Two Critics Consider Depeche Mode’s Finest Work

Depeche Mode, the British band that played a key role in shepherding synth pop into the mainstream, hasn’t visited Music City since an under-attended stop in 1988. But they had no trouble selling out Ascend Amphitheater for Monday’s gig, which you might attribute in part to Nashville’s changing demographics, as well as how so much contemporary pop music bears the band’s influence. The Scene reached out to two of the biggest DM fans we know — former music editor Adam Gold and longtime contributor Jason Shawhan — who each broke down their five favorite Depeche Mode tracks for us, to explore the complexities of the band’s work. Check out our podcast for more conversation with Gold and Shawhan about the band.

Gold’s List

1.”Everything Counts” (1983)

This is where Depeche Mode leveled up from crafting catchy, primitive synth-pop tunes to dark, fastidiously layered electronic symphonies. On “Everything Counts,” the second single from 1983’s Construction Time Again, keyboardist Alan Wilder first proved his genius, and it remains one of principal songwriter Martin Gore’s most direct sociopolitical statements, taking on the amorality of corporate greed. Perhaps that’s why it’s back in the band’s set list after an 11-year absence. 

2. “Policy of Truth” (1990)

One of Depeche Mode’s all-time biggest singles is also a pillar of the greatest album of its genre, Violator. I remember how, at age 9, I would feel creeped-out and dirty when I heard it on the radio or saw the grainy, shadowy video on MTV, like I’d just witnessed something not meant for a child. This song, about the risk you take when you reveal yourself to another, was indeed over my young head, and it still makes me feel dirty when I hear it — a sleazy, cool kind of dirty, though.

3. “Blue Dress” (1990)

Gore has written his share of both love songs and lust songs, though he tends to leave all but the most sentimental cuts for vocalist Dave Gahan. This ballad, which Gore sings on Violator, features some sleight of hand. The yearning vocal and the slow groove, with synth lines falling in slow motion around it, sound like pure heartbreak. But the lyric — a shame-rife plea to a lover to wear the garment that turns him on the most — is simple, raw desire. Few songs even try to illustrate the intersection where hearts and boners collide, let alone succeed.    

4. “Shake the Disease” (1985)

“Shake the Disease” is definitely a love song. It’s about how true love can’t be put into words, how easy it is to fail when we try to do so, and how easily that failure can fuck things up. Sonically, “Shake” has a chilly toughness to it — it moves forward like a brisk walk down a dark, lonely street — but its post-chorus refrain turns the tables, with Gore intoning two words that are as emo as it gets: “Understand me.” 

5. “Condemnation” (1993)

On paper, Depeche Mode going ’90s neo-gospel sounds messy. But in practice, the third single from 1993’s brooding and brilliant Songs of Faith and Devotion offers three-and-a-half minutes of bittersweet bliss — with Gahan singing like he’s giving a sermon over swampy, rolling pianos and a trip-hop-esque beat — on a record of menacing industrial rockers. It’s one of the band’s most experimental songs, and one of its finest moments.

Shawhan’s List

1. “It Doesn’t Matter” (1984)

Some of the greatest songs address multiple complex feelings and situations, and don’t try to simplify anything for the sake of creating a more satisfying conclusion. There isn’t a songwriter alive who couldn’t learn something from this examination of conflicting feelings — the lyric “Don’t try to solve the puzzle” is sound advice.

2. “Enjoy the Silence” (1990)

As a pop abnegation of language, “Enjoy the Silence” ranks with Madonna’s “Bedtime Story” and Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood 1.” Gore’s moody and expansive song meshes with Wilder’s machinery perfectly, and Gahan’s voice is like sexy church disco. Its timelessness is reassuring: a pocket-sized piece of a definitive moment, shielded from the entropic passage of all things.

3. “Stripped (Highland Mix)” (1986)

Years before their best-known collaboration on Violator, Depeche Mode and producer Flood first crossed paths in this superb mix of the first single from Black Celebration. The synthy fanfare, the drum program rolling like thunder, the clanking of gears and Gahan’s voice at its most quavering and moany combine to present an escape, a promise, an understanding to shore up human, intimate connections against the onslaught of the world. A tender heart blooms among the machinery.

4. “Here Is the House (Gabriel and Dresden Mix)” (1986/2005)

Whatever pleasures you may find elsewhere can pale next to time spent with someone who loves you. Though the arrangement of this song is completely electronic with a metronomic clock as its spine, the sentiment is of the flesh and the mind, exploring the relationship between physical and emotional intimacy. The contrast is even more effective nestled among G&D’s post-production. It’s a club jam that debates its own necessity — an existential dancefloor denouement.

5. “Behind the Wheel/Route 66” (1988)

“Behind the Wheel” was released as the third single from 1987’s Music for the Masses, with a cover of Bobby Troup’s “Route 66” as the B-side in the U.K. Producer Ivan Ivan combined the hyper-cool dom/sub disco thump of “Wheel” and the twangy tear of “66” for a perfect synthesis of J.G. Ballardian car/sex metaphors and the rock ’n’ roll allure of the American road. A mash-up before the concept became common, it’s a conceptual masterpiece, which Sire released as the B-side of the “Wheel” single in the U.S. — one of the few Mode 7-inches where the U.S. version is the valuable variant.

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