Depeche Mode’s sixth studio album ‘Music for the Masses’ turns 35
Depeche Mode had their first gulp of glory with the enduring single ‘I Just Can’t Get Enough’, which followed their Top of the Pops debut, ‘New Life’, in 1981. This early material had the band understandably grouped with the burgeoning synth-pop wave alongside the likes of The Human League, Ultravox and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
Like contemporary act Talk Talk, Depeche Mode deviated from this new romantic association to develop a unique sound more in check with their identity. While Talk Talk moved increasingly towards a more ambient, jazz-influenced sound, Depeche Mode embraced a darker, gothic form thanks to their infatuation with The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
In 1986’s Black Celebration, the band’s fifth studio album, they brought a new edge to the darkening Depeche Mode sound with the introduction of samplers. This sound was built upon over the next year for the 1987 follow-up, Music for the Masses, which saw Depeche Mode writhing in the shady, salacious haze they had begun to embody on the musical map.
“The title’s… a bit tongue-in-cheek, really,” the late Andy Fletcher said of the album’s name, per Jonathan Miller’s Stripped: Depeche Mode. “Everyone is telling us we should make more commercial music, so that’s the reason we chose that title.” Speaking to NME, Martin Gore explained that Music for the Masses “was a joke on the [sic] uncommerciality of [the album]. It was anything but music for the masses”. This title was compounded by the ironic image of megaphones placed in the vast landscape of the Peak District.
Working on the album with a helping hand from co-producer David Bascombe, who had previously worked with the likes of Tears for Fears and Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode decided to continue down their path of non-conformity. In a return to the theme of dark temptation, frontman Dave Gahan sings of sexual fantasy, drug addiction and sadism.
For me, the album’s highlight moment is ‘Never Let Me Down’, its third most successful single behind ‘Strangelove’ and ‘Behind the Wheel’. The song combines homo-eroticism with the razor-edge allure of drug-induced euphoria. Gore’s meticulous arrangement and the track’s seamless production set a high bar that was more or less reached by the remainder of the album.
Meanwhile, the album’s most commercially successful single, ‘Strangelove’, which reached number 16 on the UK Singles chart, came with more opaque lyrics. Some point out the song’s apparent connection to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 dark comedy Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Elsewhere, the lyrics depict a sadomasochistic encounter in a continuation of one of Depeche Mode’s most associative themes.
The tumbling pace of ‘Behind the Wheel’ creates a sense of urgency and angst appropriate for losing one’s bearings, or indeed marbles, at the wheel. Artistically, with the driver and a “passenger”, it appears to continue in the same universe as ‘Never Let Me Down’, in which Gahan takes “a ride with [his] best friend”.
In ‘Nothing’ and ‘Sacred’, the band return to a more traditional synth sound with its restless rhythm and catchy lyrical hooks. In contrast, tracks like ‘Little 15’ and ‘To Have and to Hold’ come with sparse, atmospheric textures evoking images of strange encounters in the dead of night.
With Music for the Masses, Depeche Mode refined the plan laid out by Black Celebration and succeeded where their ironic title for the album is concerned. While the album’s commercial performance didn’t condemn the band to a bottomless pit of destitution, it was by no means a chart sensation, nor should it have been.
Music for the Masses showed a band following their noses toward true artistic integrity. With a few catchy hooks added to the formula, 1990’s Violator saw Depeche Mode bring their truest sound to the global arena as they began an era of stadium tours and heightened commercial success. They did eventually bring their music to the masses, but they never sold out.