Violator!

"Never Let Me Down Again" is, like, one of the gayest pop songs ever. an old flame of mine used to do it to the fuckin track, ffs. DM are a bunch of closet cases.

not that this changes the fact that they rule, and i love them more than almost any other musical group of the past 30 years.

me personally: halo > world in my eyes > waiting for the night > policy of truth > enjoy the silence > clean > personal jesus > blue dress > sweetest perfection

this plus de la soul is dead plus goo = the music i learned to drive to

halo + waiting for the night for me
then the singles
then everything else

straight ppl do drugs also, not sure what's gay about 'never let me down again'

Hoping your best friend doesn't let you down again, which is such an odd sentiment (I'll ignore chatter that the "best friend" is a drug metaphor). I've always thought it was a sound in search of a song.

it's awkward and ungainly, despite the awesome mix and arrangement. The lyrics don't sound finished.

and i guess that i just don't know

AS LONG AS I REMEMBER WHO'S WEARING THE TROUSERS.

i dunno, it seems pretty explicit to me. maybe i'm just biased cuz i used to have great sex to that song all the time.

always thought that song was homoerotic

'I'm taking a ride with my best friend' ffs

The swagger of the arrangement is definitely two bros in a car.

I finished my run today with Halo coming on random. Great track and probably my favorite off Violator. Is there a better sounding live recording of that tour than the SF show?

Halo was robbed here. ROBBED.

i love this remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8onMJT7Os6g

As another Halo stan I'm looking forward to the Depeche Mode tracks poll in a few weeks

"Halo" is ace, no doubt about that.

I always found it a bit of an also-ran compared to the rest of the album. I just wasn't convinced by the lyrical imagery: "a halo in reverse", "a discomfort in your seat" (time to buy a new armchair?), and those terrible "lips of tragedy". I seem to have warmed to it over the years though and I can't criticise it musically - Alfred is certainly otm about that awesome moment when the string swoop right before doubletracked Gahan sings "It will be worth it".

halo is awesome, the end.

the strings!

"halo", along with the rest of this album, has incredible bass parts.

Happy 25th to "Personal Jesus" in particular.

http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/96459898922/as-i-mentioned-in-a-comment-on-facebook-last

I've been "Enjoying" the "Silence" of this band*!

*they're broken up

lol

How is "Blue Dress" not way, way higher?

add another vote to "Halo." have been listening a lot to this album lately.

Probably would've gone 'World In My Eyes'. Nothing approaching a dud on this album though.

Video of their LA concert, 25 years ago today:

http://archives.depechemode.com/video/archives_concert_series/900804_losangeles.html

Unfortunately there are no complete songs, just two minute clips, but still!

i was watching the 'closed circuit feed' clips from Pasadena 88 from the archive site this week. funny seeing the raw footage of that night. Alan Wilder looking a combination of bemused, terrified and thrilled all at once. they look so young too, just like kids almost. no wonder it sent them doolally.

https://vimeo.com/album/2186716/page:2/sort:preset/format:thumbnail

Wonder if the same person recorded Electronic's set from that LA show.

One of the best albums of all time, IMO.

I was at that Los Angeles show. Depeche mode were great, Electronic not so much.

prob the most popular 'modern rock' album for scoring gay pr0n in the '90s

this is my go to for "this thing is so and so many years old but so and so many years before that thomas edison invented the tampon." enjoy the silence my ass. the void is screaming back at you. time is fucked up seriously. there were at least full three cultural cycles in the 1980s by my count but this was barely one and a half cultural cycles ago? the beatles barely got off the plane yet two violators ago. three violators ago people were buying war bonds. this shit was just yesterday.

I've been spending so much time with Spirit this year that I've realised I haven't returned to Violator in a while. Listening to this with that in mind, I'm struck by how different both Gahan's and Gore's voices are now - and not neccessarily for the better either.

Like, Gahan's vocals on Violator are definitely untutored, but the overall sound of his voice is far easier on the ear, I think.

Oh yeah, and I'll always love the way 'Blue Dress' segues into 'Clean' via 'Interlude Nr. 3' ... this is one of those albums where side one is awesome and side two still manages to blow it out of the water.

yeah Gahan's singing is obviously more skilled now but I defintely prefer his old hoarse drone

good god i love "policy of truth"

Yeah, it's probably my favourite track on the album, although it's a tough choice!

This thread inspired me to listen to the whole album end to end for the first time in god knows how long, and Jesus Christ it’s all killer isn’t it? The sound design is so much more detailed than I remember it, a weird collage of familiar 90s presets with textbook Fairlight sampling. And correct me if I’m wrong; but there weren’t many electronic bands at that point embracing 6/8 the way DM did?

Side note: me and a friend covered Policy of Truth for an 8-bit compilation a couple of years back: https://8bitoperators.bandcamp.com/track/policy-of-truth

it really does sound incredible... flood is an iron chef here.
i was thinking about that cascading feedback/e-bowing that closes "policy of truth".. it's an amazing sound and it's mixed so well.

Francois Kervorkian mixed the album and apparently he was really anal about it - there's stories about the band listening in to him mixing and all they can hear is a hi-hat or something and they're thinking "what is he doing!?"

*Kevorkian, sorry.

He also mixed Kraftwerk's Electric Cafe.

Violator is the last good Depeche Mode album

"Kervorkian" is the misspelling they used in the Violator liner notes iirc

ut i stand by "enjoy the silence" because i could write thesis about it

― max, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 1:00 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why because it footnote interstin

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 1:00 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i sang Policy of Truth at karaoke tonight....the song is just fuckin infectious

xxpost:

Yeah, it's understandable to think that. Violator represents a peak of sorts - the one it was all leading up to, and the one that everything after was in the shadow of. I still think Songs of Faith and Devotion and Ultra are great records, though - and generally see 1984-1998 as one long extended period of greatness. After that, it gets spotty.

As of last week, "Personal Jesus" is now thirty years old.

Your own
Middle-aged
Jesus

I have a good friend, a bit older than me, who used to be at least a casual fan of Depeche Mode throughout the '80s... until Violator! I can't really conceive of that album being the jump-ship point. He reserves a huge hunk of animus for "Personal Jesus," specifically.