par God is laughing » 31 Oct 2006, 23:43
Review du magazine anglais "Q" :
HELL'S ANGELS
From Basildon to bondage and beyond
Depeche Mode
The Best of Volume 1
**** Q Recommends
Few bands do "apocalyptic " quite like Depeche Mode.When BBC producers were looking for a soundtrack for a recent news report on the Blair/Brown fued, there was no other option. The two New Labour heavyweights sat side by side in the back of a car, visibly uncomfortable, all to the strains of Never Let Me Down Again, a highlight of 1987's breakthrough Music For The Masses. Over the years Martin Gore's lyric - "I'm taking a ride/with my best friend...Promises me i'm as safe as houses/As long as i remember who's wearing the trousers" - has been variously interpreted as a nod to drugs, sex or his dysfunctional relationship with singer Dave Gahan. But the most tortuous political rivalry of our age?
Depeche Mode are no ordinary band of course. How many fresh faced synth poppers from Basildon have grown, via stadium goth anthems, tattoos and bondage trousers, into the worlds biggest electronic band, with 72 million record sales to their name, and a mythology of self -destruction on a par with that of Guns and Roses.
This compilation cherry picks from the 38 tracks available on The Singles 81>85 and 86>98 as well as recent albums Exciter and Playing The Angel. New track Martyr aside , there is little for the die - hard fans, but what is here is fantastic.
The non chronological sequencing jumps from the stentorian Personal Jesus to chirpy Vince Clarke- era Just Can't Get Enough; overall it gives a lie to the idea of a career divided into distinct teenybopper/serious phases. As early as 1984,Depeche Mode were singing about S+M on Master And Servant and employing Satan's own drumkit for People Are People.
Creatively , the band has coasted since the exit of arranger/editor Alan Wilder in 1995 but their peak period combination of growling rhythm , ear snagging textures and Gahan singing in the manner of a man stretched out on a rack remains hard to beat.
Rob Fearn
22/06/23 LILLE - 24/06/23 PARIS - 04/07/23 BORDEAUX - 03/03/24 PARIS - 05/03/24 PARIS- 08/04/24 COLOGNE