantization that, that kind of aspect
00:45:32.200
of the band, I think they were, like I said earlier, taking it a step forward.
00:45:37.280
And just, you know, being upfront with it and, um, not trying to hide it.
00:45:43.080
Like there were bands like ELO in the seventies who were under some serious scrutiny for, for
00:45:50.300
having backing tracks and, um, which now every, every band has a, you know, backing track
00:46:00.480
And that, I mean, so, and that was another reason they weren't really big in America was
00:46:04.860
because they're, uh, in the beginning, they were kind of scoffed at by a lot of American
00:46:09.440
critics like, well, do you, they, they're playing a computer this or, you know, this
00:46:18.600
So do you want to talk a little bit about some of the tracks?
00:46:23.560
Um, yeah, um, I can talk about the ones that, um, struck me the, the most.
00:46:33.680
Um, so I guess just starting off with, uh, let's go with their first single dreaming of
00:46:43.360
I, it's not, there's not, it's just sixties pop, you know, I under, I, I don't, I, yeah,
00:46:52.760
You hear that a lot actually in their fifties bebop or something.
00:47:01.440
The chord progressions are very one, four, five or four, five, one, or, you know, they're.
00:47:06.920
Oh, and that's another thing too, is that it's very fast paced and very staccato.
00:47:12.940
And I think that might be more Vince's, um, MO, uh, than, than Martin's, which is more
00:47:20.020
legato and, um, uh, uh, uh, downer, you know, it's, uh, it's not fast, it's slower.
00:47:27.740
Um, but so, yeah, if you start with a track, like dreaming of me, I think the lyrics are,
00:47:36.920
Light switch, man switch, film was broken only then.
00:47:48.460
All the night, views tomorrow, dancing with a distant friend.
00:48:06.920
You know, it's dreaming of you and dreaming of me.
00:48:16.180
It's not, it doesn't fully, uh, doesn't grab me.
00:48:20.740
But yeah, I mean, there's a question about whether the lyrics make any sense at all.
00:48:26.260
Light switch, man switch, film was broken, um, only then all the night.
00:48:35.960
Filming and screening, I picture the scene filming and dreaming, dreaming of me.
00:48:49.280
So the ambiguity of Vincent Clark's primitive lyrics were unintentionally exposed when in late 1981, smash hits published the rhyming couplet, fused and saw a face before like association whore from dreaming of me.
00:49:06.140
And views that saw a face before like association hall, thereby dramatically altering their meaning.
00:49:12.620
If indeed there was any meaning to be had in the first place.
00:49:17.560
I never understood what Vince was writing about.
00:49:20.040
Often the grammar was a mystery to me, let alone the meaning.
00:49:28.060
Um, I'm not sure I totally agree with him though.
00:49:32.920
Um, not, some of the lyrics are interesting and catchy.
00:49:36.400
I mean, just can't get enough is, is, is catchy enough.
00:49:39.640
Um, photographic is an interesting kind of like objective song about an object, uh, a white house, a white room, the program of today lights on switch on your eyes are far away.
00:49:51.580
The map represents you and the tape is your voice follow all along you till you recognize the choice.
00:49:58.920
Now, I don't know what the last one means, but the map represents you and the tape is your voice, uh, to be honest, seems kind of like a postmodern comment on, uh, simulation, so to speak.
00:50:16.260
Now, you know, whatever, but I, uh, I think that actually is pretty interesting.
00:50:23.520
A white house, a white room, the program of today, lights on switch on your eyes are far away.
00:50:44.640
The map represents you and the tape is your voice.
00:50:50.480
Follow all along you till you recognize the choice.
00:51:12.120
Even if you go to the song that follows after, which I like actually a lot.
00:51:20.540
I don't think it was, I know it was not ever a single.
00:51:23.180
I don't know if they've ever performed this, you know, in the last 30 years, maybe they should.
00:51:30.760
Um, Torah, Torah, Torah, but they were raining from the sky exploding in my heart.
00:51:36.460
Is this a love in disguise or just a form of modern art?
00:51:41.520
So Torah, Torah, Torah is a call sign of the Japanese who invaded or bombed Pearl Harbor.
00:51:50.880
Uh, from the skies, you could almost hear the cry Torah, Torah, Torah in the town.
00:51:58.220
And then there's this very curious, and you can get to this kind of like creepy Halloween element to, uh, uh, Martin Gore.
00:52:16.440
So it's, I, I don't even know what he's saying there.
00:52:22.200
It's all a dream, basically, but it's a dream of Pearl Harbor.
00:52:35.520
We were raining from the sky, exploding in my heart.
00:52:43.440
Is this a love in disguise or just a form of modern art?
00:52:55.820
Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, in the time of love going down.
00:53:15.380
And I like the fact that you can't quite figure it out, but you know that there's, it's about something.
00:53:21.720
There's something there, and it's a little bit of a puzzle, like the Torah, Torah, Torah, and the bombs falling in the sky.
00:53:32.680
And it kind of reminds me of Kraftwerk-esque objectivism.
00:53:38.340
You know, like this no emotion, you know, blunt descriptions of things.
00:53:47.040
I think that's, and a little bit of irony thrown in.
00:53:59.160
That's funny because I would have said that there is more emotion in this, in Torah, Torah.
00:54:29.140
Than in any of the other songs written by Vince.
00:54:34.840
As far as, I feel like this is the warmest one of all.
00:54:39.680
I mean, it's hard because they're all, you know, quantized and perfectly in sync.
00:54:46.160
But, I mean, the first thing I noticed about this song is it's Martin's only song, right?
00:54:57.420
You know, I mean, if Martin writes about death, then maybe you could say that Vince writes about, like, rebirth.
00:55:05.620
I mean, I'm trying to squeeze that into Eastern terms.
00:55:15.920
But when he says, I had a nightmare only yesterday.
00:55:23.440
I'm kind of thinking, oh, it sounds like, you know, he died and or she died.
00:55:30.460
And there, but it might be like a death of a personality.
00:55:34.080
I mean, that's kind of what I'm trying to get out of it.
00:55:37.200
But also, also, as far as the music of Torah, Torah, I mean, it just comes in with that.
00:55:46.740
And it's just, there's something almost to me, almost rock and roll almost.
00:55:52.760
But it's just serious, you know, with that kind of minor sound, which most of Vince's songs are not minor at all.
00:56:04.200
And the chord progression, if I have it correctly, is very, I mean, it's D minor to, for the chorus is D minor to B flat to E flat to D minor.
00:56:19.220
So you're getting that, that kind of tension between the D and the E flat in the chorus, which is...
00:56:34.560
And basically, if you play with that dissonance, which Martin certainly does as a songwriter, you get a lot of the times a darker, more, when are we ever going to resolve this?
00:56:45.760
And with Vince's songs, it's always, there's easy resolution.
00:56:52.600
But yeah, I mean, that is probably my favorite.
00:56:55.900
Well, I can't say that, but it might be my second favorite on the album.
00:57:12.200
She is hoping to forget, and the moment almost slips away.
00:57:22.040
Vivid pictures like a wall that's standing empty, and the nights are still.
00:57:29.120
Such a small affair, a real love, someone closing like the nightclub door.
00:57:44.280
Here again, and when you speak, I watch you move away, and seem so sure.
00:57:50.900
Without getting too personal, you know a person, a female, that that song reminds you of, you know, when listening to it.
00:58:14.040
I think it's a very, very simple song, you know, I believe it's just a few chords, and I think great lyrics, and just, it's able to have the electronic, quantized feel, but also have that kind of soul to it.
00:58:39.220
Yeah, I really like the B-side, basically, or side two.
00:58:48.060
Photographic, going to Tora, Tora, Tora, and yeah, ending up with Any Second Now.
00:58:52.860
It's a funny thing, maybe it's just I've heard them a million times, but I'm less interested in Just Can't Get Enough, or Dreaming of Me, or New Life.
00:59:04.700
I mean, I do like those songs, but I'm just much more interested in the ones that were, you know, not singles, basically, and they're not trying to sell you a single, or get on the radio.
00:59:18.240
And, yeah, I really like that, that whole photographic moving into, it kind of like, what is it, Sgt. Pepper style, kind of coast into the next track, and I like that quite a bit.
00:59:48.240
I don't think you understand, what I'm trying to say.
01:00:34.880
Yeah, but Puppets is a, it's kind of proto-master and servant, you know?
01:00:45.500
And that's, you know, I think that's something with, if you compare Vince and Martin, Martin's, or Vince's lyrics are subvert, I'm sorry, suggestive, but not subversive.
01:00:59.800
Whereas Martin's are both, I mean, he goes all the way to, you know, the darkest of places.
01:01:09.980
With, you know, as he said before, though, he still offers light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
01:01:15.480
Like, um, I wanted to ask you if, just because this is the first album, if the name Depeche Mode has any, if you think it has any significance.
01:01:27.460
Well, I mean, I think it, it's, I mean, it means, it means fast fashion.
01:01:38.480
And supposedly Martin, or Dave Gahan saw it on a, on a magazine, a fashion magazine or something.
01:01:44.380
Um, I, you know, it's basically, it's the, it's the best translation, like a non-literal translation would be like the latest fad and, or fast fashion, like, you know, I don't know, ready to wear.
01:02:02.360
I, I think those are the connotations that I have.
01:02:05.220
So, it's, it's evoking, it's, it's evoking a kind of poppy 80s, you know, GQ or Vogue magazine thing.
01:02:17.700
And it's interesting because I, I think it will have different connotations.
01:02:22.840
I mean, if you listen to the singles from this album that you, and you understand, you know, it's like, oh yeah, Depeche Mode kind of makes sense, although it is a bit pretentious.
01:02:31.620
So, so is Constitution of Sound, but nothing is as bad as Martin Gore's first band, Norman and the Worms, I believe.
01:02:43.380
But you could also take it in the mode as well.
01:02:46.800
I think it might have a, a connotation of, of, of, of, of being in a, of like a, a sequencer or a, or a synthesized beat, like a mode in that sense.
01:03:01.800
But, you know, I'm kind of being, you know, almost like Jungian here.
01:03:07.220
I'm not, I'm not, I don't think that's, that was necessarily intended.
01:03:11.820
And I think that's kind of the beauty of, of it too, is that it is kind of a da-da throwaway kind of title to call yourself Depeche Mode.
01:03:24.420
And, but I mean, if it is fast fashion or, or hurried fashion, I think this album, it sounds, this album sounds like Depeche Mode, you know, and the translation.
01:03:37.440
Because all of the tracks are, I think the average is 140 BPM, which is definitely a danceable pace.
01:03:46.280
But I mean, some, there's like, I'm trying to think of a faster type of maybe house music or, or like some kind of jazz is probably would average at that 140 BPM.
01:04:01.840
But, and I've also heard it translated as fashion update.
01:04:08.440
And I mean, it's not necessarily a fashion update, but, you know, you could interpret that as more like a musical update, because they certainly were.
01:04:18.400
No one sounds like them, you know, when it's Depeche Mode.
01:04:22.140
Now, from this album, that really, that interpretation wouldn't necessarily fit, because it is, in a lot of ways, standard pop.
01:04:32.460
But I was just curious what you thought about the name.
01:04:37.460
Well, I think also another connotation to it, which is worth mentioning, is, is this continental connotation.
01:04:44.120
So, Depeche Mode has always been most popular in Germany.
01:04:57.080
And they obviously have fans in the United States, but it's never a, it's not a US rock band.
01:05:06.500
And I think it's interesting that they went away from, from something that sounds very English.
01:05:14.660
I think it's very interesting that they went against that.
01:05:18.440
And maybe kind of telling and prophetic in many ways, that they were going to be more popular.
01:05:26.780
With people who don't even speak English, as their first language, at least.
01:05:36.680
I mean, you know, other side of the Berlin Wall.
01:05:48.640
Were there any tracks that you, I don't know, just found bad or almost unlistenable?
01:06:02.480
Um, but I, the, the kind of, like, is it Boy Say Go, where he was, like, you know, P-R-E-T-T-Y.
01:06:20.580
Uh, Vince Clark is apparently not gay, um, although Erasure is a very gay band.
01:06:27.360
I mean, it's hard to listen to those and not think of them as gay songs.
01:06:32.940
And, and also just kind of frivolous gay songs, like, you know, Who's This Pretty Boy?
01:06:43.080
Hey, you're such a pretty boy, hey, you're such a pretty boy, hey, you're such a pretty boy, you're so pretty.
01:06:58.000
I'll kind of, um, again, I like, I, uh, some, many of the songs I'll, I'll turn on, I really like Puppets.
01:07:08.420
I, there, there's some of them that I really do genuinely like.
01:07:11.640
Um, but I would say those, those don't, those are, those are a bit cringe.
01:07:16.180
And then the, you know, like, it's kind of fun and almost, I mean, I guess I joked that it was like the soundtrack to a Soviet knockoff of an American movie or something, but like, there's something kind of fun about it.
01:07:32.600
But the idea of like, if it weren't written by Martin Gore, the idea of like listening to that is, is not happening.
01:07:46.940
You know, I think that is actually, it's like you said, it's kind of fun in a like sixties pop kind of way.
01:07:55.240
I feel like I would have heard the Beatles sing that in like 62 or three or something.
01:07:59.580
Um, but yeah, I, it does, it sounds gay in the original sense, like, uh, kind of frivolous or fun and with a tinge of mischief or whatever.
01:08:16.020
Um, and it also sounds actually gay and it also sounds lame, uh, in all senses of the word gay.
01:08:28.320
Um, yeah, but, uh, yeah, I, I, and I'm, this should come as no surprise.
01:08:37.940
And I think there's one or two songs, but it's just, yeah, it's very major key as is, you know, all of Vince's stuff, but, uh, I don't find it interesting.
01:09:02.100
Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound, I thought, okay, for sure.
01:09:09.640
And it's about like literally wishing you were dead.
01:09:16.920
New night, feel all right, knowing that you are here.
01:09:43.640
And the, and the actual sound, like the opening.
01:09:55.380
It's, it's, uh, it's flawed, but it, you know, it, it got them started.
01:10:01.660
They were perceived as a pop act and, and, and, you know, judging by their singles, that
01:10:10.840
makes a lot of sense, particularly just can't get enough.
01:10:14.380
Um, which is, which is abided, you know, as a song, you hear that at parties that, um, you
01:10:22.800
know, best of the eighties soundtrack albums, you hear it in movies.
01:10:26.820
Sometimes it there, there's something that they were able to evoke with that song that
01:10:39.280
Um, I don't think, you know, they, they had no right to be pretentious in a way.
01:10:44.400
I mean, you have these, these kids out of nowhere, out of the burbs, um, you know, the,
01:10:51.660
the futuristic English version of the burbs doing this, you know, we can look back on this
01:10:56.980
album now and kind of project later things onto it.
01:11:02.980
But if you were listening to it, I don't think you would ever imagine first off that
01:11:08.000
they would sell out stadiums and write anthems and how, and be a 40 year project with a huge
01:11:16.840
I don't think you would ever imagine that they would write enjoy the silence master and
01:11:28.360
I mean, I, you do not, it's hard to imagine them writing those songs, listening to this
01:11:37.120
They're, uh, uh, you know, high school boy band basically.
01:11:48.300
I think that's what their first single was a chart at 57, which, um, you know, they were
01:11:53.360
just happy that it charted at all, but yeah, they're, um, I think that if they were to have
01:12:01.120
carried on with Vince, that they would have had a higher peak, but also, uh, um, a quicker,
01:12:13.220
uh, fall or decline because, you know, it's the song that all these songs are dance songs.
01:12:20.960
They feel like London, 1980, not necessarily like cocaine, but like, they feel like, you
01:12:30.160
Um, and, uh, yeah, I just don't think that there's nothing in, in, uh, Vince's lyrics that are going
01:12:41.580
You can't say, Oh, I'm a really devoted, uh, erasure fan.
01:12:46.620
Like you can say, I'm a really devoted Depeche fan.
01:12:50.400
Um, I think, you know, that's one of, they slowly just built and built and built and then
01:12:58.140
I mean, even in America, people caught on and, and, uh, is more linear.
01:13:04.240
Their progression was, uh, and then for, for, um, like I said, Vince would have wrote, I think
01:13:11.000
it would have been exponential and then, uh, increase and then, uh, exponential, uh, kind
01:13:16.060
He probably would have dumped them later and done some other project as well.
01:13:29.100
Oh, um, I guess we could do a kind of ultimate rating at some point.
01:13:36.600
Would you, would you rank it below broken frame?
01:13:50.360
I really, uh, played the hell out of that when I first, uh, heard it, which is a lot
01:13:58.440
of, yeah, that's a lot of people's dead last Depeche album.
01:14:05.640
And even some albums like spirit might not be terribly high, although I don't know.
01:14:10.820
I'll need to give it a little, listen, would you rank it below exciter?
01:14:21.440
Construction time again is fairly interesting and it's got, you know, a totally classic
01:14:30.080
Um, although there's a lot of filler in that album.
01:14:48.280
It's maybe seven or eight, but, um, yeah, I, I, this is, it's not dead.
01:14:55.640
I think for me, dead last would be sounds of the universe.
01:14:58.920
I just didn't, I didn't, I didn't like, I still don't like wrong.
01:15:09.780
And, and then I'd have to re-listen to Delta Machine because you said that you, you really
01:15:21.720
It's definitely not, I, I like Memento Mori actually a lot more than, certainly a lot more
01:15:28.780
than sounds of the universe and, um, more than spirit as well.
01:15:34.520
So I think there, I think this was actually a really good project for them.
01:15:44.660
It's, it's like, it's like historically relevant or something.
01:15:49.120
It's like it, you know, in the words of Indiana Jones, it belongs in a museum, you know, it's,