Thursday, May. 16, 2013 | 16:21
depeche mode on shuffle
afternoons working from home i've been shuffling through depeche mode. it's forced me to reconsider my previous analysis of their albums since ultra. here are some new thoughts:
ultra has some of the best vocal arrangements and performances of the band's career. the singles are all sharp and the album tracks are strong too. when they lose focus it's generally in favor of mood and ambience, which lends the album a dramatic consistency.
exciter is more experimental than ultra, spending its time chasing then-current trends in electronica. glitches, house beats, swooping effects. sadly, it also has re-writes of earlier songs that not only suffer in comparison but drag down the album. i remember disliking it, but i think i like a little more than half of it. the good songs may be better on their own, however, rather than tied to the bad ones in an album.
the three after that, with ben hillier producing, are more of a piece, with strengths and weaknesses and interesting wrinkles. they're not exactly a holding pattern, and they're not transitional, but they're refinement instead of pushing forward. it's like they realized after exciter they don't know where to go, or that they're happy with electro-rock and don't need to experiment anymore. that's not to say they're not making good songs, not even to say they're not interesting, just that they're more conservative in their sound. the problem isn't that they're repeating their themes, because they've been doing that most of their career, but that they're repeating their sound.
i very much hope the next depeche mode album, available in 2017, has a different producer and takes more risks. i would also like to see a remix album with cutting edge remixers. skrillex would be ok, but how about the underground? sbtrkt, perhaps. someone undiscovered. someone with something to prove.
