RadixJournal - Depeche Mode： Speak & Spell

00:00:00.000 I spent still stepping on a shady street

00:00:27.680 And I watched that man to a stranger

00:00:30.260 Think you only know me when you turn on the light

00:00:33.740 Now the room is lit with danger

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.

00:00:45.300 How were you listening to it?

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

00:00:59.000 With the Just Can't Get Enough remix.

00:01:02.200 Yes.

00:01:02.660 So I'm not listening to it.

00:01:04.440 The original version was 11 tracks, correct?

00:01:08.360 I think so.

00:01:10.520 Your vinyl, I would imagine, is 11 tracks.

00:01:14.280 No, my vinyl here is 12.

00:01:17.240 Okay.

00:01:17.900 Was there one song that wasn't on it?

00:01:22.700 I believe, yeah, Dreaming of Me, their first single,

00:01:25.880 Wasn't technically on.

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.

00:01:40.040 That's interesting.

00:01:41.080 Ice Machine is not on this.

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

00:01:55.800 And let him listen?

00:01:57.100 Yeah.

00:01:57.660 So he's younger than I am.

00:01:59.580 He's about 10 years younger than I am.

00:02:01.640 And he was not impressed.

00:02:04.540 I mean, he just said, this sounds old kind of thing.

00:02:08.040 Really?

00:02:08.360 Yeah, I don't, look, I think when people go back, Zoomers go back to listen to older music, 0.99

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

00:02:48.700 full-on vinyl hipsterdom.

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

00:03:00.880 starting my collection.

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.

00:03:21.960 So it's just like weird collector's market.

00:03:25.560 There probably is a rhyme and reason to all of it.

00:03:27.920 But at first glance, it's pretty odd.

00:03:31.120 But I was joking to her.

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

00:03:49.000 of Beatles and Elvis, Indiegata La Vida.

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

00:04:09.380 separated by 15 years.

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.

00:04:23.620 Right.

00:04:24.280 Yeah.

00:04:25.220 Your parents were mine.

00:04:26.360 And I probably would have rated that.

00:04:28.080 I would have loved to have had like an Abbey Road, you know, original pressing.

00:04:33.600 That would have been incredible.

00:04:34.840 I'm sure they gave it away at a garage sale or something.

00:04:37.140 That's what I was joking.

00:04:38.020 I was like, I don't, I mean, who knows?

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,

00:04:56.720 I think a lot of that has to do with sampling.

00:05:00.000 Like a lot of, especially like rap producers, you know, they'll sample the entire loop of

00:05:05.380 a song.

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.

00:05:29.520 But I think that might explain some of it.

00:05:32.140 Certainly couldn't explain all of it.

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.

00:05:54.560 Yeah.

00:05:54.740 I'm sure these are going for a lot.

00:05:56.960 It's, um, you know, a lot of this vintage stuff though.

00:06:00.540 I don't know.

00:06:01.000 At the same time, you've, you've got to want it.

00:06:02.900 There has to be a market for it.

00:06:04.380 It, you know, like there's a, a global market for vintage cars.

00:06:09.040 There's a global market for vintage watches.

00:06:12.220 Uh, there's a global market for vinyl because, because you have these collectors, some of

00:06:16.960 whom are willing to pay.

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,

00:06:30.120 uh, vanishes.

00:06:32.040 It becomes, you know, garage sale fodder.

00:06:34.820 But anyway, it's fascinating stuff.

00:06:38.820 So I was, I, it's funny.

00:06:40.540 Mark Brahman is, is here visiting and he's staying and he, I was listening to the album just in

00:06:45.780 a room, uh, of the house and, uh, on vinyl.

00:06:50.020 And, uh, he was actually remarking.

00:06:51.780 He had the opposite impression.

00:06:53.280 I mean, he's, he's a, he's slightly older than I am.

00:06:55.520 And, uh, you know, I'm in my mid forties.

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,

00:07:08.760 but it was more experimental and fun.

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.

00:07:29.420 He, he was, he was, you know, impressed by it.

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

00:07:37.000 your age.

00:07:37.300 Yeah, definitely.

00:08:00.100 It feels like they were tinkering, you know?

00:08:03.040 I mean, yeah, it doesn't, it's yeah.

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.

00:08:20.840 Yes.

00:08:21.880 Dave's voice is pretty interesting.

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,

00:08:30.780 his voice lowered and darkened.

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.

00:09:04.980 Is that the one song he added?

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.

00:09:22.760 From that era.

00:09:23.940 Yeah.

00:09:24.880 Oh, definitely.

00:09:26.000 Yeah.

00:09:26.340 It could have been in, uh, what's that?

00:09:28.220 Battlestar Galactica, but.

00:09:30.200 Something like that.

00:09:31.060 Yeah.

00:09:48.820 Dave has not matured.

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.

00:09:56.700 He's got, he's a baritone.

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.

00:10:10.160 You associate a higher voice.

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.

00:10:23.620 I mean, Dave is definitely indispensable.

00:10:25.060 You can't just bring someone on to sing it.

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.

00:10:37.160 You don't have that without Dave.

00:10:40.760 And I don't think he's there yet.

00:10:42.540 He sounds like he, you know, he is.

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?

00:10:55.900 Yeah.

00:10:56.040 Um, but so, yeah, as far as his voice, it's definitely, it's, it's softer too.

00:11:01.720 And I'd say the same thing about Broken Frame.

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.

00:11:37.780 Yeah.

00:11:38.740 Yeah.

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.

00:11:47.200 There is something very poppy.

00:11:48.860 And that's how they, this album was perceived.

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.

00:12:23.260 In her room.

00:12:25.980 And I think she was actually playing vinyl.

00:12:28.460 So it was, it was very early.

00:12:29.800 I mean, I think I heard them around 85 or so.

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.

00:13:05.460 And it really, it was pre-violator.

00:13:09.620 And, um, let me actually call it up real quick.

00:13:13.120 Yeah. 0.84

00:13:13.340 The, the one that, uh, they shot where, uh, Martin's like nipple is out. 0.73

00:13:18.820 And yeah. 0.63

00:13:19.440 Yeah.

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.

00:13:38.620 Yes.

00:13:39.820 So, um, oh, it was from 1985.

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.

00:14:03.300 It's called a heart.

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.

00:14:12.540 I believe that was just a circle.

00:14:14.080 It is not.

00:14:14.860 Yeah.

00:14:15.020 Yeah.

00:14:15.300 It is not.

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.

00:14:39.440 This is what Depeche Mode sounds like.

00:14:42.360 Um, but yeah.

00:14:44.200 Uh, and, uh, but that, that was my perspective then.

00:14:49.020 Yeah.

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

00:15:04.740 the Silence.

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

00:15:20.380 been the first album.

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.

00:15:30.080 I mean, even Violator.

00:15:32.560 Now with a song like Enjoy the Silence or Policy of Truth, I was immediately impressed by those.

00:15:36.860 Yeah.

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.

00:15:48.660 Basically, I had to grow on me.

00:15:50.480 Yes.

00:15:51.400 And I think I, I've, it did happen to grow on me.

00:15:54.560 I'm in it.

00:15:55.300 It's one of those weird things.

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

00:16:35.740 repetition, the, you know, maybe it was strep.

00:16:39.100 It was a song like that.

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.

00:16:50.140 I'd heard that.

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.

00:17:15.440 Uh, that that's fun.

00:17:17.900 Um, new life is pretty good.

00:17:20.300 Dreaming of me is pretty catchy.

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

00:18:10.800 of that era.

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.

00:18:22.760 Yeah.

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

00:18:55.440 for them ever?

00:18:57.440 Right.

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

00:19:23.160 for sure.

00:19:23.520 But it's also like in America, something like Van Halen or the police rock and roll, uh,

00:19:30.020 was, was definitely dominating.

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.

00:19:47.500 Rock and roll.

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

00:20:27.260 synth, there weren't other synth pop groups.

00:20:29.560 I mean, there were plenty on mute records.

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.

00:20:49.760 I, I don't know if I was ever ready for them.

00:20:52.740 And I don't know this past album.

00:20:54.700 I don't know if I was ready for it.

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

00:21:00.460 a seven and a half out of 10.

00:21:02.180 This is a nine and a half out of 10.

00:21:03.760 I didn't notice this, you know, whatever it was, it didn't click.

00:21:06.800 And, and that can happen.

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.

00:21:42.120 Yeah, definitely.

00:21:43.020 Definitely.

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

00:22:02.280 tracks and so on.

00:22:04.880 Uh, so I mentioned Basildon earlier in this podcast, and I mentioned it on the Memento

00:22:10.980 Mori one as well.

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

00:22:36.040 of these kinds of things.

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

00:23:21.660 kind of fan books on some level.

00:23:24.380 Like they, you go album by album more or less, and they interview a lot of people, interview

00:23:30.440 a lot of people who are there.

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.

00:24:11.640 And, uh, he goes into a lot of that.

00:24:13.480 So I would actually recommend that he goes into like the building of, you know, the building

00:24:17.840 of the town and all that kind of stuff.

00:24:19.940 Um, but, uh, one of the things that I did find interesting that he also stressed was the

00:24:26.680 religiosity.

00:24:27.800 So they really met at church or at Sunday school or at the very least, um, uh, uh, Fletch

00:24:39.180 met Vince Clark.

00:24:41.280 Uh, and it was actually a Methodist church.

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

00:24:51.720 and he was influential.

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

00:25:04.100 and shops.

00:25:05.500 Fryer's Baptist church, for instance, opened in 1954 and he goes onto it.

00:25:09.860 St.

00:25:10.120 Martin.

00:25:10.340 So they, they had some church of England, but then the, there was, there seemed to be a

00:25:14.540 kind of Methodist quality to, um, their work.

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

00:25:24.020 time.

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.

00:25:36.300 But do you think there's something else there?

00:25:40.480 Yeah, uh, I do.

00:25:41.940 I, I, I do considering Martin's writing.

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.

00:26:43.940 I mean, that can happen.

00:26:45.960 Um, just, you know, speaking from experience, uh, but yeah, I think.

00:26:51.160 Yeah.

00:26:51.500 I think Martin's writing is deeply religious.

00:26:54.640 Yes.

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 0.90

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?

00:27:25.920 Like, and it's hard to articulate.

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. 0.96

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. 0.90

00:28:20.540 I can't even remember what it's about, but it's all this kind of knowing. 0.99

00:28:24.540 Like I'm a bad bitch and you're going to fall in love with me. 1.00

00:28:28.000 He, he is how I would basically describe her music. 0.99

00:28:33.400 And I don't even think I'm being uncharitable.

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

00:29:08.660 very least risible.

00:29:11.180 And I don't think that, you know, there's a new game.

00:29:15.880 We like to play.

00:29:16.520 You see a game with added reality.

00:29:19.520 You treat me like a dog.

00:29:21.220 Get me down on my knees. 0.86

00:29:22.280 Let's play.

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. 0.98

00:29:45.760 If you're not coming from a place, like if you're just a basic bitch, like Taylor Swift, 1.00

00:29:52.680 none of these things matter to you. 0.99

00:29:55.820 Do you see what I mean?

00:29:57.740 Right.

00:29:58.360 Yeah.

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.

00:30:10.980 That's what I've heard.

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

00:30:45.940 here the whole time, if you could see.

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

00:31:01.740 kind of.

00:31:02.740 But, but only in the most shallow conceivable.

00:31:05.520 Yeah, exactly.

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.

00:31:20.860 These are like famous people.

00:31:22.140 I can't, God only knows who, what actors.

00:31:25.440 And it's like, who cares?

00:31:26.800 Who cares?

00:31:27.500 Yeah.

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.

00:31:33.920 There, there is mystery in it.

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

00:31:47.740 about this before.

00:31:48.340 That's how all music is.

00:31:49.400 It's like very consolidated.

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.

00:32:01.880 Yeah.

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

00:32:38.880 frame is a really great album cover.

00:32:41.680 It looks like a painting.

00:32:43.740 Anyway, I would say today, obviously it's easier than it ever has been to just produce

00:32:51.120 your own music.

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.

00:33:03.160 And that's great on some level.

00:33:04.600 But I do, I would say that they're reading this, there, there just seemed to be this

00:33:09.420 like, what's the right word?

00:33:11.660 Like implausible, how did this even work?

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

00:33:39.360 it.

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.

00:34:03.100 They had to go perform the music and so on.

00:34:05.160 But again, the, the kind of ease to get a record pressed and the, the, the personal,

00:34:12.780 you know, connection you had.

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.

00:34:25.380 Mm-hmm.

00:34:26.560 And people would actually buy your records.

00:34:30.780 Right.

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

00:35:13.720 get our, uh, a deal.

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 0.70

00:35:40.200 think they thought themselves as musicians were rubbish and they might not be the best. 0.69

00:35:45.540 I think we could agree about that. 0.78

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

00:36:19.140 everything about them is, uh, humble.

00:36:22.680 And as we know, humility is a Christian virtue.

00:36:26.380 Yeah.

00:36:27.520 Yes.

00:36:28.800 Uh, yeah.

00:36:29.700 And I think they were humble by nature.

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,

00:36:45.080 um, and very driven to make music.

00:36:48.540 Yeah.

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

00:37:13.720 contemporaries?

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.

00:37:32.860 We won't tour it though.

00:37:34.020 You know?

00:37:34.400 Yeah.

00:37:34.580 I mean, not until you get to ultra.

00:37:36.160 I, I think that's part of it.

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

00:37:49.760 that.

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.

00:38:18.580 No, I mean, I, I don't know.

00:38:19.940 I don't think it's that simple.

00:38:21.140 I mean, I, I, I, I think it's the types of people you're around who are attracted to

00:38:26.100 that religion.

00:38:26.580 But, um, yeah, I think also the synthesizers were a way of getting away with lesser musicianship,

00:38:35.100 to be honest.

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.

00:39:10.280 So this, this is Jonathan Miller's book.

00:39:14.900 Uh, let me just see when that was, this, uh, came out in 2003 and then there was a kind

00:39:21.360 of updated one in 2008.

00:39:22.680 Um, yeah, so Clark said this at, to, uh, Paul Colbert, I'm sure this was like a magazine

00:39:31.780 interview.

00:39:32.700 It lost its enthusiasm.

00:39:34.280 It was turning into a factory production line.

00:39:36.880 And that was worrying me.

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.

00:39:45.580 We were too busy, blah, blah, blah.

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.

00:40:06.600 So it was total ego on my part.

00:40:08.760 That's the honest answer.

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.

00:40:24.540 You're not really being virtuosic at all.

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

00:40:55.100 way on the side of the road.

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.

00:41:15.280 And, but he's just his own man, really.

00:41:18.820 I was just going to say, he recently released his first solo album, which I've not listened

00:41:23.900 to, but I, I know that he did release it.

00:41:26.760 I want to say within the last month.

00:41:30.080 Oh, interesting.

00:41:31.660 Yeah.

00:41:32.900 But go check that out.

00:41:34.560 Yeah.

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.

00:41:51.080 I mean, it's, I, he, he missed that train.

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

00:42:03.440 that the band would go under.

00:42:04.800 And I think Daniel Miller kind of wanted to keep it going.

00:42:07.720 The bandmates 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,

00:42:14.900 well, Vince is the driving force.

00:42:16.200 Like he can do anything.

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.

00:42:30.580 And secondly, not nearly been as successful.

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.

00:42:45.800 I don't really see it.

00:42:48.700 And so it's a, it's a very curious thing.

00:42:52.040 I think he preferred the studio.

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

00:43:10.860 either.

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,

00:43:49.720 I'll have this keyboard.

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

00:44:34.300 sound, I, I think it was before sampling.

00:44:39.000 I mean, sampling was very, very limited, but they're kind of, it's almost like, um, a Dada 0.98

00:44:46.900 or something like that.

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

00:44:57.100 whole thing's computerized.

00:44:58.460 It's not necessarily that, but it is basically to put it in like economic terms, it's kind

00:45:04.820 of replacing labor with capital.

00:45:06.900 Yeah.

00:45:07.280 And it's all their program.

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,

00:45:24.580 uh, or, uh, Andy's.

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

00:45:56.480 almost.

00:45:57.020 Oh yeah.

00:45:57.200 It's hardly ever completely, uh, live.

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

00:46:12.940 is, this isn't even music kind of thing.

00:46:17.700 Yeah.

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

00:46:43.040 me.

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,

00:46:52.400 it's just.

00:46:52.760 You hear that a lot actually in their fifties bebop or something.

00:46:56.820 Mm-hmm.

00:46:57.520 Um, it's, you know, it's predictable.

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,

00:47:32.860 uh, what is it?

00:47:34.000 Light switch, man switch.

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.

00:47:55.040 Filming and screening, I picture the scene.

00:48:02.600 Filming and dreaming.

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.

00:48:32.120 Views tomorrow, dancing with a distant friend.

00:48:35.960 Filming and screening, I picture the scene filming and dreaming, dreaming of me.

00:48:40.300 Yeah, um, there's something there.

00:48:42.920 Uh, I, I, I think it's kind of interesting.

00:48:45.640 So this is also from, uh, stripped.

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.

00:49:16.900 Martin Gore.

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.

00:49:23.220 Vince Clark.

00:49:23.800 There was no meaning in the songs at all.

00:49:25.900 Nothing. 1.00

00:49:26.580 They were very stupid lyrics, you know. 1.00

00:49:28.060 Um, I'm not sure I totally agree with him though. 1.00

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.

00:50:11.840 Like the tape is your voice.

00:50:13.600 The map represents this little Baudrillard.

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.

00:51:01.040 I take pictures.

00:51:08.480 Photographic pictures.

00:51:11.080 Bright lights.

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. 0.69

00:51:50.880 Uh, from the skies, you could almost hear the cry Torah, Torah, Torah in the town.

00:51:56.280 They were going down Torah, Torah, Torah. 0.64

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.

00:52:07.780 I, I had a nightmare only yesterday.

00:52:10.280 You played a skeleton.

00:52:11.980 You took my love, then died that day.

00:52:14.300 I played an American.

00:52:16.440 So it's, I, I don't even know what he's saying there.

00:52:19.480 Exactly.

00:52:19.960 It's just like images of a skeleton woman.

00:52:22.200 It's all a dream, basically, but it's a dream of Pearl Harbor.

00:52:25.820 And then he's saying, I played an American.

00:52:28.160 And then he repeats that.

00:52:29.780 I played an American.

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?

00:52:51.660 From the skies, you could almost see the cry.

00:52:55.820 Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, in the time of love going down.

00:53:03.980 Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, I don't know.

00:53:12.980 I like it, actually.

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.

00:53:28.900 But it, I actually think it's cool.

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.

00:53:50.620 I like it, actually.

00:53:51.600 It is my model, and she looks good.

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?

00:54:53.420 And his first song is about death.

00:54:57.420 You know, I mean, if Martin writes about death, then maybe you could say that Vince writes about, like, rebirth.

00:55:04.200 He just writes about happy things.

00:55:05.620 I mean, I'm trying to squeeze that into Eastern terms.

00:55:08.680 That seems to be what he writes about.

00:55:13.140 Yeah.

00:55:15.920 But when he says, I had a nightmare only yesterday.

00:55:19.480 You played a skeleton.

00:55:20.540 You took my love and died that day.

00:55:22.380 I played an American.

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...

00:56:31.280 Semitone, yeah.

00:56:32.620 Yeah, it's only a semitone away.

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.

00:57:02.320 What is your favorite?

00:57:03.780 It would have to be, what is it called?

00:57:06.760 Any Second Now.

00:57:09.220 Martin sings it, but Vince wrote it.

00:57:12.200 She is hoping to forget, and the moment almost slips away.

00:57:18.540 I actually think those lyrics are really good.

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.

00:58:34.280 So, I think that is my favorite.

00:58:36.680 What about you?

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.

00:59:34.900 Puppets is also a great song, I like that.

00:59:37.700 It's just so weird, you know, I'm in control.

00:59:46.380 Yeah, it's great.

00:59:48.240 I don't think you understand, what I'm trying to say.

01:00:12.920 I like all the non-singles, basically. 0.79

01:00:34.880 Yeah, but Puppets is a, it's kind of proto-master and servant, you know?

01:00:41.920 Yeah, definitely.

01:00:42.760 I'll be your operator, baby, I'm in control.

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.

01:01:09.860 Yeah.

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.

01:01:34.960 So, it's French, obviously.

01:01:37.260 None of them spoke French.

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.

01:02:41.460 Extremely quirky.

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.

01:03:58.720 You know, very, you feel the youth.

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.

01:04:49.560 If they have a fan base, it's there.

01:04:52.020 It's on the continent.

01:04:53.740 And it's not in England.

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. 1.00

01:05:31.560 Mm-hmm.

01:05:33.200 And then, very popular in the East.

01:05:36.680 I mean, you know, other side of the Berlin Wall.

01:05:39.680 Yes.

01:05:39.960 This is very interesting.

01:05:46.200 Oh, that's what I was going to ask, though.

01:05:48.640 Were there any tracks that you, I don't know, just found bad or almost unlistenable?

01:05:56.800 Uh, I would say Big Muff is, is pretty cringe.

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. 1.00

01:06:14.080 Pretty Boy, what's your name?

01:06:15.680 Oh, what's your name is Pretty Boy.

01:06:17.180 Yeah.

01:06:17.800 It definitely does.

01:06:19.120 I mean, these are Vince Clark sounds.

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. 0.67

01:06:32.940 And, and also just kind of frivolous gay songs, like, you know, Who's This Pretty Boy? 0.84

01:06:37.440 Walking Around Basildon, or whatever. 0.84

01:06:39.840 I mean, it's just, uh, a bit cringe.

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.

01:06:55.300 And not great.

01:06:56.280 Yeah.

01:06:56.420 Not songs I really want to listen to.

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.

01:07:04.400 Um, uh, uh, you know, Tora, Tora, Tora.

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.

01:07:40.100 I, I, I think, uh, what's your name?

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. 0.81

01:08:14.520 Right.

01:08:14.860 It sounds like that. 0.97

01:08:16.020 Um, and it also sounds actually gay and it also sounds lame, uh, in all senses of the word gay. 0.97

01:08:25.360 Yes. 0.97

01:08:26.020 Yeah. 0.93

01:08:26.500 It's, it's, it's really gay. 1.00

01:08:28.320 Um, yeah, but, uh, yeah, I, I, and I'm, this should come as no surprise.

01:08:34.580 I'm definitely not really an erasure fan.

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.

01:08:49.680 Um, it's yeah.

01:08:51.100 In the song, sometimes I wish I was dead.

01:08:55.240 Um, it's a bizarre title for that song.

01:08:58.700 Yeah.

01:08:59.680 That was a bad thing to type into Google.

01:09:02.100 Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound, I thought, okay, for sure.

01:09:08.440 Martin wrote that song.

01:09:09.420 Right.

01:09:09.640 And it's about like literally wishing you were dead.

01:09:12.080 Nope.

01:09:12.440 It's just new day.

01:09:14.340 Turn away.

01:09:15.300 Yeah.

01:09:15.420 Wipe away the tear.

01:09:16.920 New night, feel all right, knowing that you are here.

01:09:21.240 Yeah.

01:09:21.480 It's, it's not great.

01:09:34.860 It's not good.

01:09:35.980 It doesn't, but it doesn't even say, you know.

01:09:39.480 No, it's just bizarre title for a song.

01:09:42.220 Yeah.

01:09:42.360 Yes.

01:09:42.820 Yeah.

01:09:43.640 And the, and the actual sound, like the opening.

01:09:46.920 It's kind of like, yeah, it's just goofy.

01:09:51.320 Um, there's a lot of going on.

01:09:53.200 Yeah.

01:09:54.980 Yeah.

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

01:10:31.520 really speaks to the time.

01:10:32.900 And that's, you know, interesting.

01:10:35.360 Um, but that's how they were perceived.

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

01:11:16.140 fan base.

01:11:16.840 I don't think you would ever imagine that they would write enjoy the silence master and

01:11:23.560 servant, the momenti mori album, um, precious.

01:11:28.360 I mean, I, you do not, it's hard to imagine them writing those songs, listening to this

01:11:33.660 album.

01:11:36.420 Yeah.

01:11:37.120 They're, uh, uh, you know, high school boy band basically.

01:11:41.640 Uh, but, but very, very, very good.

01:11:45.480 Good enough, uh, to chart number 57.

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

01:12:27.400 know, fun.

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

01:12:40.160 to create a cult.

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.

01:12:50.040 Right.

01:12:50.400 Um, I think, you know, that's one of, they slowly just built and built and built and then

01:12:56.980 people caught on.

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

01:13:15.760 of decline.

01:13:16.060 He probably would have dumped them later and done some other project as well.

01:13:20.460 Yeah.

01:13:20.900 Uh, I do have a question.

01:13:25.240 Do you rank this as dead last for them?

01:13:29.100 Oh, um, I guess we could do a kind of ultimate rating at some point.

01:13:35.020 Would you rank it?

01:13:36.600 Would you, would you rank it below broken frame?

01:13:43.340 Would you rank it?

01:13:44.800 Yeah.

01:13:45.320 You would.

01:13:45.980 Okay.

01:13:46.400 Interesting.

01:13:47.180 Certainly.

01:13:47.880 I, yeah, I enjoyed, uh, broken for actually.

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.

01:14:03.360 Um, but yeah.

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?

01:14:18.340 Yes.

01:14:19.180 Yeah.

01:14:19.420 Okay.

01:14:20.360 I would.

01:14:21.440 Construction time again is fairly interesting and it's got, you know, a totally classic

01:14:25.720 song in it.

01:14:27.380 Everything counts.

01:14:30.080 Um, although there's a lot of filler in that album.

01:14:35.440 I, uh, okay.

01:14:36.800 I, I like it a lot, but, um, yeah.

01:14:40.520 Okay.

01:14:41.020 I can, yeah.

01:14:42.180 Relatively speaking.

01:14:43.240 Sure.

01:14:43.920 I would, I'd say middle of the road for them.

01:14:45.700 That's what construction time is.

01:14:47.740 Okay.

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.

01:15:02.940 Um, yeah.

01:15:04.560 Uh, uh, I, I, um, but yeah.

01:15:09.780 And, and then I'd have to re-listen to Delta Machine because you said that you, you really

01:15:17.620 liked it, or at least you did like it.

01:15:19.700 No, I, I, I did, I do like it.

01:15:21.400 Yeah.

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.

01:15:33.020 Although I, I kind of like spirit.

01:15:34.520 So I think there, I think this was actually a really good project for them.

01:15:40.540 Um, but I don't know.

01:15:42.800 It's, it's hard.

01:15:43.580 It's just such a piece.

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,

01:15:55.160 it's like, you can't get away from it.

01:15:57.420 It's part of the story.

01:16:14.660 It's like you can't get away from it.

01:16:15.900 It's like you could do it again.

01:16:18.700 Ah.

01:16:20.980 It's like you can't ever get back.

01:16:22.340 I'll be through my head secretly

01:16:38.720 Shouting the boys in the factory

01:16:42.260 I'll read you on the telephone silently

01:16:45.800 Life not like a wine in the dark sea

01:16:52.340 It's our first day, it's our first day

01:16:58.420 But I thought once before

01:17:07.640 Seven years old and I thought it was true

01:17:11.380 In the next, I'll be through all

01:17:14.760 It's a show, it's a show

01:17:17.880 It's a show

01:17:22.500 It's a show

01:17:26.000 It's a show

01:17:34.120 And the feeling

01:17:37.160 On my window

01:17:41.040 The bond reunion

01:17:45.200 And the rest of the feeling

01:17:49.660 On my window

01:17:51.660 Of the party union

01:17:54.000 The mission of our picture

01:17:56.820 Like the city

01:17:58.700 And the air we breathe

01:18:01.660 The family

01:18:05.500 The family

01:18:06.440 The family

01:18:06.960 The family

01:18:07.820 The family

01:18:08.680 The family

01:18:09.280 The family

01:18:09.640 The family

01:18:09.900 The family

01:18:11.080 The family

01:18:11.320 The family

01:18:11.520 The family

01:18:12.460 The building

01:18:13.180 The family

01:18:13.240 The family

01:18:14.340 The family

01:18:15.620 The family

01:18:16.460 The family

01:18:16.840 The family

01:18:18.340 The family

01:18:18.540 There's some

01:18:19.320 The family

01:18:20.080 The family

01:18:20.920 The family

01:18:21.380 The family

01:18:22.380 The family

01:18:22.940 The family

01:18:22.960 The family

01:18:23.440 The family

01:18:23.960 The family

01:18:25.460 The family

01:18:26.100 The family

RadixJournal - November 22, 2023

Depeche Mode： Speak & Spell

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