Depeche Mode - Ultra

The Love Thieves by a mile.

"It's No Good" by a mile.

"Insight" is a great closer though, and I'm quite partial to "The Bottom Line".

Gret album.

Adore Tim Simenon's (tweaking of DM's) sound on this album, one of the most inspired act/producer pairings I can think of.

there are so many good songs on this album

OK fine: I'll listen.

Useless -- especially the radio rock mix not on the album

Worst album art in the DM discography? I've never heard this album but I love the Underworld Soft Mix of Barrel of a Gun.

I know why they couldn't tour for it. I understand why doing a greatest hits tour a year later was a good move (and it was). I've heard most of the singles live one way or another as a result then and in later years on tour.

BUT

No proper tour for this meant no deep dive into the album as a whole which meant I never got to see them do "Insight" live as some sort of amazing set-closer or just anywhere in a show.

So I'm still bitter. Unreasonably.

ahh the on-u sound album ..

have to listen to this again.

This is the last Depeche Mode album I really liked. Home gets my vote. Beautiful vocal and a really great string arrangement near the end.

I love "Home" but it's the one that makes it most obvious that Depeche Mode hired Simenon off the back of Bjork's "Play Dead".

It's better than Songs of Faith and Devotion.

I have to admit, Ultra took some time to grow on me, because after four albums which feature tracks that could be termed "stadium anthems", Ultra was noticeably more of a headphone/bedroom record. There's certainly no 'Stripped', 'Never Let Me Down Again', 'Enjoy The Silence' or 'I Feel You' on this record, and the closest the album comes in terms of vibe to the previous record, Songs of Faith and Devotion, is the lead single, 'Barrel Of A Gun', although maybe 'Useless' runs it close.

'Barrel Of A Gun' was a bit of a red herring, I thought. When the band came back with that single, I was all prepared for another album that had a similar vibe to Songs of Faith and Devotion but with a heavier emphasis on electronics and cleaner production (I know that Songs of Faith and Devotion is derided by some as being Depeche's "rock" album, but it isn't really a rock record). Imagine my surprise when listening to the album for the first time, when 'Barrel Of A Gun' gave way to the incredibly sedate, floating, defiantly unanthemic and dare I say it, chorus-less 'The Love Thieves', the track here that probably took the longest time to grow on me. Damn, I love the way that it sounds (indeed, the production on the whole record is top notch), but I didn't really click with the song that's at its core for a long while.

Nowadays, I find myself regularly listening Ultra more than I can ever recall doing so in the past. Taken on its own terms, I find its a very gorgeous sounding, very well-produced headphones record. While I've certainly found myself missing Alan's input on other records they've made without him, I can definitely say for certain that I don't miss him so much on this one. In fact, in hindsight, the pairing of Depeche Mode with Tim Simenon was an inspired decision and an excellent fit and I'm really surprised they didn't make another album with him, although in some way its understandable that after the making of Ultra, Simenon may have been less keen on working on another Depeche Mode full-length.

Black Celebration, Music For The Masses, Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion will always be the absolute classic run of Depeche Mode albums for me, the absolute pinnacle of the band's powers. However, Ultra is definitely close behind, as is Playing The Angel, Some Great Reward and dare I say it, Speak & Spell (which is an excellent record when taken on its own terms, although I tend to see it as the sole album from a very different band that also happened to be called Depeche Mode and feature Gore, Gahan and Fletch).

Useless -- especially the radio rock mix not on the album

― LimbsKing, Monday, August 11, 2014 5:19 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Kruder & Dorfmeister session is my favourite mix of 'Useless' ever!

Home gets my vote. Beautiful vocal and a really great string arrangement near the end.

― Kitchen Person, Tuesday, August 12, 2014 1:00 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I voted for 'Freestate', because I think it's a seriously underrated gem with a great chorus, but 'Home' could have equally easily had my vote, as well as several other tracks here. Totally agree about the vocals and string arrangement!

"It's No Good" for the video alone

Meh, I don't really rate the video for 'It's No Good' all that highly to be honest. As great as Corbijn's work with Depeche Mode generally is, it's probably one of the only videos he did for them that doesn't suit the track at all.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I love how each DM album post-Violator, maybe, arrives usually as a slight shock, delivered via solid singles but stuffed with some more surprising downbeat or atmospheric detours. Then inevitably, months and years go by, and each album, from this one to Exciter to Playing the Angel to Sounds of the Universe et al. suddenly sounds so amazingly of a part with the band's past that it's hard to believe I ever doubted their place in the ouevre.

Albums still too long, though.

Am I the only one who finds "Home" reminds them weirdly of "Wonderwall"

Over the years they have managed to include nearly all these songs in their live sets, but of course it's not the same as a proper tour for the album. How about a "Trilogy"-style concert with "Black Celebration", "Ultra", and "Delta Machine"?

Yeah, and even then sometimes they've been played as Martin "solo" versions rather than full band versions. They haven't touched 'Useless' since the Singles 86-98 tour, 'The Bottom Line' was last played on the Exciter tour and they've never played 'The Love Thieves' live. Having said that, Ultra has actually fared better for live airings than Exciter has over the years: only 'When The Body Speaks', 'Freelove' and 'Goodnight Lovers' have been played since the Exciter tour, nothing else.

Also, I've just found out that the Pasadena Rowl Bowl concert (101) was (to date) the last time they have played 'People Are People', 'Blasphemous Rumours', 'The Things You Said', 'Sacred', 'Nothing' and 'Pleasure Little Treasure' live.

Am I the only one who finds "Home" reminds them weirdly of "Wonderwall"

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, August 16, 2014 12:02 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, the way the strings cycle through the root notes of the four chords in the outro is very 'Wonderwall'-like.

A weird album this - should have been a minor transitional release "just glad to still be here" kinda thing and I kind greeted it as such at the time - and yet now I see it as one of their very best. Top 3 really

I guess the quality of the music itself got buried a lot over the amount of press they got over Alan leaving and Dave's attempted suicide/overdose. If you watch/read any interview with Depeche Mode around this time, Dave spends a lot of time getting his demons off his chest, and because they (understandably, and wisely) didn't tour it, the album got buried a little further. For a while, it seemed as Ultra was going to be forever perceived as the record that the band made in an attempt to keep themselves together and nothing more. But, I think with the passing of time, it's much easier to see Ultra for what it is... and what it is very, very good indeed in my opinion.

This was my first Depeche Mode album so naturally I think it's better than many of you who had heard them in better incarnations.

The first half of the album is brilliant imho, but most of them should have been edited down by a couple of minutes (specially 'It's no good').

Voting Useless because at the time I felt like it sounded like a Mezzanine outtake.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Understandable choice.

We haven't talked much about the fact that this is Dave's first album after the voice lessons.

Yeah, 'It's No Good' wouldn't have sounded out of place on Violator, really, so it's no surprise to me that the track here with the most votes is the one track on here that would comfortably slot into one of their most (if not the most) commercially successful/acclaimed albums.

I still think 'Freestate' is incredibly underrated, though... the chorus on it is one of the catchiest vocal melodies on the album. Maybe with a different treatment it could have turned into something more anthemic, but I love the way the treatment it has... it sounds vast and open, like the musical equivalent of a very open and endless space.

I love Dave's vocals on this album. While 'Barrel Of A Gun' doesn't seem to give much indication that Dave had had some vocal training during the making of the album, then tracks like 'The Love Thieves' certainly do... even though that song took its time to grow on me, I still admired Dave's vocal on it.

'Sister Of Night' too, I think is a great vocal, even though it's legendarily the track on here that was recorded while Dave was still on drugs, and was heavily compiled from multiple takes (sometimes down to the syllables, apparently) because his voice was so out of shape. The end result masks the problems rather well, I think.

As strange as this sounds, I actually wouldn't mind hearing the vocal takes that Dave laid down in the initial sessions, just to hear for myself how bad they apparently were. I guess that the band themselves would be less thrilled if bootlegs of that stuff came out, though. I wonder too, if Martin laid down lead vocal tracks for all of these songs at some point just in case the shit hit the fan. Surely he must have laid down guide vocals or something, because the process of making the album was so long and it could well have been Martin's first "proper" solo album if Dave hadn't managed to achieve the impressive feat of pulling himself out of the rut he'd got himself into.

The small documentary that came with the Ultra remaster is worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlGK0Km_ouY

(as are all the documentaries that came with the remastered albums)

Also, press archives (news items/interviews) from the period here and HERE.

Thank you! Watched all the older docs but stopped at Violator.

I get the impression a lot of singers get voice lessons relatively in their career because as kids they can just blast through a set but as they get older it starts to take its toll. Elvis Costello, Madonna, Roger Daltrey, I suspect Springsteen at some point ... basically anyone over the age of 40 who has to sustain an entire set. It definitely changes the way they approach a tune, but I think in many cases they lack a sound alternative.

I guess the quality of the music itself got buried a lot over the amount of press they got over Alan leaving and Dave's attempted suicide/overdose.

There's that, but I also remember stories about how the breakthrough of "electronica" was a kind of vindication for DM (i.e. "it's finally cool to like Depeche Mode!") which of course was stupid because of how massive "Violator" and SOFAD were. I think there were too many silly angles where people tried to figure out how DM's new album fit into the new landscape, and forgot to talk about the actual music.

Does Wilder ever get credited on the albums with songwriting or production? He obviously brought so much to them.

Well, he gets a credit on the songs that he wrote, such as 'Two Minute Warning', 'If You Want' etc. but he hasn't had one of his songs on an album since Some Great Reward. In fact, it still surprises me that Dave and Alan didn't form a songwriting partnership while he was in the band; Dave has always worked with co-writers on his own material, and Alan is on record as saying that lyrics were never his strong point, and always collaborated with guest vocalists on the Recoil stuff. But no, during this time Alan didn't receive songwriting credits for anything he added to Martin's songs, and production work was usually credited to the producers and the band (I.e. 'Produced by Depeche Mode and Flood'), even though it's clear that Alan was the most involved in that area.

Man, there are some shows I've seen that I've totally forgotten, but that's usually. However, I really wish I remember more than the vaguest details of the Singles Tour, which I know I saw and liked but can't recall at all.

it was a very end-of-the-pier cabaret vibe compared to the previous tours. i was kinda horrified tbh; Dave had some kind of Grandad suit on at Wembley and they suddenly looked ancient. looking back it was just a cheap and cheerful show i guess.

I didn't attend the Singles Tour, but I remember seeing pictures of the stage set and not being very impressed. Also, while the Devotional tour hinted at it with live drumming from Alan Wilder on a couple of tracks, and Martin Gore playing more guitar, this really was the first tour where they went the whole hog on presenting themselves as a "rock" band live... and they've pretty much stayed in that mode since. I remember being a bit disappointed at how little Martin was playing the keyboards during the Exciter tour.

Even if it was still a retrenching it was also a pretty handy way to say "Hey we HAVE been around and there's an actual legacy here." Comparative point: at this stage in their careers they were where the Rolling Stones were at with Tattoo You, chronologically speaking.

This is the album where i mostly fell off the DM bus, partly due to Martin digging extra deep into the somewhat gospelly, heavily sentimental lyrical trench he'd opened up on SoFaD. "Love will be the death of my lonely soul brothers, but their spirit shall live on in the hearts of all lovers" - I just don't have a clue what to do with that. otoh he has some great vocal performances - Home, which is stellar and would've been my vote if I'd seen this in time; and his backing vocals on Insight, especially the bit at 2:26 where he comes in just on the right channel and murmurs "lead me on" right in your ear. An all-time classic headphone moment.

yeah i fell pretty much off the bus at this point too. or off the 'crazy fan' bus at least. at the listening party in Manchester to be exact. i've probably only really liked 3 or 4 songs they've made since.

Home is lovely.

Yeah, it's fair to say that I now see this as part of the classic run of Depeche Mode albums!

surprised Home didn't get more love here. a fan fave i suppose but people really do love it. the firework noise (a sound effect?) on The Love Thieves is the sort of subtle thing they don't do much anymore IMO.

Yeah, I listened to this back-to-back with Playing The Angel the other day and I couldn't help but notice that Ultra has a layered depth to its mix that Playing The Angel just doesn't. Listening to Ultra on headphones has always been an absolute pleasure.

There's some tasty drum sounds on this record too, I think.

Possibly the logical byproduct of hiring a producer known for beats vs. a producer known for ... whatever Ben Hiller is known for. Doing a good job?

Prior to working on Playing The Angel, he worked on Blur's Think Tank, Doves' Some Cities and Elbow's Cast Of Thousands and Asleep In The Back, so "indie" music predominantly. I remember it being such a surprise to find out he was working with Depeche Mode pretty much for this reason.

I think some of the production team on this album worked on Secrets by The Human League, too? Although not Simenon, of course.

i have the original cd edition of this and listening to 'the love thieves' now i am succumbing to its charms.
the whole sound structure is just gorgeous.
so, question - given i have the original, do i need to get the remastered edition ?

I haven't done a side-by-side comparison or anything, but I suspect not. The original CD still sounds fine to me!

yeah, i suspect so.
it sounds bloody brilliant.
was just wondering if there was a massive sonic uplift ...

I still can't believe how lovely the vocal on 'Sister of Night', given what was going on at the time. The comp'ing sessions for that sound as if they were a real headache.

yeah Love Thieves (easily my number 1 in this poll) is just genius. in the Ultra doc Dan Miller says they put the whole album 'through a valve amp' which explains its fatter sound. no idea what that means.

I don't think Ultra is their best collection of songs but the production is my favorite out of all their albums, and my favorite to listen to with headphones. It used to be the album I'd compare my own productions to for years (and feel frustrated that I couldn't come close to matching it). It's pretty close to perfect

Yeah why didn't DM want to work with Tim Simenon after this (or technically after "Only When I Lose Myself")? I can understand not wanting to repeat themselves and to work with different producers, but Ben Hillier has produced their last three albums.

If I had to guess, I think Josh got it right, upthread. Hillier doesn't seem to have as big a footprint on the sound as Simenon or Bell; maybe he's a more a facilitator and that's what the band wants now.

I think there's some great songs on the Hillier produced albums, but sonically they're just not as exciting to me.

Having said that, Ultra took a long time to make by Depeche standards for various well-known reasons. I can't help but feel that because it took so long for Dave to get his act together, that it may have afforded the production team a little bit more time to work on the backing tracks.

this is the best album

can we talk in-depth about the ultimate martin gore song also known as "the bottom line"

Nothing will ever top Violator as it's the first album I ever fell in love with but Ultra is one of their very best. Kruder & Dorfmeister's remix of 'Useless' also deserves more love.

Weird, I was only listening to this yesterday and thinking how at this point it may just have my favourite production of all the Depeche Mode albums, although Alan Wilder fanatics may disagree. It's not their best collection of songs, but it is still one of their best albums.

yeah, agreed - there's a real vibe on this one

Having Tim Simenon and his team as the producers really was an inspired choice. Given the whole thing was a project of reconstruction — recovering from Gahan’s near death, Gore kicking alcohol, Fletch’s own breakdown after his sister’s death, and above all Alan’s departure — it would have been easy to simply turn it over to someone and shrug. But Simenon managed a real trick in continuing the murky haze of SOFAD to a degree in continuity — something accentuated by the post trip-hop undertones that had emerged since — while suggesting more light and focus had emerged at just the right moments. Everyone found their way to the middle just enough to create a new dynamic, and while a big final step (Gahan’s emergence as a songwriter) had to wait for Playing, this created a new solid foundation that a year’s further rest and the (really) great Singles Tour solidified.

I wish they'd tried working on another album with Simenon and that Gore had given himself time to overcome his writers block - the 'Only When I Lose Myself' single turned out great (particularly the better-than-the-A-side 'Surrender') but Exciter was really forced and still to me is one of the worst albums they've ever made.

I like how chill (boring) Exciter is.

Exciter is probably the DM album i'm least familiar with (except Dream On, one of my fave singles of theirs) but I appreciated them taking risks and trying unlikely new sounds.

^ Yep

I was pretty disappointed by Exciter, especially after the stronger songs of Playing the Angel, but now I appreciate that they were pushing for a new sound on Exciter. That's the last album where they did so - Playing the Angel was more of a retread to the early days and they've stuck with that palette

I appreciated them taking risks, too. Unfortunately, when a band takes a risk you can't always expect a great outcome and Exciter wasn't a great outcome. I've heard it being described as "intimate", but sonically the LP sounds like tarted-up, studio quality demos in comparison to everything before or since. Song-wise it's a bit of a mixed bag: on the whole it's Gore's worst collection of lyrics since Construction Time Again. Musically, I like 'Shine', 'Goodnight Lovers' and 'Freelove', but on the other hand there's crap like 'Comatose', 'The Dead of Night' and 'I Feel Loved', which was probably their worst single since 'It's Called a Heart' ...

"When the Body Speaks" is an amazingly delicate construction. My sleeper from that album.

Ultra has such a thick sound. Would have loved to hear Simenon tackle the SOFD songs, an album I never connected with.

I love Songs of Faith and Devotion, not just because of the quality of the songs, but they took a risk on that album and it actually worked! They had a lot to lose at that point, and came out with a record which pretty much was a complete departure from everything before it, yet was still very much a Depeche Mode record. They could have alienated a huge part of their audience with that record - somehow, it made them even bigger.

re: Exciter, "Dream On" is super underrated
re: Construction Time Again, that is 2nd or 3rd best album, depending on how I'm feeling about Music for the Masses on a given day
re: Ultra, "Home" and "Useless" are two of their best songs

Watch this space.

Well, since it's live...

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/depeche-mode-ultra/

Very well done.

Great piece Ned. I love songs from Exciter and Playing the Angel and even past that, but this is the last of their albums where I don't skip anything

Nice! Good to see wider public recognize that post imperial phase DM still rules. Probably the band that held up best post 80’s amongst their ilk

I can see why, given the history and the protracted recording process, this is simultaneously their "band in crisis falling apart" record and their "all grown-up now" record; for most groups, they are two separate releases.

Everyone found their way to the middle just enough to create a new dynamic

is a good way of putting it.

Did a little bonus Twitter thread talking about some sources and things to note:

Okay as promised elsewhere a little bit ago, an addendum to the _Ultra_ review for Pitchfork Sunday linking various things noted or mentioned in it. Had to do a lot of source review per fact-checking requirements -- no bad thing! -- and thought I would share some it.

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) July 31, 2022

i agree re the leblanc/wimbish comment.
a proper album of On-U vs DG could be very interesting.
after all, there is a shared history, and DG is now open to working with crews outside of the DM bubble (hello Soulsavers).

I must thank Ned for elbowing me into giving it a second chance. I formed a wrong impression about "Barrel of a Gun." I had no idea the mix would sound so rich, updated for the times; it sounds like Portishead influenced them.

Not a bad way to consider it! There’s a connection there for sure.

I love this alternate video which they showed on the Exciter tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stpaq27-V70

Barrel of a Gun is an all time top five DM track for me. For all that it's a bit tuneless on the surface that's a big red herring in reality.

I also feel that while BOAG sounds rather like Digging in the Dirt, and Ava Adore sounds like BOAG, Ava Adore doesn't at all sound like Digging the Dirt. Odd!

I must thank Ned for elbowing me into giving it a second chance. I formed a wrong impression about "Barrel of a Gun." I had no idea the mix would sound so rich, updated for the times; it sounds like Portishead influenced them.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 September 2022 22:15 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Without wanting to diminish the band's own influence on the sound, it's very telling to listen to Bomb the Bass's Clear alongside Ultra. Simenon's sound is so distinctive but also so... obvious? I don't mean that in a bad way. Perhaps "historically inevitable" captures what I'm getting at better.

Even more pertinently, Ned's excellent piece inspired me to check out Gavin Friday's Shag Tobacco (1996 release also produced by Tim Simenon) which really does feel like a key missing link here: it sounds like the sort of album Jarvis Cocker might have made if he had spent a lot of time listening to Bowie's Outside (and I wouldn't be surprised if Cocker did listen to Shag Tobacco before Pulp recorded This Is Hardcore - though ironically Outside sounds more like Songs of Faith and Devotion than Ultra (of course, it seems a given that both Friday and Gahan/Gore were always already heavily influenced by Bowie). But in any event, it creates for me this kind of loop-effect of these artists from the seventies and eighties grappling with how to milk the sonic developments of the nineties for maximum theatrical effect (all of these artists flirt with Brecht/Weil affectations to varying degrees), and ending up in roughly similar territory.

I don't remember if they recorded it during these sessions but The Singles' "Only When I Lose Myself" is excellent and belongs on my list of the best new songs recorded for a comp.

Apt summary and description there Tim -- at the time of release to me it was just this lush, strange release, Shag Tobacco. I just remember getting really pissed it didn't catch on further, like it was a secret (and still is).

"Only When I Lose Myself" is striking but I admit its B-side "Surrender" hits me just a bit harder, if admittedly a bit more straightforwardly.

When I interviewed Gahan some years back he referred to "Ultra" and "Exciter" as more the product of their producers than usual for the band. Something like, "although Martin and Fletch would probably argue with me, I still describe those records as the Tim Simenon album and the Mark Bell album."

I mean it's a fair assessment, they were still finding out what to do after Wilder's departure. The combination of Dave's songwriting being allowed in and Ben Hillier feeling more like a collaborator essentially set the template for the band going forward with Playing The Angel.

I don't know if Gahan meant that statement in a neutral or negative way, but I love that the DM 90s albums plus Exciter sound so shaped by their producers. It makes each one sound like a different band, almost

Love the vibe going on for "Freestate." That groove could've gone for 10+ minutes easily. Unofficial end of the album for me.

When I interviewed Gahan some years back he referred to "Ultra" and "Exciter" as more the product of their producers than usual for the band. Something like, "although Martin and Fletch would probably argue with me, I still describe those records as the Tim Simenon album and the Mark Bell album."

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 14 September 2022 02:44 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The irony of this is that although I can literally here what Bell contributes on Exciter, at another level it doesn't feel like he leaves much of a trace. All of his typical impulses get translated into this kind of polite fussiness that is of a piece with the mostly nothingy songwriting. But I guess Gahan is also half-right in that the album also feels like less of a DM album than usual as well.

All I know of this album is BOAG, from a free Q Magazine CD released at the time. It slams; I remember thinking how it felt like a different take on the Y2K Matrix-soundtrack cybergoth sound so prevalent elsewhere. I'll have to hear the rest of the album, see if that's the vibe

Sticking it on again, I'm put in mind of nothing so much as The Young Gods

Ultra and Exciter are like the first two Gorillaz albums to me - driven by a single producer before the want to make, for lack of a better term, nearly interchangeable albums slowly takes over (not a criticism, mind).

Really love Ultra a lot, last time I listened to any of it I got really into the songs I never liked when I first heard it about 18 years ago. I got stuck on Useless for ages because I really like the POV shift and the cheesy guitars and The Love Thieves (bc I love how Dave sings love needs its martyrs). When I was younger I was really into Sister of Night and Home (I still really like Home tbh). But happy to see this album get some love!

nearly interchangeable albums slowly takes over (not a criticism, mind)

I definitely criticize them for that