i’ve been obsessing over this one lately, some 26 years after the fact. i’ve always loved it – it belongs to an echelon of elite martin-vocal songs – but i never gave it its proper space because of the earlier ones. the earlier songs – martin’s lead vocal songs and DM as a whole – …
Tag Archives: depeche mode
MG
Europa Hymn from Martin Gore’s solo electronic album (MG) is perfection. Equal parts melancholy, reflective, poignant. What is its tone? Absolutely wistful. In view of beauty. Perhaps bowing down to beauty. A hymn, paying honor to something grand, something transcendent. Martin Gore knows how to translate this very emotion to music so skillfully. He brings …
Shout!
Shout! is another underrated early-era Depeche Mode song. Much of it is in a major key, sounds kind of distant and positive – but it’s bordered by a mildly dissonant header and footer. It makes for a nice complement. Who knows what they are talking about. “Break away tonight / I wanna hold your hand …
music vs lyrics
embarrassingly for me, it is not usually about the lyrics. a song gets me with its melody, its chord progression, its impeccable choice of instrumentation. maybe not something to be so embarrassed about. after all, throughout college i had this whole thesis brewing in my head about how words are a mere articulation, oftentimes a …
Ice Machine
i have a renewed love for this song. when did it start? earlier in the year, i had my own synth pop renaissance after a brief yet intense Pet Shop Boys obsession. somehow i landed on Ice Machine, and i found the Rokysopp cover on youtube. that guest singer’s voice irks me, but i can’t …
now this is fun
riding the bus home today, on a drizzly spring day, i listened to “Now this is fun” by Depeche Mode. it’s an old favorite, an obscure track that i fell for back in the day. i used to dub songs off of jane’s brother’s new wave collection, and due to my limited amount of blank …