Depeche Mode The Singles 81>85 Reprise Records

Depeche Mode: a name that demands satisfaction. And The Singles 81>85 can satisfy, if you listen with a bit of willpower. Generally, the early songs on 81>85 are boring and odd: deadpan lyrics against bonky day-train melodies lead to wholesome industrial marches. Depeche Mode did have some moments in their youth-tinny drum hooks after the "People are People" chorus, a lot of pleasant moaning, pipey synth pushing throughout. By the second half of 81>85, DM starts timing its airy crescendoes very well and on tracks like "Blasphemous Rumours" and "Shake the Disease" you can feel the dark matter of the eighties, even if you can't dance to it. Depeche Mode is a band for the chest, not the wrists. Listen to The Singles 81>85 and then play Songs of Faith and Devotion Live...you will drive a shiny black cadillac into heady manliness. Contrasted with the new tribute album, Various Artists for the Masses, which features a lovely orange disk along with The Smashing Pumpkins, Rammstein and The Cure, The Singles 81>85 may seem like old news (the new remixes are uninteresting), but at least it's for real: weird, childish and weird.