"We decided that our first record of the '90s ought to be different."

March 21, 2015 1:25 PM

Twenty-five years ago this week, Depeche Mode released their classic and best-selling album Violator. When the band scheduled a singing at a Wherehouse record store near the Beverley Center in Los Angeles on the day of the album's US release, thousands of fans showed up, many having waited days. It went about as well as you might imagine. These 18 minutes of local news footage interspersed with non-broadcast interviews of fans in line (Part 1, Part 2) of the "near-riot" caused by thousands of DM fans is the best way to transport yourself back to 1990s America until a time machine is invented. Bonus: lots of local news anchors mispronouncing the band's name and city councilman outrage about who should be responsible for the price tag.

Spoiler: the store did reimburse the city. On the other side of damage control, as an apology to the fans who were unable to meet them, Depeche Mode and KROQ (the radio station sponsoring the event) released a free promo cassette with an interview and a remix of "Something to Do", the cover of which was a picture of fans in the trees outside Wherehouse trying to get a glimpse.

Now as for the album that caused the ruckus itself:

Martin Gore said in a contemporary interview at the album's release: “We called it ‘Violator’ as a joke. We wanted to come up with the most extreme, ridiculously Heavy Metal title that we could. I’ll be surprised if people will get the joke. However, when we called an album ‘Music For The Masses’, we were accused of being patronising and arrogant. In fact it was a joke on the uncommerciality of it. It was anything but music for the masses!”

The band was also interviewed by Rolling Stone on the album here: Black Celebration: Depeche Mode Look Back on 'Violator' 25 Years Later.

Track List

1. "World in My Eyes" was the first track on Violator, and the fourth (and final) single released from it. It was also covered by The Cure for the 1998 Depeche Mode tribute album For the Masses.
2. "Sweetest Perfection"
3. "Personal Jesus" was the first single from Violator and probably the most covered since, by many artists, but best by Johnny Cash and later by Marilyn Manson. Prior to its release, advertisements were placed in the personal columns of regional newspapers in the UK with the words "Your own personal Jesus." Later, the ads included a phone number one could dial to hear the song. Martin Gore said the song was inspired by Priscilla Presley's feelings about Elvis.
4. "Halo" is one of two songs from Violator that had a video made for it without being also released as a single*. The video features the band as a group of travelling circus performers and also a young Jenna Elfman.
5. "Waiting for the Night" was originally titled "Waiting for the Night to Fall" (as anyone who has heard it may have guessed) but the rest of the title was omitted due to a printing error.
6. "Enjoy the Silence" was the second single and also released prior to the album. The song has also been covered many times, most famously by Tori Amos for 2001's Strange Little Girls. The official, original video references Le Petit Prince with Dave Gahan dressed as a king. Much more strangely, a promotional video for "Enjoy the Silence" was shot by French TV featuring the band lip-syncing the song while standing atop the World Trade Center at the WTC rooftop World observatory
7. "Crucified" (hidden track)
8. "Policy of Truth" was the third single, and though less successful than the first two singles before, it is the only Depeche Mode single to chart higher on the Billboard Hot 100 (#15) than on the UK Singles Chart (#16)
9. "Blue Dress"
10. "Interlude"
11. "Clean"

* - All six videos for Violator were shot in Super 8 by Anton Corbijn, and were released in the collection Strange Too . (Whole collection as released on VHS here.)

posted by MCMikeNamara (60 comments total)

synth pop parking lot!
posted by thelonius at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

described by critics as one of the most popular of the synthesizer groups that play "Anglo-angst" music.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:49 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Words are very
Unnecessary

is the greatest pop lyric of all time
OF ALL TIME!
posted by Dumsnill at 1:58 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

memories of popping the cassette in the old yellow plastic Sony Sports Walkman and hitting the slopes
posted by Auden at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Auden: "memories of popping the cassette in the old yellow plastic Sony Sports Walkman and hitting the slopes"

Hot diggity. That makes TWO of us.
posted by Samizdata at 2:05 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I recall when this album first came out thinking: "they have guitars now?"
posted by ovvl at 2:07 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wow, that Marilyn Manson cover of "Personal Jesus" is the definition of lazy Marilyn Manson covers. The exact same song, a bit more fuzzy guitar, alternate drawly and screamy vocals, and add the trademark Marilyn Manson beat (see the beginning of "Beautiful People").
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:10 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Violator is an amazing disc; not a dud on that CD. Policy of Truth is one of my favorites.
posted by Renoroc at 2:10 PM on March 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

Something about me hated that band and that album at the time, but Violator holds up at least as well as what I *was* listening to then (New Order, Pixies, Jane's Addiction, R.E.M., Lush, Ride, etc.). I think 101 ruined them for me...although I couldn't even explain why.
posted by saintjoe at 2:29 PM on March 21, 2015

In my punk days, we used to laugh at Depeche Mode (aka Depressed Mood) as music for Drama Club Kids, but goddamn if Never Let Me Down Again wasn't one of the most perfectly composed pop synth songs I ever heard. Those closing chords still give me the chills.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 3:03 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

SaintJoe:

Because "101" holds the same place in the Depeche Mode discography that "Rattle and Hum" does in the U2 discography: The indulgent live album that signals when the band started believing its own press releases. U2 did manage to eke one more great album after that moment (Achtung Baby); Depeche Mode hasn't, although Ultra was pretty good. Some good singles since then, but, albums, no.

With that said, Violator is a magnificent album.
posted by jscalzi at 3:03 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Also, didn't realize Waiting For The Night was from Violator. Huh! That was a killer song, too.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 3:07 PM on March 21, 2015

I hadn't heard Tori Amos's cover of Enjoy the Silence. But listening to it just made me wish I was instead listening to the version by Susanna and the Magic Orchestra instead.
posted by aubilenon at 3:14 PM on March 21, 2015

Martin Gore on covers of Personal Jesus: "The majority of them, I have to say, I don't particularly like," Gore says. "But I usually approve them, because they're my fans. Nobody's going to want to cover that unless they're actually a fan. And to say, 'No, you can't release that because I don't like it,' is a bit unfair. I get tons of stuff coming in from, like, Germany and Eastern Europe, people singing in really bad accents but I always approve them." He laughs.

Heh, I don't think I've ever heard an artist admit they don't like most of the covers of their work. But I liked that he said Johnny Cash's cover was his favorite for being the most different, and he certainly gets at the essential compliment that's at the heart of even the worst or most derivative cover.

Violator is indeed a near perfect album. I couldn't pick a favorite song from between "Halo", "Personal Jesus", and "Enjoy the Silence." But "Blue Dress" is actually the song that's grown on me the most over the years. What a perfect little gem of desperate yearning that balances on a knife's edge of creepy and sexy.
posted by yasaman at 3:17 PM on March 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

In my punk days, we used to laugh at Depeche Mode (aka Depressed Mood) as music for Drama Club Kids


You'll Dance To Anything
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:21 PM on March 21, 2015 [9 favorites]

I loved watching the TV news clips, mostly to see the newsfolk I grew up with.

• Jane Velez-Mitchell!
• Jim Lampley!
• Jerry Dunphy! (Called "Jerry Dumb-phy" around my house)
• Warren Olney! (I had such a crush on him)
• David Jackson!
• Kelly Lange! (I'm old enough to remember when she was "WeatherGirl Kelly Lange")
• Larry McCormick!
• and a brief glimpse of John Beard, pre-Arrested Development!

posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 3:33 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Damn it, 101 came out before Violator, completely invalidating my complaint.

(turns in Depeche Mode Fan Club badge)

(walks away, weeping)
posted by jscalzi at 3:43 PM on March 21, 2015 [15 favorites]

It'd be fun to have a time machine so I could go back and tell these kids that Weird Al would have a #1 album on Billboard in 2014.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:00 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's hard to convey to people today just how different New Wave was when it first came out. It's all pop now partly because it was actually pop then but also because it pretty much pushed aside all other pop.

I also laugh at all the people my age who claim they were into New Wave back then. Most of them weren't but what they listened just isn't cool at all now so they pretend.

Christ I miss what CFNY was to me back then.
posted by srboisvert at 4:06 PM on March 21, 2015 [8 favorites]

the clothes and the hair.. oh my god im in high school again
i'm in high school again
i'm in high school again
NO RECESS!
posted by entropicamericana at 4:18 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh Violator, you are one of my desert island discs to this day. (Halo is pretty much my favorite DM song ever.) I quit reading Rolling Stone over their shirty review of Violator.

I've always been convinced that this is a concept album about adultery/an affair and the title should be interpreted in that light. I don't know that I've ever read anything that says the band intended it that way, but it's always seemed obvious to me.
posted by immlass at 4:19 PM on March 21, 2015

It's so weird to me to hear someone talk about their punk phase decrying Depeche Mode. Then again I was sort of all over the place, but certainly punk was a huge influence in my teen years; but so was DM, The Cure, Joy Division, though I suppose JD could be considered "post-punk" as well as early Cure... But it all blends into some dark New Wave/Goth/Post-Punk that to me it's just one continuum of awesome.

Anyways, damn. I remember sitting in the cafeteria singing Personal Jesus with all my friends and then being called a moocher for ganking their food. Halcyon days...
posted by symbioid at 4:23 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Words are very
Unnecessary

is the greatest pop lyric of all time

I would say a strong contender is

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:23 PM on March 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

Also in the covers barrel, Sylvain Chauveau made a swell album of low-key Depeche covers.
posted by ovvl at 4:40 PM on March 21, 2015

OMG Personics machine in the first video.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:53 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

It's so weird to me to hear someone talk about their punk phase decrying Depeche Mode.

Oh it had little to do with the music (although keyboards were an anathema to a lot of people) and more to do with dumb high school tribalism, that's all. It's an ahistoric musical dogmatism that I'm not particularly proud of, and thankfully outgrew quickly enough.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:59 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Martin Gore on covers of Personal Jesus: "The majority of them, I have to say, I don't particularly like," Gore says. "But I usually approve them, because they're my fans. Nobody's going to want to cover that unless they're actually a fan. And to say, 'No, you can't release that because I don't like it,' is a bit unfair. I get tons of stuff coming in from, like, Germany and Eastern Europe, people singing in really bad accents but I always approve them." He laughs.

I have always figured that "Personal Jesus" is one of those songs where the original artist knocked it so far over the wall on the initial release -- see also "God Only Knows" for another example -- that any cover will come across as a day late and a dollar short, to mix metaphors terribly.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:14 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

jscalzi: Because "101" holds the same place in the Depeche Mode discography that "Rattle and Hum" does in the U2 discography: The indulgent live album that signals when the band started believing its own press releases. U2 did manage to eke one more great album after that moment (Achtung Baby); Depeche Mode hasn't, although Ultra was pretty good.

I agree with most of that analysis, though for me 101 was the moment Depeche Mode became interesting to me.

However, I disagree that Depeche Mode did not release a good album since Violator: Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993) is amazing, start to finish.
posted by mistersquid at 5:15 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Violator was Depeche Mode's Disintegration, the culmination of everything they had done up to that point and their artistic masterpiece. For me, the comparison actually also works for Black Celebration/Head on the Door, the blueprint for their peak works and Music for the Masses/Kiss Me X3 which expand and improve the high points of the previous album while also lacking the cohesion to be a masterwork.

I think Peekaboo was the Banshees' Violator/Disintegration, but I would go back to Hyaena as their Head on the Door. The Joshua Tree was U2's Disintegration and Rattle & Hum was their Mixed Up. Peggy Suicide was Julian Cope's Disintegration, but he actually managed to follow it up with an album that was just as good, Jehovahkill. Although maybe if you aren't really into Julian Cope Jehovahkill is just his Wish.
posted by snofoam at 5:25 PM on March 21, 2015 [15 favorites]

And 101 is not at all like Rattle & Hum. Catching Up is basically equivalent to Standing on a Beach, but 101 is basically equivalent to Substance, as long as you think Technique is Violator/Disintegration.
posted by snofoam at 5:30 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

the greatest pop DP lyric of all time

My vote:

Everything counts in large amounts
posted by Otherwise at 5:41 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

snofoam: "Violator was Depeche Mode's Disintegration, [...] Although maybe if you aren't really into Julian Cope Jehovahkill is just his Wish."

I just imagined some coked-up music hipster launching into this rant at a party. It's like the Huey Lewis and the News monologue from American Psycho, but about, uh, better music. I salute you.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:49 PM on March 21, 2015 [7 favorites]

Poor R.E.M., their Head on the Door was Life's Rich Pageant and then they failed to make their masterpiece three times in a row! Out of pity, or perhaps frustration, we anointed Automatic for the People as their masterpiece, but it was just a good record from a band past their creative prime.
posted by snofoam at 5:57 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

I thought Green was their Disintegration.
posted by symbioid at 6:08 PM on March 21, 2015

For a nearly-35-year-old band you seldom hear of, DM has to be the best-selling EM band in history. Over 100M record sales worldwide. Fifty singles and thirteen top-10 albums in the UK charts .. their most recent album (two years ago) a top-5 nearly everywhere in the world.

I bet they've given Vince Clark some second thoughts about leaving, way back in '82. Har!
posted by Twang at 6:12 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I thought Green was their Disintegration.

I liked it, and they did build their sound up to stadium-level (or whatever "they" call it when these post-punk bands filled out their sound to be them, but super bombastic, and since this largely happened in a couple years in the late 1980s, I'm guessing technology was involved somehow), but I don't think it was a masterpiece. Pop Song '89 and Stand were singles that showed the band could craft big pop hooks and wrap them around a sly irony, but they were also kind of annoying in the way that Why Can't I Be You? and Hot, Hot, Hot were. I was glad "The Wrong Child" was at the end of one side of the cassette. A lot of it was just OK. REM was a great band with so many wonderful songs, but Green really wasn't consistently strong or cohesive enough to be an album-length statement.
posted by snofoam at 6:28 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Twang:

Oh, I think he's been doing just fine.
posted by jscalzi at 6:31 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I bet they've given Vince Clark some second thoughts about leaving, way back in '82. Har!

I think this is at least somewhat in jest, but this might have been one of the best moves in alternative rock history, leaving us with post-Clark DM and Yaz/Erasure. I think we would be better off with the split even if Clark quit music right after Yaz released "Only You."

I also think that Bauhaus would have accomplished less in the 80s than Tones on Tail/Love and Rockets/Peter Murphy did. I think it would also be hard to say if Joy Division in the 80s would have been as good as New Order was.
posted by snofoam at 6:41 PM on March 21, 2015 [7 favorites]

No love for Suffer Well? That was my soundtrack to a year of working for Uber. My Christ but DM are one of the best bands ever. Violator is all but the platonic ideal of the perfect album.
posted by dmt at 6:54 PM on March 21, 2015

I remember when I first heard this album it was immediately obvious to me that the next single would be "Policy of Truth" although in retrospect it is a bit funny to think of a song as being the obvious third single. I did feel like "World in my Eyes" was a bit clunky. The ballads were also not their best, but luckily not weak enough to kill the momentum of the album.
posted by snofoam at 7:16 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I liked the songs from Violator when it came out, but I only knew them from MTV which my parents wouldn't let me watch. I was too young to really be into music at all.

Then seven years later I was hanging in the dorm when New Wave dude popped in the CD, and that incredible bass line from "World in my Eyes" filled the room, along with that insane breathy snare. I saw what all the fuss was about and became a superfan in spite of missing most of the best parts of their oeuvre.

And if you don't believe me about the superfan part, here's a Q&A session about Violator with Alan Wilder, the secret superstar of their golden years, confirming that the song was always meant to be called "Waiting for the Night."
posted by infinitewindow at 7:30 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

I bet they've given Vince Clark some second thoughts about leaving, way back in '82. Har!

It actually is kinda funny. Vince wrote most of their music up to that point, so it seemed like they might be lost without him at that time (but not, in retrospect.) But perhaps not quite like Peter Frampton leaving Humble Pie, or Jeff Lynne leaving The Move...
posted by ovvl at 7:31 PM on March 21, 2015

Wait, if Joshua Tree == Disintegration == Violator, what does that make Achtung Baby?

I love all those albums

It's hard to have an album that is as solid from beginning to end as Violator, but as whole albums I think Songs of Faith and Devotion as mentioned is still excellent (although I usually prefer to listen to the live version), along with Ultra and Exciter.

If you haven't heard it, their latest live album, Live in Berlin, is quite good. It's got a really great mix of songs, and while I bought it almost reflexively, I've really enjoyed listening to it.
posted by inparticularity at 8:17 PM on March 21, 2015

You'll dance to anything
By Depeche Commode

Ever since Alan left, meh.
posted by ostranenie at 9:05 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wait, if Joshua Tree == Disintegration == Violator, what does that make Achtung Baby?

I dunno, but if my math is right, Pop was either U2's Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em or Greatest Hits 1974-1978 depending on whether Bigger & Blacker was Chris Rock's Head on the Door or Daily Drum Warm-Ups: 365 Exercises To Develop Your Technique.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:28 PM on March 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

I made my first real trip to LA (as opposed to driving through with the family on the way to other places) over spring break in 1990, so I was there for the great Depeche Mode riot of 1990. We drove around town listening to KROQ and also had Violator in heavy rotation on the tape player. Good times.
posted by mogget at 10:48 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Not much of a riot - just oh, so much hair - at the Depeche Mode signing I went to (at Record Factory on W. 8th St. in New York) in '81.
posted by progosk at 12:37 AM on March 22, 2015

Black Celebration is DM's only album that even comes close, and that's being generous to BC, which is outstanding all on its own. Violator is so amazing start to finish.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:20 AM on March 22, 2015

Wait, if Joshua Tree == Disintegration == Violator, what does that make Achtung Baby?


Well, it clearly isn't the culmination of their 80s work, it's a deliberate step in a new direction. It is surprising and anomalous for this reason, and also simply because it is a post-masterpiece album that is excellent. I guess it is a more successful Hot Trip to Heaven by Love and Rockets.
posted by snofoam at 5:20 AM on March 22, 2015

Life's Rich Pageant is their Paul's Boutique.
posted by box at 6:08 AM on March 22, 2015

So amazing what 25 years does -- back in the day, "Policy of Truth" seemed dark, radical and oh-so-new to me. Now it just seems sweet and slow to me.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:34 AM on March 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

(Having said that, "Personal Jesus" still makes me want to strip off all of my clothing and have wildly inappropriate sex, probably with your boyfriend. So in that regard, it's ageing well.)
posted by DarlingBri at 7:37 AM on March 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

I love this album. The first time I listened to this I heard 'soldiers burping' @ 1:43 on Enjoy the Silence. I don't even know what the real lyrics. I looked them up once... but somehow I prefer soldiers burping.

Soooo. Does anyone want to join me on the Jr. high gym floor and awkwardly 'dance?' Hopefully the dj will play Alphaville next and not Electric Slide.
posted by hot_monster at 8:42 AM on March 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

"The key to the album, as [Andy Fletcher] explained, was to create 'an atmosphere. I felt that we'd previously perfected a formula, [so this time] we jammed. Instead of just perfecting songs, we worked on an overall sound, [which] suits us because we're still not strictly technical. We still like to remember being fifteen and inspired by punk. We could never be Emerson, Lake and Palmer.' "

"As usual, the album boasted its share of private jokes. Again according to [Fletcher], the title itself was chosen because the band wanted a name that sounded like it could be on a heavy-metal disc .... or a hardcore porn book."

-- Depeche Mode: Some Great Reward, Dave Thompson
posted by blucevalo at 11:27 AM on March 22, 2015

I love this album so much. Maybe not my absolute favorite DM album (Ultra is really special to me even if it's not generally considered one of their classics), but still pretty amazing.

Too many favorite moments to name, but off-hand: The slithering synth noise that returns after the bridge in Sweetest Perfection; the mournful vocalizations during Blue Dress, the distorted "sometimes..." line in Clean that pretty much cripples the resolve that the narrator's been building up. And all of Policy of Truth. And World in My Eyes. And Waiting for the Night. Jeez, I need to go back and listen to this album now- so many great songs. Great post!
posted by kryptondog at 3:10 PM on March 22, 2015

Sigh, CFNY
posted by ead at 6:38 PM on March 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

To this day, I still have such complicated feelings about Depeche Mode.

They were my very favorite band when I was in high school and college--the sine qua non of my adolescence. I bought every single, 12" single, special edition single, album, etc. I could get my hands on from ~1982 until Violator. It's not an exaggeration to say that I heard more of Dave Gahan's voice as a teenager than I did my own father's.

But after Violator, with the shift to guitars and Alan Wilder's eventual departure, I just couldn't find what connected me to their songs any longer. I can't figure out what it is that changed--maybe it was me, maybe it was them, maybe both--but Violator is the very last Depeche Mode album I bought. It's an absolutely glorious album from beginning to end, but listening to it will probably always make me sad.
posted by yellowcandy at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2015

Ahem (looks down at username): yep, a big fan here too. :D

I too think Violator is a perfect album. It is one of the few I can think of than can (and should) be listened to from start to finish. It evokes a feeling, a mood that makes sense somehow as you go from one song to the next. (I put Prince's Purple Rain in the same category: an album where the songs gel in a magical way.)

I am hard-pressed to identify my favourite song, but I think Enjoy the a Silence is something I'll never tire of. And it should be played LOUDLY, so you are wrapped up in its layers. And man, World in My Eyes is so incredibly SEXY. Dave Gahan's voice is Tha Bomb! [Swoons]
posted by Halo in reverse at 9:15 PM on March 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

The whole album is very sexy. I don't think the guys in DM ever (whether it was because they were always dogged by gay rumors or what) gave much -- if any -- credit to their huge gay fan base. But this album was pretty much a tailor-made instrument of seduction if you were a gay guy in the early 1990s.
posted by blucevalo at 11:30 PM on March 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

World In My Eyes is, was, and will always be the jam.
posted by likorish at 6:49 PM on March 23, 2015