I Said I'd Write A Ballot, But I Never Got The Time -- ILM Artist Poll #18 -- DEPECHE MODE (voting thread)

Guess I better vote in this!

Good pic up top crüt. Marin Gore's gross pube beard...it's something.

I love "But Not Tonight," esp since they were mad at it being a single. "Hey we're dark now, ok? Just ignore this."

I voted, 80s singles heavy ballot, but also included this. I assume remixes will be tallied seperately?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSj60wOfKKM

yeah singles heavy for me too, I have probably listened to those singles albums MORE THAN ANY OTHER ALBUM EVER

shoutout here to their awesomely unfortunate early videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWK7QLvuI-I

love that they were too passive to point out Wilder is not the lead singer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEoU0pgnFNc

puppets!

VH1 had a Depeche Mode Weekend?

I housesat for an elderly coworker once who, for some reason, had a VHS taped of a MuchMusic Depeche Mode Weekend. Videos, interviews, and an veejay who seemed really annoyed to have to keep announcing that Weird Al was going to take over MuchMusic next weekend. Also a breaking announcement that Anthony Burgess just died. It was...the greatest!

it's weird with DM because the 7 inches/singles were sometimes edited versions of 12 inch mixes that were in a few cases q radically altered versions of the album tracks.
i'm thinking of Behind The Wheel and Question Of Time.

I'm finding this quite tough because beyond the singles, which I already know, the tracks are all blending into one lovely whole. I can't remember one track while another's playing, which is hopeless for ranking things (and sounds like more of a criticism than it really is!). I've got about 32 tracks primed, cutting beyond that seems virtually impossible.

Hopefully this will get a decent amount of votes. Amazing vocal and the strings at the end still give me chills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K65PQiFfsrU

seconded. one of gore's best vocals.

it's weird with DM because the 7 inches/singles were sometimes edited versions of 12 inch mixes that were in a few cases q radically altered versions of the album tracks.

I voted for both the 7" and album version of my favorite single of theirs. ha!

Blasphemous Rumours is rather hilarious and great

'But Not Tonight' will certainly not make my ballot, and neither will 'Enjoy The Silence' or 'Personal Jesus'.

I'm sorry!

only 7 days to do this? heckfire..

underrated CTA track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZcQSMOqksU

I'm sorry!

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 23, 2012 2:08 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For what it's worth, Depeche Mode are one of my favourite bands and I love all three of those songs! In the case of 'Enjoy The Silence' and 'Personal Jesus', I figure that they'll be able to take care of themselves even if I don't vote for them. 'Enjoy The Silence' in particular is almost like the Queen Bee of Depeche Mode songs.

xpost:

I remember hearing that Alan Wilder was keen on having 'And Then...' as a single from Construction Time Again. There is a song from Construction Time Again that I feel should have been a single, and will make my ballot, but it's not 'And Then...'. In fact, Martin Gore didn't even write it.

If it's "The Landscape Is Changing" then I don't get you.

If it's "The Landscape Is Changing" then I don't get you.

― does Red Stripe work like poppers? (Abbbottt), Monday, April 23, 2012 2:40 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It isn't! :D

Maybe we voted for the same one then.

Will be voting for at most two songs off the first three albums. Too plinky plonky amateur hour for my liking.

Ballot in!

The song list above is pretty much incomplete I think it ignores pretty much all their discography Exciter onwards.

There's some memorable singles in their later material (Freelove, Dream On, John the Revelator, Pain that I'm Used to, Precious).

From Violator I'm picking two non-singles. Sweetest Perfection and Waiting for the Night, I don't know how popular they are amongst fans but they are definitely my favorite cuts from the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyLmV1yQJFg&feature=related

LIKE A HALO IN REVFERRRRRSE

People of ILX, please spare a thought for this "should have been THE A-side" gem...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0ou03e9lQ

the despised "But Not Tonight."

what?!?!?! this is going to be my #1. I thought everyone loved that song, even if the band themselves consider it a throwaway.

― crüt, Saturday, April 21, 2012 9:03 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Um, yeah mine too.

BNT is amazing. Acutally Crut probably could have guessed that would be my #1.

I listened to But Not Tonight so much my sophomore year in college that my then boyfriend finally asked me to layoff it for a while because he couldn't handle it anymore. It's near perfect imo. It makes me feel, yo.

I'm pretty excited for this now. Wait - is this like the movie ones where we nominate songs here?

no Yazoo, no Erasure

hmpf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depeche_mode_discography

this is not all listed in one place but is going to be more complete than the list linked in the first post

also here are some possibly-less-obvious songs I hope people are considering because they're fantastic:

"Tora! Tora! Tora!"
"Ice Machine"
"Pipeline"
"Shame"
"Lie To Me"
"Stories Of Old"
"Here Is the House"
"World Full of Nothing"
"The Things You Said"
"To Have and to Hold"
"Sea of Sin"
"Happiest Girl"
"Higher Love"
"Useless"
"Shine"
"Freelove"
"The Sinner in Me"
"Macro"
"I Want It All"
"The Darkest Star"
"In Chains"
"Hole to Feed"
"Corrupt"

I voted for at least one of those, which is one of my all-time Depeche Mode favourites.

man, 20 songs is really too few IMO

I feel like I'm picking my favorite twenty children

"Sea of Sin"

Will be somewhere between #2-#5 on my ballot.

I think I'll have three of those. Slightly disappointed to find that I think the best tracks are mostly the singles though.

holy shit I am reminding myself of "Shake the Disease"

this is fucking impossible

Shake the disease is great.

My list prob won't have anything post 1993 or so on it.

No! They were the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world there for a bit.

At least two songs from the 00s will be on my ballot (Martyr and John the Revelator).

"In Chains" is really, really, really great, as is "The Darkest Star"

I listened to But Not Tonight so much my sophomore year in college that my then boyfriend finally asked me to layoff it for a while because he couldn't handle it anymore. It's near perfect imo. It makes me feel, yo.

YES. The segue from the verses to "I haven't felt so alliiive. In years" is my favorite in the Depeche canon.

"But Not Tonight" really is kinda the last 'light' Depeche song I can think of, IE something that captures the breezier feeling of their earliest singles. Nothing else after that is anywhere near as giddy, for lack of a better term.

"Pleasure, Little Treasure"?

gah I have 19 spots taken and 10 more songs I want to vote for

xpost -- a little too harsh lyrically, I'd say.

everybody get your ballots in by tonight!!

I will! Doing mine at work this morning. :)

Sent. No deep cuts. All singles (I think) Nothing after 1993, lol.

I'll be interested to see how many post-93 tracks do well. Pretty much all these polls overlook later albums.

pretty much no poll with 20 songs or fewer per ballot will ever find room for post-peak period material (sorry, beating a dead horse, but i really think that's what happens)

^^^ OTM

If we ever do a New Order poll I wonder how many participants would consider "Regret" or "Crystal" post-peak.

i certainly would.

Even extending the ballot probably wouldn't help much. Extending the countdown might help a bit - but probably only an e.g. 'Rolling Stones 1980-present' poll would solve it, and who bar me would want to vote in that?

Alfred would have been all over that one.

like cream cheese on a bagel

i always find it interesting to see where the "peak" tracks pop up in relation to themselves. you always know they're coming, but there's the occasional curveball as to when exactly.

some bands have post-peak songs that there's a pretty strong consensus around -- "Beautiful Day" did well in the U2 poll, "Eminence Front" will probably do well in the Who poll. i don't know if the Stones or Depeche or a lot of other long-running acts have a song like that.

is "Start Me Up" post-peak? I'd say it isn't.

Tattoo You isn't necessarily considered part of their peak period, but when people talk about the point after which there's not much consensus they generally say "post-Tattoo You"

Sure. I've also heard "post-Some Girls" just as often. I'd say Bowie has the same trouble: "post-Scary Monsters" or "post-Let's Dance."

Post-first-crappy-demo Bon Jovi. Actually make that post-founding-of-band Bon Jovi...

Maybe it's a shortage of standout tracks - Depeche and Bowie have made solid albums past their peak but they don't feature big consensus singles.

I expect "Precious" and "Wrong" to do well on this poll, with at least one of them cracking the top 20

Post-first-crappy-demo Bon Jovi. Actually make that post-founding-of-band Bon Jovi...

Ned Raggett, bad medicine is what you need

I've done my part to ensure "Precious" does well.

xpost -- I have this image of being interrogated by the ghost of Sam Kinison holding a crappy 8mm camera...

I think Precious is a big contender - that was my only post-93 pick. It's also one of their few attempts at going outside their guilt/pain comfort zone and addressing genuinely adult emotion. My major issue with their later albums isn't the music so much as the lyrical tail-chasing.

Sent. No deep cuts. All singles (I think) Nothing after 1993, lol.

― pandemic, Wednesday, May 2, 2012 7:39 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're a great singles band!! I have nothing after 1993 either and for very good reason.

Also mine will look similar. I think I may have two songs that weren't singles. Maybe.

ok barely on this site these days but I bookmarked this thread thinking I'd somehow find time to put together a ballot & missed the deadline but if it's still open maybe I can fling one together today. I just wanted enough time to listen through the oeuvre but I know what I like already (i.e. Music for the Masses b-sides) & it won't take long I suppose.

My major issue with their later albums isn't the music so much as the lyrical tail-chasing.

I don't really see their later lyrics as being demonstrably worse as their earlier lyrics.

I mean, we're talking about a band who, in the smack middle of their artistic peak, released a single that opens with the lyric "There's something beating here inside my body and it's called a heart"

that's not a bad lyric in itself

I voted for at least five post-93 tracks

well then how about "I take pictures/Photographic pictures"?

Even allowing for the fact that most lyrics scan as dumb when you remove them from the context of the song, Depeche Mode still has some remarkably stupid ones scattered all throughout their career. I still love the band, but come on.

oh they're totally dumb. the "photographic" lyric is a better example.

Oh yeah, of course they were often dumb but they were dumb in lots of different directions. The range of themes on Construction through Masses is impressive, even when they got it catastrophically wrong. The later lyrics are oppressively competent, dwelling on the same basket of themes. Before Violator DM felt like a band trying to work out what they were doing, experimenting furiously en route. After Violator they felt like they'd decided on their sound and themes and have spent the last 20 years gently tweaking them - a rockier one, a quieter one, a darker one. SOFAD was the last significant development in their sound and songwriting imo, much though I enjoy parts of the subsequent albums.

ok threw one together, fuck yeah "Stjarna"

What is the stupidest Depeche Mode song?

i voted!

Sent!

CRUTIS I just sent to your hotmail!!!

Errr I mean gmail.

Oh and the poll-specific one I now see we were meant to send to in the first place.

If we ever do a New Order poll I wonder how many participants would consider "Regret" or "Crystal" post-peak.

i'm set up to do New Order poll at number 37

VOTED

poll is closed. will try to get results thread started by Thursday afternoon.