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

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.