Probably my favourite ever band and I read a lot of these rankings lists but what are Elektronauts favourite DM albums.
I’m not a big fan of their more recent albums which probably reflects my rankings but here goes
14 Exciter
13 Spirit
12 Sounds of the universe
11 Playing the angel
10 Delta Machine
9 Speak and spell
8 A broken frame
7 Ultra
6 Songs of faith and devotion
5 Construction time again
4 Music for the masses
3 Some Great Reward
2 Violator
1 Black Celebration
I could interchange the top 3 but that’s my ranking
Not bought any albums since Alan left, and pretty much stopped bothering to listen after hearing Playing The Angel which was way too distorted but had a few tracks that pleased the ears…
So…
•Songs Of Faith And Devotion
•Black Celebration
•Violator
Always a place in my heart for them but things change man…
I don’t mind their latest stuff and some of it is really good… even the much maligned Exciter has a couple of really nice tracks on it - Shine might even make my top 10 of songs by them. Being honest though, for all that they write some fantastic tracks I just don’t think they are an albums band. There are always a few clunkers on each album… that said, I’d say my favourites are probably:
Music For The Masses
Ultra
Speak And Spell
Weirdly, one of my absolute all time favourite songs by them is Only When I Lose Myself which appeared as an unreleased track on one of their greatest hits.
Yeah they’ve made some great non album tracks and b sides-
Get the balance right
Shake the disease
Surrender
Happiest girl
Sea of sin
Dangerous
Martyr
But not tonight
My joy
Deaths door
Pleasure little treasure
Fools
Yeah, another oddity (at least for me) was that my favourite track from Delta Machine was one that on the extended limited edition version… I was just thinking that a top 10 favourite songs would be interesting to see what people thought - I’d need to head off and do some head scratching before I could figure out what mines were right enough…
That would take me forever, I pretty much love nearly every track of my top 4 albums although if I had to pick one track I just love One Caress off SOFAD
i’m one of the outliers here, i got into Depeche Mode late, around PTA era, and I absolutely love that album. then i kind of worked my way back, and forward, and around haha.
I prefer basically everything Violator and after. SOFAD is one of my top ones, as is PTA, Sounds of the Universe has a few really good ones, Delta is pretty solid most of the way through, and Spirit has a few that I really like too.
I suppose it depends on when you first heard the albums and if you grew up with them, I first got into them in the mid 80’s and my first time seeing them was the violator tour in 1990
I prefer the ones that had mark bell and Tim Simenon involved…. And the odd dj shadow / hardfloor / Darren price remix. Though I heard a few old their old synth tracks that had a nice 80’s simpler sound on a top of the pops special recently.
Ultra
Exciter
Seems a shame William orbit never did one of their albums.
Black celebration and Violator tied for first
Songs of Faith and Devotion
Music For the Masses
Some Great Reward
Playing The Angel
Construction Time Again
A Broken Frame
Ultra
Speak And Spell
Exciter
Delta Machine
Sounds of the universe
Spirit
Honestly have to say that spirit is only so low beside I barely have listened to it.
I watched ‘New Life’ when it was first shown on TOTP when i was a New Romantic(Ultravox and John Foxx etc etc.). Then for some reason never listened to any other albums by them till Violator. Then i stopped again. Must be a reason for all of this.
Just yesterday a dude brought me a huge pile of vinyl in my shop and there was Exciter which my personal collection was missing.
I checked Discogs and saw that the median price paid for that album nowadays was 115€. Woah! I realized that if I don’t take it home now, there might not be another chance for it. So I ran with it.
My favourites would also be the four albums from Black Celebration to Songs Of Faith And Devotion but I like all of their albums. That particular period works best for me because it was one of the bands we often listened to while playing tabletop miniature games in our teens. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
This has changed so many times over the years but today it is…
Violator
Black Celebration
Some Great Reward
Music for the Masses
Construction Time Again
Songs of Faith and Devotion
At the time I absolutely loved SOFAD but I find it really overwrought now. Still some great tunes on it though. My favourite single by them is Shake The Disease.
When I was a kid with a paper round, I couldn’t afford a walkman so I memorised the entirety of A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again so that I could sing the albums to myself while delivering the papers. Thankfully it was quite a rural route with nobody to witness this other than a few crows and the occasional cow!
most effect on me had “contruction time again”…
life changing experience was “some great reward”
while most fanfactor on me had “music for the masses”…
anything after that, was more about singles than whole albums…
might wanna add…saw them live for the first time during their “black celebration” phase…
which was big “fun”…saw them live touring “some great reward”, their famous 101 show…
both in 6000’s venues…
and one last time during their “ultra” tour…in a 20000+ openair venue…
not that much “fun” anymore…
oh…and another add…my all time fav song was also…shake the disease…
closely followed by…master and servant…and…everything counts…aaaand…never let me down…
while “people are people” did not do the trick on me…even given the fact that it top charted them for the first time for real…those top charting vince tunes long before all that, were just nice electro pop tunes…
while all the main miracle of this band was always beeing that full on truu indie band that filled big arenas anyways…
that much global niche fan dedication won’t happen anymore these days…