In praise of...Music for the Masses by Depeche Mode

Violator is still quite layered in places but I think yesca is kinda OTM and that it is much less symphonic and a simpler record than the two albums before it.

Take something like 'Fly on the Windscreen - Final' for example, the mix on that is so dense and there's a lot going on that's buried in there, whereas something like 'World In My Eyes' gets by with a bass synth, percussion and a string synth that either provides the chords but just as often just provides these sustained single notes. Of course, there's things that pop up here and there as the track moves along - the backwards sound going into the chorus or the dink-dink dink-dink's in the chorus itself but bass synth, string synth and drum programming is the core of that track.

Well this is cool -- first time Martin's sung "The Things You Said" in thirty years. In fact, quite literally the first time since the 101 show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLM8BpG-AyY

The newly updated only-3-songs-from-the-new-album idea, is a winner. I got a glum text from a pretty big fan who was at the London show; “Half an hour in, nothing pre-Ultra..” so its good to see there’s been a bit of a shake up.

Great to hear The Things You Said again, easily in my
Top 10.

I think the 101 show is still the last time they did 'People are People', too... their biggest hit thst they don't play.

*that

And for a long time 101 was the last lap for Just Can’t Get Enough too but then they started doing it as an encore in the ‘98 ‘Singles’ tour era. That 101 show was really the end of .. something.

Yeah, it's strange... like, 101 must have felt like the band were at their absolute peak at the time, but after Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion and all the success since then, in the rearview mirror that whole period feels weirdly transitional.

As I muttered in my Quietus piece. :-)