Greetings and Salutations. Of course, this web page would not be complete without a tribute to Syd's favourite band. That band being .
For those of you unfamiliar with Depeche Mode, leave immediately!! No, just kidding. Stick around and read a little more and then maybe you can understand why we love them so much.
After the initial trials and tribulations of a new band, they achieved quite a bit of success with their original sound and style. Their first album, "Speak and Spell" was an incredible success and put their feet firmly in the door of superstardom.
However, disaster seemed immenent when song-writer Vince Clark decided to quit the band during their tour to pursue his own musical interests.
Things looked grim, but then Martin Gore stepped up into Vince's shoes and took over the job of song-writer.
To take Vince's place on the tour, highly-talented musician, Alan Wilder lied about his age and joined the band. (He lied and said that he was younger than he really was.) This was one of the better moves that the band ever made.
The deeply emotional Martin wrote the songs. The powerful baritone of Dave sang with great power. The deftly-fingered Alan created more and better sounds. And the stylish and intelligen Andrew helped keep the business end going strong.
And so it was for seven more full albums. Their US releases include:
Their first world tour took place in 1984 with Some Great Reward. It was at this time that the US and UK versions of the album releases started to differ.
The UK releases after Some Great Reward were:
During the "Devotional" world tour in 1994-5, long time member Alan Wilder decided that he was leaving the band. It seemed that the break-up was on good terms, though, and "no hard feelings" were felt. Again it looked like the end for England's "dark pop-band".
Of course, the success of Ultra showed us that the band was not to be daunted by this. Even a heroin addiction of front-man David Gahan would not stop them.
Dave had a problem with drugs. He spent a lot of time in rehabilitation in Los Angeles. The Ultra album went by without a tour. However, the release of the second "singles" album was followed by a tour that not only showed that the band was still capable of selling out their shows, but also that Dave looked better with short hair.
Exciter was viewed by a lot of people as a weak presentation by the band. While I'll admit that it isn't my favourite album, it still has so very much to offer. There are some powerful songs on that album and I think that the refined DM fan will find the value in it if you just listen a few times through...
The Remixes album was fun. I owned almost all of those remixes already (in fact, all of them other than the ones that hadn't previously been released), but I was happy that the rest of the world could experience what I had been listening to for a long time.
Playing the Angle was an incredible album. When it came out, I was reassured once again that everything I experienced in life was expressed by a Depeche Mode song. And it was true. Precious just hit home with me when I heard it. So once again, they earned their place as my favourite band of all time!
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