Last week, they were forced to deny being the official band of the alt-right. In fact, from synthpop to sleaze rock, Depeche Mode are a vital band
In 1980, Daniel Miller created a virtual electropop band called Silicon Teens, featuring four fictionalised teenagers whose sound derived entirely from synthesisers. The following year, the real thing arrived. Miller, who was running Mute Records, came across Depeche Mode, a quartet of teenagers – and one 20-year-old in the shape of songwriter Vince Clarke – from Basildon, Essex. “They were kids, and kids weren’t doing electronic music at the time,” said Miller. “It was people who’d been to art school mainly, but Depeche Mode weren’t processed by that aesthetic at all.” Stevo Pearce of the Some Bizarre label had also noticed the group (as had a few majors, who had to be repulsed), and Miller licensed Depeche Mode’s first track, Photographic, to Pearce for Some Bizarre’s Futurism compilation. Photographic was the standout track on the collection, and received much of the critical attention. The band rerecorded it for their debut album Speak & Spell, though the Some Bizarre version is more naively charming, bolshy and brutalistic. It tears along with clean synth lines bleeding into the red, marrying Numanoid keyboard monoliths with dispassionate Kraftwerkian sprechgesang, with an added touch of voyeuristic perviness about it. From the off, Depeche Mode were showing tremendous promise.
Continue reading...by Jeremy Allen via Electronic music | The Guardian
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