DEPECHE MODE - Violator

Artist:  Depeche Mode

Album:  Violator

Year:  1990

Genre:  Synth-Pop / New Wave / Alternative

I feel like I should be isolated in a video booth like they used to do on those horrible MTV reality shows.  It’s now true confession time.  As cool as I would like to play this, I didn’t let Depeche Mode into my life until my early 20s.  I used the word “let” with intention.  Depeche Mode has lurked around me since my mid-teen years.  My sister was heavy into them and my first real high school girlfriend and her crew were huge fans.  I denied their existence because my metal-thrash-punk personality was too rad for some wussy keyboard band.  Yeah, I wasn’t, and all I did was miss out on years of loving some of the best alternative synth pop in existence.  By the time Violator was unleashed on the planet, I was still too stubborn to admit to its awesomeness.  I was already working in a record store so I heard the album consistently and there was no way to avoid their videos on MTV or in clubs that catered to the alternative crowd.  Even though industrial music was a huge part of my life at the time, I just didn’t make the connection with Depeche Mode and their synth pop ways.  Like too many other bands I was pigheaded about, one day it kicked in and I’ve been listening intently ever since.

Depeche Mode has a vast catalog and I admittedly only love a slice of it.  I view their run of studio albums between the years 1983 and 1990 as the pinnacle of their output.  Just like their most popular contemporaries The Cure, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and New Order, I don’t think they ever bottomed out with any album.  No, not all their records resonate with me and I don’t listen regularly to any releases after 1993, but I truly appreciate their tenacity and the artistry of everything they create.  Even as they ascended with each album in the 80s, Violator soars above anything that came previously or after.  I know the Black Celebration and Music For The Masses supporters would like to have a strong word with me after that statement.  

What Depeche Mode achieved on Violator is profound. Simply put, there isn’t a single misstep on the album. The songs are so smooth and streamlined and pulsate effortlessly from the first note to the last, swaying back and forth between downcast moods and other moments that are lighter, and even border on gentle. All you have to do is listen to the back-to-back combo of "Halo" and "Waiting For The Night" to know what the album is all about.  Their fusion of darkwave and pop is effortless as they never let either personality take over.  Listening closely to the music, there is a formula that Depeche Mode utilizes that isn’t overly heady or complex.  But it is THEIR formula, and although the genius of Martin Gore’s songwriting may seem simplistic, it’s not and no other artist has been capable of successfully replicating it.  As he has shown time and time again, David Gahan has the ability to vocalize words and melody so surgically that the songs become instantaneously etched in the listener’s mind.  All of this gives Violator sustained playability.  I never tire from hearing these songs no matter the number of repeated plays.  Sure, there are times I think to myself, “Do I really need to hear ‘Personal Jesus’ for the 150th time?”  The answer is an emphatic “yes!” as then I soon find myself tapping along to its infectious rhythm, just as I do with the rest of the album.  Violator lives in the top tier of new wave / synthpop music which includes Please by Pet Shop Boys, Rio by Duran Duran, and the self-titled album by A Flock Of Seagulls; all bulletproof albums which set an almost unreachable standard for the genre.  Their exemplary consistency on Black Celebration, Music For The Masses and Violator (other fans may even add Some Great Reward and Songs Of Faith And Devotion) easily exceeds anything those other classic bands ever achieved.  My younger, obviously more immature, self may have dismissed Depeche Mode out of an allegiance to aggression, yet, Violator finally found a permanent home with me.  Decades later, it still sounds timeless and essential

Listen to "Halo" here.