Depeche Mode - Spirit

sorry I missed you! I did run into Chaki in the hallway though.

I liked the show. I was in the 100s sections, so back of the floor on the risers; tix were expensive as fuck, and the only downside to the night to me was the cost. 2 tix plus parking plus babysitting pushed this well over $400 total for the evening which I don't really like to think about as it wasn't a $400 experience for me. I was next to a really annoying superfan who bellowed the words to every song while filming the whole thing on his phone and passing his beer back and forth to his wife who was spilling over her seat into mine and held a smelly plate of nachos on her lap all night. So it was hard to get into the show. That said: this was the first time I'd seen DM ever, and they were pretty good. I could have done with fewer of the newer tracks and a few more older tracks (would have liked 'behind the wheel', 'policy of truth', 'precious'....I guess they never do blasphemous rumors anymore sadly) but that is probably just telling my age.

I still don't really accept these new guys in the band.

but I'll also say: IMO the OMD show earlier this summer was way better.

But oh, the Corbjin videos were wonderful; the dance to In Your Room; the animals; the drag queen. they should reissue those as official videos.

glad to see other people saw the show and came to a lot of the same conclusions!

sorry I missed you! I did run into Chaki in the hallway though.

Yeah we ran into a couple of friends of Kate's along the way -- big venue, can't see everything!

2 tix plus parking plus babysitting pushed this well over $400 total for the evening which I don't really like to think about as it wasn't a $400 experience for me. I was next to a really annoying superfan who bellowed the words to every song while filming the whole thing on his phone and passing his beer back and forth to his wife who was spilling over her seat into mine and held a smelly plate of nachos on her lap all night.

Oh Jesus Christ. Yeah I'll take our slightly more sedate part of the crowd over that nightmare. (We were at around...I want to say $340 or something for our tickets. I suppose it's a perverse advantage we have no kids and we just took BART in.)

That said: this was the first time I'd seen DM ever, and they were pretty good. I could have done with fewer of the newer tracks and a few more older tracks (would have liked 'behind the wheel', 'policy of truth', 'precious'....I guess they never do blasphemous rumors anymore sadly) but that is probably just telling my age.

Ah well, better late than never! But yeah I count myself lucky to have seen the one last tour before they started bringing drumkits out in 1993. Inevitable dynamics change. They've done "Policy of Truth" a few times in recent tours but I can't recall the last time I saw them do "Behind the Wheel"...maybe the 98 Singles tour? Not sure! Yeah, "Blasphemous Rumours" and "People Are People" are long since put to bed.

I still don't really accept these new guys in the band.

Eh, it's like Darryl Jones with the Stones. You want to see the show, they're part of the package deal. Even if Fletch were more on Alan Wilder's level I have a feeling they'd have a second keyboardist since Martin plays guitar much more now, and Dave's said that when Christian joined on drums it really helped inspire him and give him a better feeling of performance, so hey. They're the band, they make the calls they do. It's still mostly a self-contained unit in studio but Dave regularly has Pete and Christian be his songwriting collaborators on his tracks, which gives them some royalty money along the way. (They played both of their Spirit collaborations last night too, "Cover Me" and "Poison Heart.")

I'll also say: IMO the OMD show earlier this summer was way better.

Different scope and audiences but: having never seen them myself until now, and getting a set from them that hit ALL the big hits so brilliantly top to bottom plus a good clutch of newer tracks, that was pretty damn awesome, no lie. Between that and the Poptone show it was a great early summer.

But oh, the Corbjin videos were wonderful; the dance to In Your Room; the animals; the drag queen. they should reissue those as official videos.

Yeah they've had so many concert exclusive films from Corbijn that it's a pity they haven't yet put together a full collection of those -- a ton of them have never surfaced properly, though some are tucked away on the live DVDs that have emerged. I always find it intriguing whenever he goes back and finds a new way to revisit a song's general theme or even just an idea that it suggests -- each of the various "Enjoy the Silence"s over the past twenty years has brought something new.

I revisited Delta Machine last night because I wanted to hear it with fresh ears after getting into Spirit so heavily and I wanted to see if Spirit was really that good or I'd become more attuned to late period Depeche...

...Spirit is really that good.

I like all four of the last albums pretty evenly.

Spirit/Playing > the good half of Sounds of the Universe > Delta Machine > the bad half of Sounds of the Universe

^ Yup, I'd agree with that!

As much as I like Playing the Angel, they really should have switched producers sooner... 'Cover Me' is just pure ear candy.

but so is Precious

Ultimately I tend to see the last four albums as of a piece -- there are subtle differences certainly, and Playing and Spirit have some of their most affecting moments lyrically thanks to, for lack of a better term, real world concerns, whether personal or much broader. But compared to how all the previous albums pretty clearly worked on a stake-out-its-own-aesthetics level time for time -- yes, even including Exciter -- then while Playing worked as an excellent recapitulation/reset towards certain strengths with room to move around within said scope, as well as introducing Dave as a songwriter, it's hard for me to hear that great a difference between it and the following three, even with a change in producer for this one. I don't really mind this, and individual songs stand out along the way, easy, so I tend to hear them all through that lens now. (It would make an interesting playlist.)

(I should add this is all separate from ranking. If I had to rank, probably Playing, Spirit, SOTU then Delta but that's arguably more on execution of said aesthetic each time combined with notable strength of songs. I think I still like the SOTU singles more than Spirit's.)

And the strongest Delta single to my mind is "Should Be Higher," which combined with a really dramatic Corbijn concert film made for a standout during the 2013 tour.

“Should Be Higher” and “Secret to the End” are the best songs on Delta Machine

Spirit is not - as I was expecting - a change in sound as obvious as the one between Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion or Ultra and Exciter, but what multiple headphone listens have pretty much confirmed to me (even more so since revisiting Delta Machine) is that this is way more fuller and richer sounding, with a far more exciting mix. On the surface, it seems like more of the same, but for me this is the nu-Depeche sound perfected and done as it should have been done in the first place.

Nice little bonus for the year -- Null + Void is Kurt Uenala, who cowrote Dave's songs on Delta Machine like "Should Be Higher." New track of his featuring Mr. Gahan, who also appears in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUSJ4XK2UXg

I wanna hear 'em mess around more with time signatures/meter changes like on 'You Move' ... apparently the story behind it was Gore sent Gahan the music as he didn't know what to do with it and Gahan saw it as a challenge to come up with a topline and lyric. It paid off!

I knew it was extreme, but, um, holy shit, have y’all seen Martin Gore’s home studio? pic.twitter.com/wFL21vCLI6

— Bruce Levenstein (@BruceLevenstein) January 26, 2018

I was bracing myself knowing it was going to be good, but holy shit... that's way good

My first thought was that it was all just cool wallpaper, but ... no. It's like one of every module.

I heard 'You Move' on shuffle today and had to listen to the whole album. This is still one of their very best late-period records, IMO.

Finally played this on my proper grown-up sound system and boy does it sound massive. I was initially put off by the first single and the reviews describing the album as a constant mid-tempo dirge, but it is unusually consistent and relentless. Generally DM likes to switch up between bangers and Gore confessionals, but this one is super cohesive. Love it