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Depeche Mode
Whether you loved or despised Depeche Mode as a youth, you certainly could sing the chorus to at least one of their songs if there was a gun pointed to your head. Throughout their 20-year career(!), Depeche Mode have been a seemingly unstoppable force in modern rock, continually releasing hit after hit; they almost single-handedly created the need for an alternative music radio format with their string of singles. Influencing hundreds of silky synth-pop bands and millions of angst-ridden pre-teens, Depeche Mode have left a permanent mark in alt-rock's history with their catchy songs of love and desperation. They seem indestructible, surviving the pressures of fame, the loss of their main songwriter in their early years and their singer's harrowing heroin-related brushes with death.
Originally a product of Britain's New Romantic movement, Depeche Mode went on to become the quintessential electro-pop band of the 1980s; one of the first acts to establish a musical identity based completely around the use of synthesizers, the group began their existence as a bouncy dance-pop outfit but gradually developed a darker, more dramatic sound which ultimately positioned them as one of the most successful alternative bands of their era.
The roots of Depeche Mode dated to 1976, when Basildon, England-based keyboardists Vince Clarke and Andrew Fletcher first teamed to form the group No Romance in China. The band proved short-lived, and by 1979 Clarke had formed French Look, another duo featuring guitarist/keyboardist Martin Gore; Fletcher soon signed on, and the group rechristened itself Composition of Sound. Initially, Clarke handled vocal chores, but in 1980 singer David Gahan was brought in to complete the lineup; after one final name change to Depeche Mode, the quartet jettisoned all instruments excluding their synthesizers, honing a slick, techno-based sound to showcase Clarke's catchy melodies.
Depeche Mode is a synth pop band founded in 1980 in the town of Basildon, England.
The four founding members are:
Vince Clarke (songwriting, keyboards, backing vocals)
Andrew Fletcher (keyboards, backing vocals)
David Gahan (vocals)
Martin Gore (songwriting, keyboards, vocals)
The band's name (pidgin French for "Fast Fashion", or "Fashion Today/Now/Dispatch" which meant "Fashion News" in common French was inspired by a French fashion magazine of the same name.
Verbally contracted to Daniel Miller's Mute label, Depeche Mode are one of the most successful of the New Wave/New Romantic bands.
After the release of Speak & Spell, their first album, song-writer Clarke left the band and went on to form Yazoo (Yaz in the US) with Alison Moyet, The Assembly with Feargal Sharkey, Dave Clempson and Eric Radcliffe, and later Erasure with Andy Bell.
Martin Gore took over as the band's primary song-writer, and in 1982 the album A Broken Frame was released. After this, Alan Wilder joined the band as a permanent replacement for Clarke.
Martin Gore did contribute a single track to the first album whilst Alan Wilder contributed some b-sides and two tracks to the first studio album he helped record 'Construction time again'.
In the early 1980s the band's popularity was largely confined to Europe (particularly Germany) and their style was Synth pop. In 1984 Depeche Mode made in-roads into America, which spawned the US-only release of Catching Up With Depeche Mode.
In the intervening years between the mid-80s and 90s, the band's popularity in the US grew to massive proportions. The 101 tour culminated in a final concert at the Pasadena Rose Bowl with a sell-out attendance of 80,000 (the highest in 8 years for the venue). The tour was documented in a film by D.A. Pennebaker, recently released on DVD, which is notable for an element of fan interaction.
Depeche Mode had a great influence on the emergence of the techno and electronica music scenes through the late 80s and 90s. Techno pioneers such as Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins regularly quoted Depeche Mode as an influence in their development of proto-techno during the Detroit Techno explosion in the late 80s.
1993's Songs Of Faith And Devotion was released to huge acclaim and went straight to number one in the US. But, the style of the record was perhaps not what was expected of Depeche Mode and did not fit with the band's happy image at all. The synths were hidden among layered arrangements and muted and the record featured complex melodies and cerebral lyrics. An example from "Walking in My Shoes" follows illustrating the new and very different style of lyrics, marking a shift away from their pop roots:
Fans of an earlier Depeche Mode have expressed disappointment or anger with this record, which didn't match with the happy image they had of the band. Indeed, the album opens with a screeching sound that seems designed to torture those who unwittingly have the volume turned up too high.
"Just Can't Get Enough", an upbeat record with positive lyrics, seems only a distant happy memory of a decade past when compared with the significantly darker tone of this and other albums of this period. Ultimately, though, Songs Of Faith And Devotion has been recognized as artistically among the best records Depeche Mode has produced - with almost all the songwriting done by Martin Gore.
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Artist Biography - Depeche Mode
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 One marked change in the style of music throughout the history of this band has been a move away from keyboards and heavily synthpop-influenced sound... indeed, in a CD booklet, Dave Gahan is instead pictured lovingly holding an acoustic guitar - a far cry from the synthpop ideal of 'keyboards with everything'. After the much earlier departure of Vince Clarke, a gradual change away from their roots can hardly have been unexpected.
In June 1995 after the Devotional tour, Alan Wilder left the band citing unsatisfactory internal working conditions, while continuing to work on his personal project Recoil. It has been suggested that a failure of the band to recognize its own brand appeal in releasing previous records may have played some part in his departure, with other factors including the drug addiction issues of Dave Gahan; Martin Gore's admission of "battling his own demons" at this time; and growing tensions between Wilder and Andrew Fletcher. Wilder himself has stated that he contributed a lion's share of work while receiving the least credit on past albums.
2003 saw the release of Dave Gahan's solo album, Paper Monsters, followed by a worldwide tour and a DVD taken from it, titled Live Monsters, Martin Gore continued his solo career with the release of Counterfeit 2, and Andrew Fletcher launched his own label, Toast Hawaii. However, the group insists that Depeche Mode is still together, and plans to release another album soon.
August 2004 group's record company ( Mute ) announced , DVD release of "Devotional" and new remix completion album "Remixes 81-04" that covers some new & unreleased promo mixes of the singles from 1981 to 2004
Like U2, R.E.M. and the Cure, Depeche Mode have become one of the founding fathers of modern rock and its explosion across America. We have them either to thank or curse.
Depeche Mode will be selling tickets for the Tour of the Universe 2009 world tour soon. The promotional schedule begins with a concert on May 10th at the Ramat Gan Stadium in Te Aviv, Israel and will to the North America on July 24 with a show in Toronto. The 1980s super group will leave the States after the show on September 5th at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The tour is in support of the latest album, Sounds of the Universe.
Discography
Albums
Speak & Spell (1981)
A Broken Frame (1982)
Construction Time Again (1983)
People Are People (1984)
Some Great Reward (1984)
The Singles (81-85) (1985)
Catching up with Depeche Mode [North America only] (1985)
Black Celebration (1986)
Music for the Masses (1987)
101 (1989)
Violator (1990)
Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993)
Songs of Faith and Devotion Live (1993)
Ultra (1997)
The Singles (86-98) (1998)
The Singles (81-85) Re-released/Repackaged (1998)
Exciter (2001)
Remixes 81 - 04 (2004)
Singles/EPs
New Life (1981) #11 UK
Just Can't Get Enough (1981) #8 UK
Dreaming Of Me (1981)
See You (1982) #6 UK
The Meaning of Love (1982) #12 UK
Leave In Silence (1982) #18 UK
Get the Balance Right (1983) #13 UK
Everything Counts (1983) #6 UK
Love In Itself (1983) #21 UK
People Are People (1984) #4 UK; #13 US
Master and Servant (1984) #9 UK; #87 US
Somebody / Blasphemous Rumours (1984) #16 UK
Shake the Disease (1985) #18 UK
It's Called a Heart (1985) #18 UK
Stripped (1985) #15 UK
But Not Tonight (US release) (1985)
A Question Of Lust (1986) #28 UK
A Question Of Time (1986) #17 UK
Strangelove (1987) #16 UK; #50 US
Never Let Me Down Again (1987) #22 UK; #63 US
Little 15 (1987)
Behind the Wheel (1988) #21 UK; #61 US
Everything Counts (Live) (1989) #22 UK
Personal Jesus (1989) #13 UK; #28 US
Enjoy the Silence (1990) #6 UK; #8 US
Policy Of Truth (1990) #16 UK; #15 US
World In My Eyes (1990) #17 UK; #52 US
X1 Disc 1: The Twelve Inches (Uno) (1991)
X1 Disc 2: The Twelve Inches (Zwei) (1991)
X1 Disc 3: The Twelve Inches (Trois) (1991)
X1 Disc 4: Strange Mixes (Four) (1991)
X2 Disc 5: Instrumentals (Cinco) (1991)
X2 Disc 6: B-Sides (Sex) (1991)
X2 Disc 7: Live One (Cemb) (1991)
X2 Disc 8: Live Two (Oziem) (1991)
I Feel You (1993) #8 UK; #37 US
Walking In My Shoes (1993) #14 UK; #69 US
Condemnation (1993) #9 UK
In Your Room (1994) #8 UK
Barrel Of a Gun (1997) #4 UK; #47 US
It's No Good (1997) #5 UK; #38 US
Home (1997) #23 UK; #88 US
Useless (1997) #28 UK
Only When I Lose Myself (1998) #17 UK; #61 US
Dream On (2001) #6 UK; #85 US
I Feel Loved (2001) #12 UK
Freelove (2001) #19 UK
Goodnight Lovers (2002)
Enjoy the Silence 04 (2004) #7 UK
Sounds of the Unverse (2008)
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For more information , enjoy the official homepage of Depeche Mode
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