Depeche Mode
Alan's DM shrine
Depeche Mode matter a lot to me. They've been with me as far back as I can remember, as early as the age of 4 or so, when my father played me the Enjoy the Silence video. It was one of the first good songs I have ever heard, and I've been a fan since. Although it is really hard to choose, and it may fluctuate day to day, if I had to decide on my singular favorite band or artist, it would have to go to Depeche Mode. They have everything; solid songwriting, unparalleled innovation, sound production, and devoted performance. They also happen to be quite likely the best live band on the planet at the moment. Enjoy the Silence, Stripped, Never Let Me Down Again, Walking in My Shoes - these are the tunes that shaped me.
My journey into Depeche Mode began as I wrote above. I loved Enjoy the Silence, as there is no better first track I don't think, and so I was occasionally privelged to hear more of them. I distinctly remember hearing Stripped from the Rose Bowl, before I even knew the signifigance of that concert, and Never Let Me Down Again. At my 8th birthday I was gifted with a small CD player, one of those kind of round ones with built in crappy speakers - the works. I did not own CDs at the time, and I didn't start purchasing them until much later, so Dad decided to burn one for me. Among the odd combination of Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, and Arcade Fire, one DM song was present, that being Enjoy the Silence. I listened to that CD many times, however, an accident caused that CD player to scrape discs whenever they were spinning, so ultimately it was thrown out. I still have that beat up CD though, on a good day it still plays, last I checked.
Seeing as how I had no practical way to listen to music aside from Dad occasionally playing me songs, I never heard much more of DM for a few years. That changed one day, on my 12th birthday. I was gifted with a very small MP3 player, a blue Sandisk Clip Sport Plus, I believe, and that is where my personal journey of music discovery ultimately began. While I didn't have any music downloaded of my own, my father had a large collection of CDs (some of which dating back to the 90s) and downloaded music. Many of the discs had been ripped to his digital library, so in one day I was suddenly in possession of approximately 250 songs by roughly 25 different artists, if memory serves. Initially I just listened to the roughly 10 or so songs I recognized or that my brother mentioned to me, a few of which were Depeche Mode. I had the Singles 86 - 98 album, the second "disc" of which I didn't find initially because the tags were wrong and it was listed under the unknown artist section as "depeche mode best of disk 2" I also had Black Celebration, which I only listened to occasionally, preferring the greatest hits format, but I remember distinctly enjoying the title track as well as the proper closing song, But Not Tonight. I also remembering listening to the whole album in the car during Spring Break... 2023, it must have been. But, ultimately, Depeche Mode weren't my favorite artist at the time, as I gravitated more towards New Order (more on that another time) and Arcade Fire. The time would come, however.
When I went back to school in 2023 after summer (a right proper mess; I was glad to get out of that), I was more privileged to have music to listen to during certain classes. Typing class would prove to be the deciding factor for my DM fanhood. I must have been listening to Depeche Mode just before school started back because upon hearing that I could have music while I typed, I instantly threw Policy of Truth and Useless, I think onto a playlist (I must have been burnt out on the classics, or I didn't quite understand the amazingness just yet). It was around that time that I heard of a classic Depeche Mode track by the name of People are People and decided to give it a listen. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it now, but back then, I thought People are People was an epic tune. It's fair to guesst that I probably played it every time I was in that class for at least two months. Outside of typing class, meanwhile, my musical preferences within Depeche Mode's music shifted further from the Ultra era singles to the SOFAD era hits (still only had the same two albums). Walking in My Shoes in particular grabbed my attention. I remember hearing it on the bus one day and thinking that it would be a great song to use right before the credits roll with a spoken conclusion in a movie. Condemnation was always a bit weird but still enjoyable, just not one of my favorites. I Feel You absolutely caught my ear, and I always liked it as a song, but for whatever reason, it wasn't and still isn't quite on par with Walking in My Shoes. I also always liked In Your Room, the zephyr version, naturally. I liked it for the atmospherics before I even knew what atmospherics were, the wailing guitar also appealed to me.
By that point, I think it's safe to say that Depeche Mode were officially my favorite band. Not only did I listen to them all the time, I listened to almost exclusively DM. I had also picked up the habit of searching for live performances of my favorite songs during free time at school and watching them in class. I remember vividly finding DM's performance of In Your Room, Useless, and Walking in My Shoes from the Hungarian VOLT festival in 2018 and watching them a lot. I had never seriously given live versions of any music a listen before, and that was absolutely a good first impression. I stil firmly believe that Depeche Mode are quite possibly the best live band on earth, because the live versions of many of their songs exceed the quality of their studio counterparts, or at least are just as good as them, but for different reasons. Another thing; because concerts and films from recent tours were more commonplace and higher audio/video quality, I watched tours from no earlier than the Delta Machine tour in 2013. I didn't even know about 101 for another 6 or so months while the DVD sat in my dad's movie drawer. Little did I know, another Depeche Mode DVD was in that same drawer.
I had grown fond of DM's performance on Letterman in 2013 around March or so, where they played Enjoy the Silence, Personal Jesus, and of course, my contemporary favorite Walking in My Shoes. I would watch it at school, and was so impressed by it, I decided to show the performance to my brothers, who didn't exactly like Depeche Mode yet, they just weren't ready for it yet. I got them listening to it eventually. I also did the same for the orchestral versions of Walking in My Shoes and the then-new single Ghosts Again, which impressed them. Anyways one day I decided to watch them at Letterman another time when my dad walked in the door because he had finished working for the day. In effect he said that if I liked the SOFAD era stuff so much, I should watch them when they toured it. So he looked into his movie drawer and grabbed a well-worn, paper DVD case titled "Depeche Mode / Devotional". This film would prove to have great signifigance in my canon of interests. I recall Dad starting the film with Walking in My Shoes, and we watched it without stop I believe until Never Let Me Down Again, when it was time for dinner. I was very impressed with the whole thing; long hair Dave was especially awesome, even though I knew or would soon discover how incredibly strung out he was. This was also the concert that made me like Behind the Wheel, a song I had never cared for because I had only heard the crappy single version (with the beepy boop synth bass), but the Devotional one was closer to the far superior album/101 version. This was also the video that made me want to pursue music as a career.
This was the part of the story that I wasn't super excited about telling. It gets a little personal here, so I guess I'll just leave out that part. Or minimize it, or something. But anyways, around that point (March 2024 or so), my MP3 player began to fail on me after about 19 months of faithful service. It would still play songs and everything, but whenever I turned it off it would take ages to start back again, around an hour or two. Also whenever I tried to move music onto it with a computer the device wouldn't register on the PC. So it was time for a new one I guess, but there was a problem. I was pretty broke, or I must have been, because I spent my money on the outstanding Telltale video game series The Walking Dead - The Telltale Definitive Series. That is an emotional story for another time. So buying a new MP3 player was out of the question really. If I remember correctly, I just dealt with it because I technically still could listen to music for a month or two. Even though my dad is pretty savvy with computers and things, even he could not get it to function properly again. And that is when things changed forever.
One night we had tried and failed at getting it to work, so Dad decided we would just get a new one. Instead of actually purchasing me a new version of what I had or a similar device, he did something so much better. He went and got his old Sony Walkman MP3 player from roughly 2009 and lent it to me, with the idea that I could just hang onto that until I was able to purchase a new device. It was a huge upgrade; twice the size of my old one, buttons not made of this awkward rubber feeling, and what I liked the most was that the album art and year of release were displayed, something that my old Mp3 player did not do. I think he spoiled me. Despite the trappings of the Walkman, it had one fault; the battery was very faulty from use (or unuse) and had to be constantly plugged in to avoid dying spontaneously. This did not stop me from sitting by the nearest power outlet, right against the wall near the front door, and perusing his selection of Depeche Mode. On the Walkman he had the same stuff that I did (with the art and all!) but with the addition of the albums Songs of Faith and Devotion and Ultra. I had done some research and knew that the material that I was gravitating towards at the time was from SOFAD, so I decided on it. I guess that I was overcome with excitement or something, because instead of playing the full album proper from the start, I began with the first song I didn't recognize, that being track 4, Mercy in You. I remember expecting from the intro guitars that it might sound like some hard rock song (I was not well versed musically at that time, or at least, much less than I am now) and being proved wrong quickly. The chorus reminded me of the 2000s radio music that permeated faint childhood memories of interstate travel and more-urban-than-home locales, in the best of ways. Judas I recalled from Devotional, a sweet sonic ballad that still hits hard to this day. In Your Room was actually one I replayed after "finishing" the album, because when watching DM live footage at school, one of the songs I liked to watch was In Your Room. That was from the 2017-2018 Global Spirit Tour, in which the version of the song performed was the album version. I was mesmerized by the very different take on the song (even though I probably prefer the single version more now; if we're being specific the 1998 Singles Tour Version) and went back to it at least one extra time that night. I recall viscerally sitting in the floor, leaned up against the wall, hair and ears wet from a recent shower but my rubbery earbuds in anyways, listening to the end of Mercy in You and promising to myself: "this will be the start of something amazing." And it was.
In that month of May 2024 the Walkman expanded my musical horizons a lot. I revisited SOFAD many times and quickly adopted it as not just my favorite Depeche Mode album, but my favorite album of all time. I don't believe I had a decisive favorite record up until that point. Favorites from it came and went: I found Higher Love boring just as soon as I thought it was one of the best on there (my opinion on it now is a good album closer). I dabbled in Ultra too but I thought it was a step down from SOFAD for sure, in time Sister of Night and Love Theives would grow on me however. This was also when I first began to listen to The Smiths and Morrissey on my own (Dad had played me Girlfriend in a Coma and Ask at a young age so I was raised on those songs), which, thanks to Dad's recommendation of This Charming Man, I quickly became a fan. Also I would like to point out that I listened to The Smiths about a year before their music blew up on social media for some reason (I don't have social media so I had to have my cousin explain to me why I was getting all these tongue in cheek comments for my Smiths shirt from kids at school).
We wrote more today! Yay! But... it takes it out of you to write all this pretty personal stuff, on the internet nonetheless. So until next time.
