Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Depeche Mode over the years

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I have been a fan of Depeche Mode for more than 30 years now. I discovered them thanks to a friend in 1985 when I was in Form I and I have been addicted to their music and lyrics since then. Depeche Mode released their first album, Speak & Spell, in 1981 and the 14th, Spirit, was released only a few weeks ago.

Below are the different eras of Depeche Mode. For me, the best era was from 1984 to 1990 with four mythical albums Some Great Reward, Black Celebration, Music for the Masses and Violator. What about you?

The formative years

The albums are:

  • Speak & Spell (1981)
  • A Broken Frame (1982)
  • Construction Time Again (1983)

Characterised by the presence of Vince Clarke (of Yazoo and Erasure fame) at the beginning and, following his departure in 1981, the recruitment of Alan Wilder in 1982. Here are all the songs of this era sorted by popularity on Last.fm:

The world domination era

According to me, this is when Depeche Mode created their best ever albums:

  • Some Great Reward (1984)
  • Black Celebration (1986)
  • Music for the Masses (1987)
  • Violator (1990)

The music of Martin Gore and the vocals of Dave Gahan were at their top. And the production skills of Alan Wilder as well as the managerial skills of Andrew Fletcher. During these six years, Depeche Mode became the most popular electronic group in the world, sold millions and millions of albums and even, in 1987, conquered the USA.

Here are all the songs of this era sorted by popularity on Last.fm:

The drug addiction era

Following the phenomenal success of Violator in 1990, things started to go very wrong. Dave Gahan fell into drug addiction and the various members of the group started drifting apart. During this difficult era, two albums were released, one with Alan Wilder and one without his musical and production skills as he left Depeche Mode in 1995. The albums are:

  • Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993)
  • Ultra (1997)

Here are all the songs of this era sorted by popularity on Last.fm:

The new millenium

This period is characterised by a number of elements: Dave Gahan stops taking drugs but, according to a lot of people, his voice seems strained when singing live, the music, while good, gets a bit less inspired (even though Playing the Angel is very well regarded) and, most importantly, a lot of filler tracks are inserted in the albums which are:

  • Exciter (2001)
  • Playing the Angel (2005)
  • Sounds of the Universe (2008)
  • Delta Machine (2013)

Here are all the songs of this era sorted by popularity on Last.fm:

The revival?

Spirit was released two months ago and, dare I say, it is a very good album. Some say that it is as good as Playing the Angel released in 2005 but, personally, I like it better. The album is:

  • Spirit (2017)

and here are all the songs from this album sorted by popularity on Last.fm:

Not bad at all for a bunch of oldies born in the 60s :-)

For posterity, here are our top 20 Depeche Mode songs since we started tracking our listening patterns on Last.fm in 2005:

Precious, Suffer Well and John the Revelator were personal favourites of Kyan and Anya when they were little kids. We have cute videos of them singing and dancing to those songs in their nappies but they’ll kill us if we put those online…

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