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

jesus that was impossible; voted

for those curious, here are the ten tracks that ended up at 21-30, just missing my ballot:

Here Is The House
The Things You Said
Wrong
Policy of Truth
And Then...
New Life
Everything Counts
Dream On
Something To Do
The Sun and the Rainfall

four of those are in my 21-30 too, tough luck lads

Doing my ballad right now - three of those are going to be in it

well, I just knew I was voting for at least three of those when I was making my shortlist, and then I started ranking songs and they kept sinking down and down and I was all "nooooooooo but I love that song I wanna vote for it"

I almost submitted a 50 song ballot because there were 50 songs I could have easily voted for; culling was torture

I just voted. Half my ballot ended up being Music for the Masses + Violator era stuff, despite me enjoying pretty much all of their albums.

so i have my 20 songs, just need to put them in order. surprised at how many singles i selected.

i also have a great Depeche Mode story, will try to get dates and post in the roll out thread.

Not a huge DM fan but I love Violator, Music for the Masses plus bits and bobs of the earlier stuff - managed to put together a 20 I'm happy with, hoping the results might point me towards some songs I might have missed.

OK so I did vote. This poll was fun because in actually thinking about DM, I realized how much of their stuff I like and how much I had absorbed over the years without really noticing. My ballot is very heavy on singles, but across a wider span than I first thought.

Also crüt will be happy because "Flexible" is on there.

(I love the almost-country-western vibe of "Flexible," like Martin Gore had a Wall of Voodoo tape in his car or something. Also somewhat prefigures "Personal Jesus," imo.)

if we'd had 50 song ballots, "Flexible" would have been on mine at 40

i've said this before, but i really think that these polls for really long-running and/or prolific acts should allow for more than 20 songs per ballot -- i did 40 for the Timbaland poll and will prob do at least that many for Jay-Z.

even if 25 became the standard low end of the spectrum i think that'd be an improvement.

If/when we actually get to my Dylan poll, I'm definitely allowing at least 40. Maybe 50.

Going to do a ballot this weekend. I've been listening to DM on Spotify all week and it's very gratifying how many friends have been making comments about loving them.

xp crüüüüüüüüüüüttt...

Ballot sent. It looks a bit weird to me: the tracks I assumed would be right at the top ended up in the lower reaches of the top ten.

Just to be clear before sending my ballot...one Gore solo and one Gahan solo track are okay, right? I mean, they probably won't make the results anyway, but I can't not vote for them.

Oh if had included their solo stuff I still wouldn't have a ballot

I sent it. Treat it kindly, crüt.

one of the things i love about ilm is seeing a poll like this pop up of a band i never really thought twice about since 1983, reading posts and becoming interested, acquiring copies of random albums (black celebration, a broken frame) and finding out i was wrong. really liking the synth programming and drum sounds in particular....and looking forward to some results

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

get those ballots in!

i have 20 songs. just ordering them and will send them across shortly.

I'm extending the deadline to Wednesday evening at 11:59:59 PM EST.

aw

was really hoping the results would roll out this week

jesus that was impossible; voted

for those curious, here are the ten tracks that ended up at 21-30, just missing my ballot:

Here Is The House
The Things You Said
Wrong
Policy of Truth
And Then...
New Life
Everything Counts
Dream On
Something To Do
The Sun and the Rainfall

― I'M THAT POSTA, AAAAAAAAAH (DJP), Thursday, April 26, 2012 9:10 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some excellent tracks there.... some of which may or may not have appeared on my ballot!

sent!

thanks for the extension

I voted for three of the tracks DJP couldn't fit on his ballot.

three of djp's cuts are in my top 6

man I want to sock the hell out of this poll, just because the process of going through all of those songs was so fun

also I managed to start liking Ultra again

Ultra has some of my favourite Dave Gahan vocal performances on it. Even though he was obviously in bad health at the time and it was affecting his voice, the production team really helped Dave pull some great vocal tracks out of the bag on that. Marvellously, the record sounds as if Dave is at his vocal peak, even though the reality of it is that he was at his lowest and the vocals were heavily comp'd.

'The Love Thieves', for example. I've never really rated it as a song, but I remember listening to it for the first time and being blown away by the singing.

I get what you're saying but I really think he's been on an upward trajectory since then (esp. when you look at songs like "Precious" and "In Chains", the latter especially as I think that's the greatest thing he's sung post-"Strangelove")

I'd agree that 'Precious' isn't a bad vocal. On the whole though, I've noticed that Dave generally seems to do this croaky thing at the beginning of every lyric these days, which drives me crazy! It seems to be a bit of a vocal trait of his on the last couple of albums especially, I never really noticed it too much before.

This still gives me the giggles...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIE7HKE8WsM

Can I rep for this weird, dirgey Gore-sung Enjoy The Silence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_5hX_mnWd8

Yeah, that was a recording based on his original demo -- came out as a B-side on the single release.

Voted. Ta for the extension.

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.