Some great reward indeed.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In Depeche Mode\u2019s case, their fourth album was the breakthrough in the U.S. that they had been looking for. In building on the industrial sound they had discovered on Construction Time Again<\/i>, they managed to create one of the most perfect sounding synth-pop albums ever. All they needed was a little buff and polish by producers Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones, and before they knew it, Depeche Mode was ready for the mainstream. <\/p>\n
Well, almost. Certainly, a song about S&M, \u201cMaster And Servant,\u201d wasn\u2019t going to fly in conservative Reagan America at the time, though it is where I started getting more interested in all things Depeche. This particular single proved there was more to this group after all.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
You can see just how far the band had come since their anemic debut Dreaming Of Me. <\/i>Fans have always liked Depeche Mode down and dirty, so \u201cMaster And Servant\u201d fit the bill perfectly when it came to ballsy aggression. <\/p>\n
The two other standout tracks on Some Great Reward <\/i>are \u201cPeople Are People\u201d and \u201cIf You Want.\u201d As their best single since 1980\u2019s \u201cJust Can\u2019t Get Enough,\u201d \u201cPeople Are People\u201d contained an infectious chorus that you just couldn\u2019t get out of your head:\u00a0 \u201cPeople are people, why should it be?\u00a0 You and I should get along so awfully.\u201d\u00a0 Nonsensical like a nursery rhyme, for sure, but giant hooks are essential ingredients to any successful pop song.\u00a0 This one became Depeche Mode\u2019s first Top 40 hit, something they wouldn\u2019t do again until \u201cPersonal Jesus\u201d in 1989.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
However, my choice for best song on Some Great Reward <\/i>is \u201cIf You Want,\u201d a song that should serve as proof that they should have never let bandmate Alan Wilder go. <\/p>\n
The two songs tucked in the middle of the album don\u2019t fare nearly as well as the others.\u00a0 The melodramatic \u201cStories Of Old\u201d is too dated and hokey sounding to be effective, and the laughable piano ballad \u201cSomebody\u201d doesn\u2019t quite work because there is too much going on in the background (seagulls and waves, diners in a caf\u00e9, children playing on a playground\u2026enough already).\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Martin Gore redeems himself with the Asian-influenced \u201cIt Doesn\u2019t Matter,\u201d where he sings with resonance over a backdrop of chimes and bells. Also, there is the gothic single \u201cBlasphemous Rumours\u201d that has forgotten timeless classic written all over it. Lead singer David Gahan has his moments to shine on this album as well, especially on \u201cLie To Me,\u201d a mid-tempo number that one can still groove to. His fetching vocal seemed to be getting stronger with each successive album. <\/p>\n
After drug problems and a near-death experience in the mid-90s, Gahan would recover, rebound and sound better than ever on 1997\u2019s Ultra<\/i>, which is yet another one of Depeche Mode\u2019s impressive efforts, almost on par with this classic album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":28865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6979],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40365","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-depeche-mode","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40365"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}