Depeche Mode Albums Poll (post-'Songs of Faith & Devotion')

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Didn't Freelove have a vastly different remix for the single version?

Voting Delta Machine because it far exceeded my expectations. Exciter's definitely the weakest.

No weakest would be Sounds of the Universe. Still not sold on Delta Machine byt willing to give it a few more tries

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

Seems about right

the tragedy of SOTU is that it contains some fantastically strong songs but the album as a whole never comes together

forever <3 "In Chains" though

^^^ I first read that as SOFAD instead of SOTU and was going to agree

Four years on, SOTU seems almost forgettable. Will anybody really care if they don't play any songs from it on the tour?

I really would love to hear "In Chains", "Wrong", "Hole To Feed" and "Corrupt"; I don't have a particular opinion about the rest of the album beyond sort of despising "Peace"

SOFAD gave us "I Feel You" and "Walking In My Shoes" so despite how much I hate "Condemnation" I will always think of it fondly

Well I loved and still love "Wrong" - which seemed a fantastic throwback to their Black Celebration sound but then a lot of the album seemed intent to show that DM could do sunny day organic pop.
I know I'm in the minority but besides "Wrong", the only song I would still keep on my iPod would be "Come Back" and "Miles Away"

oh "Come Back" is very very good

I do think many people underrate "Hole To Feed", I just love the rhythm section and the gloriously weird sound effects that pop up all over it

And, of course, that video.

did they do a video for "Peace"? "Wrong" and "Hole To Feed" were such home runs

They did and I seem to remember it being nowhere near as good, then again those WERE home runs and a half.

In retrospect one of the 'whuh?' videos of their career is the one for "Precious."

I may be on my own here, but one of my favourite tracks on Sounds Of The Universe is 'Perfect'...

"Perfect" is decent IMO but I rarely go to it

I've spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of days listening solely to Depeche Mode's post-Songs of Faith and Devotion albums and a few thoughts...

Ultra keeps on sounding better and better to my ears as the years go by - excellent production from Tim Simenon and some beautiful vocals from both Martin and Dave, a very underrated collection of songs.

Exciter keeps on sounding worse and worse to my ears as the years go by - I managed to force my way through the record from beginning to end last night, and I'm very much convinced at this stage that it's the worst collection of songs Martin Gore has ever written - say what you like about A Broken Frame, but I'll take the highlights of that record over pretty much all of Exciter. 'Freelove' and 'Goodnight Lovers' sounded pretty good, though, and I enjoy the throbbing chorus on 'Shine'... and strangely, 'I Feel Loved' hit the spot for me when it's always been one of those tracks I've never really cared about. 'Dream On', 'When The Body Speaks' (zzZZzzZZzz), 'The Dead Of Night', 'Comatose', 'Breathe' and 'I Am You' can all fffffffuck right off, and the album probably has the least interesting interludes of any Depeche album. The worst album of their career.

Playing The Angel, on the other hand, is a very good record IMO... I've always disliked the hot mastering on this album, and my listen to the album last night didn't change my mind one jot on that. However, words can't express how seriously fucking good it was to hear this album directly after Exciter... the songs are definitely there and at the time it was probably their most energetic record in a long while. If the record was mastered at a reasonable level, and the Dave-written snoozer 'I Want It All' was removed from the album, it'd be close to perfect, I think. Why they opted to sequence that particular track in the middle of the record is one of the most confounding things about Playing The Angel for me; it meanders, the chorus isn't very strong and it creates a dip right in the middle of the album, when it should be keeping the momentum going built up by the first six tracks. 'Macro' into 'Nothing's Impossible' would have been much better, IMO.

Sounds Of The Universe was far better than I remembered it being and I think a lot of Depeche fans are a little too harsh on this record. The mastering is nowhere near as awful as that on Playing The Angel, and the sound design comes across to me as being a little more smoother and less "harsh" than on Playing The Angel. Sure, none of Dave's songs here are up to the standard of 'Suffer Well' or 'Nothing's Impossible' (I personally don't care if I never hear 'Come Back' or 'Miles Away/The Truth Is' ever again - although 'Hole To Feed' seems to have grown on me a hell of a lot), but while Martin hasn't come up with a "classic" on the level of 'Precious' or 'Home' this time around, a lot of the songs strike me as being good and/or competent: 'In Chains', 'Wrong', 'Fragile Tension', 'Little Soul', 'In Sympathy', 'Perfect', 'Jezebel' and 'Corrupt' don't blow me away, but I'd willingly listen to them again and enjoy them while I'm listening to them. I actually think that not only is the songwriting better on this album compared to Exciter, but the enjoyment level is a lot higher for me too.

Delta Machine, though... fuck! This record has grown on me quite a hell of a lot since it first came out, and listening to these records back-to-back, I feel that this is the best production of the Ben Hillier records. I think Dave turned in an excellent batch of songs this time around, particularly 'Secret To The End', and Martin's songs, on the whole, are pretty strong too. Sure, it's not the Depeche Mode of Violator or Music For The Masses, but what it is is a very good record by a veteran band and one of their stronger albums of their post-Songs of Faith and Devotion phase.