1990 Violator (Stumm 64)

послушать бы различные версии песен. не в виде миксов, а рабочие версии. так прямо хочется )) почему не выпустят?

На чёрный день Миллер припрятал. Надо же на что-то жить, когда группа перестанет существовать.

Серго, прекрати скрипеть. И жевачку выплюнь :)

Очень познавательная статья от stereo.ru

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технический взгляд на музыку

По мнению "эксперта" со скромным именем YG, для DVD и SACD были взяты разные источники фонограмм. Ха-ха.
По поводу "перепутанных" каналов, вполне возможно, что это сделано специально. Для различия. У J-M Jarre каждое новое издание имеет подобные отличия, заметные только поклонникам.

Альбом Violator: интересные факты

На момент начала работы над Violator за плечами Depeche Mode было 9 лет, за которые они успели записать 6 студийных альбомов. Пожалуй, никто лучше клавишника Depeche Mode Алана Уайлдера не выразил то, как чувствовала себя группа на тот момент: «Обычно мы начинаем запись материала с долгих предварительных встреч, где мы обсуждаем, как альбом должен звучать, затем идём в студию. На этот раз мы решили свести предварительную работу к минимуму. У нас начались проблемы из-за скуки, которую мы испытывали, чувствуя, что мы достигли определённого уровня достижения цели заданным путём». Так был дан старт новой главе в истории Depeche Mode.
Продюсером Violator стал Марк Эллис, больше известный как Flood. Работа над альбомом началась в Милане в Logic Studios. Правда, процесс там шёл не очень продуктивно, поскольку группа постоянно зависала в местных ночных клубах. Была записана за это время только одна песня — Personal Jesus, которая не только задаст настроение грядущего альбома, но и станет одним из главных хитов группы. Но пока что Depeche Mode пришлось переселиться в менее насыщенную ночной тусовочной жизнью северную Данию для продолжения работы над Violator в Puk Studios.
Согласно принципу, которому Depeche Mode условились следовать в работе над своим новым альбомом, Мартин Гор приносил свои песни минимально обработанными. В частности, самая первая версия будущего хита всех времён и народов Enjoy the Silence состояла всего из двух ингредиентов: медленной, монотонной мелодии, будто сыгранной на органе, и вокала Мартина. Оценить проделанную Аланом Уайлдером и Фладом работу над песней можно, послушав её Harmonium mix, который вошёл в некоторые версии сингла Enjoy the Silence.
На этом интересные истории о записи Violator не заканчиваются. Ударные в Personal Jesus есть не что иное, как сеанс прыжков всех участников группы на их же собственные чемоданы. Экзотика должна была присутствовать и в Policy of Truth в виде партий флейты. Также нашлось место для семплирования, на котором участники Depeche Mode за 9 лет собаку съели: песня Clean основана на басовой партии, взятой из инструментальной композиции Pink Floyd One of These Days из альбома 1971 года Meddle. В качестве бонуса к альбому Violator прилагаются целых два скрытых трека: Interlude #2 (она же Crucified, на которой спел Энди Флетчер, а Дэйв Гаан подыграл ему на гитаре) и Interlude #3, которые идут после Enjoy the Silence и Blue Dress соответственно.
Не осталась эпоха Violator и без би-сайдов, которым Depeche Mode всегда уделяли особое внимание. Пожалуй, самым интересным и неожиданным из треков-сюрпризов стала инструментальная композиция Memphisto, которую Мартин Гор охарактеризовал так: «Мемфисто — это название воображаемого мною фильма об Элвисе Пресли как Дьяволе, которого я придумал сам».
Первым синглом с альбома Violator стала песня Personal Jesus, написанная Мартином Гором под впечатлением от книги бывшей жены Элвиса Пресли Присциллы «Элвис и я». Для его раскрутки Depeche Mode выбрали весьма оригинальный способ: в газетах размещалось объявление «Your own personal Jesus» с прилагавшимся к нему номером телефона, позвонив по которому, можно было послушать новую песню группы. Пока часть людей находилась в шоке от такого наглого пиара, Personal Jesus стала хитом по обе стороны Атлантики, а 12-дюймовая версия сингла — самой продаваемой 12-дюймовкой в истории Warner Bros. Кстати, скандал не обошёл и видеоклип на песню, в котором кое-кому не понравились эпизоды с тенью вздыхающего Мартина Гора и лошадиными филейными частями.
Выпущенный в августе 1989 года сингл Personal Jesus передал свою хит-эстафету Enjoy the Silence, который вышел в феврале 1990 года. На него был снят видеоклип по мотивам «Маленького принца» Антуана де Сента-Экзюпери, где роль того самого принца сыграл вокалист Depeche Mode Дэйв Гаан. Правда, с оговоркой: на последних кадрах вместо Дэйва, подхватившего во время съёмок насморк, в мантии, короне и со складным стулом под мышкой ходил по горам продюсер клипа Ричард Белл (Richard Bell). Существует и другой видеоклип на Enjoy the Silence, где участники Depeche Mode исполняют песню под фонограмму, находясь на крыше Всемирного торгового центра (на английском языке — World Trade Center). Правда, этот клип нельзя увидеть на сборнике Strange Too, куда вошли все видео Depeche Mode, снятые в период альбома Violator, включая и клипы на несингловые Halo и Clean.
О названии альбома Violator (в переводе с английского «нарушитель») Мартин Гор говорил следующее: «Мы хотели придумать самое чрезмерное, до нелепости хэви-металическое название, какое только могли. Я очень удивлюсь, если народ поймёт эту шутку». Кстати, одним из возможных названий альбома было Perversion, что в переводе с английского означает «извращение».
Песня Waiting for the Night изначально должна была называться Waiting for the Night to Fall. Спутал все карты сбой во время печати буклета к альбому, из-за которого «to Fall» и пропало. Возможно, это даже и к лучшему.
Куда серьёзнее и страшнее случилась история за день до выхода Violator. Автограф-сессия, которая должна была пройти в Wherehouse Record Store в Лос-Анджелесе, была рассчитана на несколько тысяч человек. Пришло же около двадцати тысяч, из-за чего участникам Depeche Mode посоветовали удалиться ради их же безопасности. Дело кончилось уличными беспорядками и госпитализацией нескольких пострадавших с небольшими травмами. Правда, стоит отдать должное группе за то, что она на пресс-конференции, устроенной на следующий день, извинилась за это ужасное происшествие.
В поддержку альбома Violator Depeche Mode поехали в тур, получивший название World Violation Tour. Специально для него Антон Корбайн разработал дизайн сцены и снял видеопроекции к ряду песен — к слову сказать, он в первый раз был вовлечён настолько тесно в работу над концертами группы. К сожалению, живые выступления Depeche Mode тех лет (появления на всяких телепередачах и фестивалях типа Сан-Ремо не в счёт, ибо фанера) не были отражены нигде, кроме видеоклипа на песню World in My Eyes — последний сингл с Violator. Полноценная концертная видеозапись появилась в видеографии Depeche Mode уже в следующем периоде их творчества, но это уже совсем другая история.
Violator оказал большое влияние как на новых музыкантов, так и на тех, кто был далеко не новичком в мире музыки. В частности, альбом Behaviour группы Pet Shop Boys, который вышел в том же 1990 году, был записан, по признанию Нила Теннанта, именно под впечатлением от Violator.

Depeche Mode Short Film 'Violator' (13.11.1990)

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Мартин: Оглядываясь на годы нашей карьеры , я думаю, что то, что мы еще существуем , объясняется скорее удачей, нежели чем-то другим. Недавно на завершающей сессии я включил несколько наших старых CD, которые я несколько лет не слушал… я правда думаю, что нам скорее просто повезло, что мы всё ещё существуем, мы ведь были абсолютно наивными и не понимали, что делали.

Дэйв: Март тогда повернулся, - он слушал там, в студии, в которой мы работали, - он повернулся и сказал: «Это так странно!»

Мартин: То есть у меня очень смутные воспоминания о записи альбомов, правда. И даже запись такого недавнего альбома как Black Celebration я чуть ли не вспоминаю. Просто время идет так быстро. Эти 10 лет совсем не чувствуются.

Дэйв: Я думаю, что Violator – наверное, один из первых альбомов, в совместной работе над которым все мы внесли больший вклад, после того как Мартин написал песни. Это был в гораздо большей степени результат общей работы группы в студии. Я думаю, что это первый альбом, в котором все до единого треки очень хороши, каждый трек альбома обладает прекрасной, индивидуальной атмосферой. Кроме того, когда я слушаю альбом, - а я, если честно, прослушал его сотни раз, больше, чем какой-либо другой альбом, который мы записали, - мне он очень нравится.

Мартин: Не нужно забывать, что ни одна группа никогда ничего не знает о судьбе альбома, который она только что записала. Так что у меня нет никакого понятия, равно как и никакой претензии на то, что это наш лучший альбом.

Дэйв: На том и стоим (смеется).
Мартин – сонграйтер группы, он сочиняет песни. У всех в группе разные роли, и, как я уже сказал, когда я думаю о том, как мы записывали этот альбом, там было намного больше… каждый из нас приложил гораздо больше усилий, и я, разумеется, тоже принял более активное участие в создании альбома, чем это было раньше. Мы хотели, чтобы и мой вокал и всё остальное звучало хорошо. Вклад Алана был более значительным, также работа над танцевальными аранжировками и всё такое. Участие Флетча было тоже большим, но он занят и другими вещами, в большей степени административными вопросам, которые утомляют всех остальных.

Журналист: Как вы думаете, вашим поклонникам ясно, или это необходимо разъяснить, чем именно занимается каждый участник группы?

Мартин: Я не думаю, что это так важно, правда. Я не думаю, что люди придают такое большое значение тому, у кого какая роль. Это просто результат группы, достижение группы. Я думаю, в 60-х люди люди были просто музыкантами, и многих из них надували, люди просто не занимались коммерческими вопросами. Теперь нет необходимости держать в группе четверых отличных музыкантов, у вас есть технологии, которые вам помогут, так что одного хорошего музыканта вполне достаточно для группы, а остальные берут на себя другие роли.

Дэйв: Мы не сочиняем песни совместно, мы работаем не так. На самом деле, мы заранее собрались все вместе и сказали Мартину, чтоб тот шёл сочинять и записал песни в как можно более базовом виде: с аккордами, текстом и мелодией. Но даже если есть только голос и акустическая гитара, потом мы можем придать песне любое направление, которое ей лучше всего подойдёт, и вот поэтому мы искали ещё кого-то для работы над песнями и нашли Флада, который принял участие в этой пластинке. Мы хотели, чтоб был кто-то, кто время от времени давал бы нам пинка и смог бы объединить наши усилия и придать песням самое лучшее звучание с учетом наших идей. Я думаю, что это сыграло очень важную роль для этого альбома. И в конце еще был такой человек как Франсуа Кеворкян, который включился в работу и микшировал альбом. То есть лично я думаю, что работать над альбомом было непросто, но интересно.

Журналист: А почему это было непросто?

Дэйв: Мы потратили на него много времени, больше, чем на любой другой наш альбом, фактически целый год.

Мартин: Суть была в том, чтобы сделать демо действительно простыми и незаконченными, чтобы потом мы могли придать им любое развитие, чтобы процесс записи был более спонтанным в студии. Но знаете, в половине случаев у вас что-то получается, а в половине случаев – нет, так вот когда что-то звучит не так, вам приходится возвращаться и записывать треки заново, либо пересматривать решение треков целиком.

Дэйв: Когда вы хотите поэкспериментировать с песней, попробовать разные решения и посмотреть, как она звучит и что из себя представляет, варианты, которые не работают, вы можете уничтожать, и начинать всё заново. И это занимает больше времени, так что если вы желаете большей спонтанности – а я считаю, что нам это удалось с некоторыми песнями, которые мы записали, - вам потребуется больше времени, чтобы прийти к этой стадии, потому что вам необходимо время, чтобы пробовать что-то, отказываясь затем от него, если оно не работает, и потом пробовать снова, и мы проделывали это много раз.

Мартин: Религия – это одна из тем, которая довольно часто приходит ко мне, она имеет для меня какую-то притягательность, и я думаю, что это присутствует везде, начиная с ощущения от моей музыки и заканчивая вещами, затрагиваемыми в текстах песен.

Журналист: А в чем заключается её притягательность для тебя?

Мартин: Да просто в том, что я не могу это постичь, но знаю, что что-то на самом деле есть.
Одним из рабочих названий для нашего фильма «101» было «Mass», и ещё задолго до этого так же было с «Music for the Masses». Просто из-за огромного обожания и веры (существующих вокруг нас).

Дэйв: Это невероятно…. Когда мы играем такие концерты, во всем этом есть нечто очень религиозное, понимаете? И это идёт не только от фэнов к группе, но и наоборот. Ты определённо чувствуешь массовую энергию от всех находящихся там людей, которые повторяют за тобой твои движения, поют с тобой. Это как гигантская масса. Я уж не стану говорить, что это похоже на поклонение или что-то такое, но во всём этом есть такая невероятная энергия, которую, я думаю, никто из нас по-настоящему не понимает, как и то, почему каждый раз люди снова приходят.

Мартин: Думаю, нам повезло, что большинство фэнов согласны с нами, что с годами мы совершенствуемся. В то время как многие фэны, являясь поклонниками какой-то группы, считают лучшими её самые первые песни, после которых пошёл определенный спад, многие наши фэны, думаю, соглашаются с нами, что мы стали лучше.

Журналист: Как вы определяете это? Что вы имеете в виду под «стали лучше»?

Мартин: Качество песен и то, как мы их записываем.

Дэйв: Да, вот так элементарно это и есть. Наш бизнес - это производство песен и всё такое. Это то, чем мы занимаемся. И мы постоянно стараемся совершенствовать то, что мы делаем. И я всё ещё не верю, что мы уже достигли своего пика или что-либо в этом роде. Я считаю, что мы всё ещё движемся к этому, правда. Мы ничего не знаем, когда собираемся писать альбом.. мы начинаем работу, ничего не зная, и потом получаем, как мы надеемся, очень хороший результат.

Мартин: Мы всегда очень недооценивали наше фэн-движение. В Англии вот мы планировали подниматься в чартах очень медленно, чтобы в запасе было время. Но когда мы выпустили 12-дюймовку, мы были шокированы, что поднялись до 25 места в первую же неделю, просто с 12-дюймовкой, что полностью разрушило наши планы: мы попали в Top of the Pops в первую неделю.

Дэйв: … И что касается, например, происходящего в Англии, мы думаем, что обладая таким сильным фэн-движением, наши альбомы и синглы поднимаются и спускаются очень быстро, они входят в чарты и выходят. Понимаете, со многими группами, которых списывали со счетов, было так же. Такие группы как The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, у которых есть фэн-движение, появляются и исчезают, и, если честно, это лучшие группы в своем роде, группы, которые существуют до сих пор и постоянно выпускают хороший материал. Так что в этом, как мы чувствовали, состояла одна из проблем того, что люди, другие люди не успеют узнать о Депеш Мод, услышать песню и начать её любить, или не любить, как угодно, потому что через три недели её уже нет. А в прошлом, много лет назад сингл держался от 8 до 10 недель, он поднимался в таблице медленно. Это вне нашего контроля, мы не можем это больше контролировать, вы же не можете контролировать то, сколько людей пойдут и купят сингл в первую неделю. Так что тут мало что можно сделать, но как уже сказал Мартин, у нас была идея просто выпустить 12-дюймовку и всё, и мы с треском провалились тут, потому что она попала в Top 30 в первую же неделю. Думаю, наши фэны уже ни за что не откажутся от нас, у нас невероятно преданные поклонники по всему миру, я говорю не только про Англию, например, у нас везде поклонники, которые поддерживают нас, приезжают нас увидеть, и, я думаю, размеры этого намного больше, сомневаюсь, что они нам до конца известны. Но мы уверены, что они приходят к нам не потому что наша музыка хороша для танцев, да и мы уже не особо считаем себя симпатичными мальчиками.

Мартин: Это правда нас не беспокоит. Мы понимаем неизбежность того, что если вы успешная поп-группа, тогда вас не очень серьёзно воспринимают, потому что поп-группы вообще нельзя воспринимать серьёзно.

Дэйв: Но как серьёзен в первую очередь сам бизнес, говоря по совести? Знаете, к этому до известных пределов нужно относиться беспечно. Вы можете совершенно серьезно относиться к музыке, которую вы собираетесь записать и выпустить, и к тому, как вы это делаете, и Мартин, конечно, очень ревностно относится к сочинению своих песен, и это прекрасно и это очень важно, когда вы хотите сделать что-то профессионально, тогда нужно действительно делать всё возможное, на что вы способны. Но в то же время сам по себе этот бизнес довольно ненадёжный.

Мартин: Опасно относиться к себе слишком серьёзно.

Дэйв: Иначе в итоге можно совсем потерять связь с реальностью.

Мартин: Мы правда становимся профессионалами.

Дэйв: Профессионалами вы становитесь как только издаёте свой первый альбом, я считаю.

Мартин: Да, это случилось, когда мы бросили свою работу после выхода нашего первого сингла во время записи нашего второго сингла, думаю, это было…

Дэйв (с сарказмом): Профессионалы.

Мартин: Смотрите! Смотрите на нас!
(Смеются)

Дэйв: Существует очень тонкая грань между простым человеческим ощущением того, что ты делаешь, ощущением комфорта от того, что ты делаешь и что тебе нравится делать, и тем, что потом становится так сказать банкой консервированной фасоли в плане маркетинга и всего прочего. Это правда очень тонкая грань, и я думаю, нужно быть осторожным и не переходить её.

Мартин: Я считаю важным то, что у нас никогда не было менеджера, и что мы всегда были под независимым лейблом. Думаю, что эти два обстоятельства гарантировали наш успех, если хотите, потому что мы могли делать то, что мы хотели, и на нас никогда не оказывали никакого давления.

Дэйв: Я думаю, сейчас между нами существует очень крепкая дружба, Вообще между членами группы должна быть большая любовь, глубинная, если её нет, тогда… то есть когда вы проводите кучу времени вместе, вам необходимо хорошо ладить. Я думаю, что мы довольно хорошо определяем эмоциональное состояние друг друга, мы знаем, когда кто-то взбешён, когда кто-то не в настроении и что ничего в этот день не получится, потому что человек не в настроении.

Журналист: Как в хорошем браке?

Дэйв: Думаю, это брак, который работает. Да.

Depeche Mode / Violator Album Promotion / Los Angeles 1990

Violator – Depeche Mode

In the late 80s, Depeche Mode were huge Stateside. Appearances would cause riots and they could easily wow 70,000 people in a single sitting. But after six varied and successful albums in one decade, how could they possibly get any higher? Welcome to Violator…

Over time, Depeche Mode might well be judged as being as important as The Beatles. The band is fast-approaching four decades in music making and in that time, have spread the word of synth, married it to rock, sold a gazillion albums and singles and become the electronic Rolling Stones. Only whereas The Stones arguably stopped making great albums mere years into their history, the Mode made many well into theirs. And the best of all is Violator.

This was the band’s Revolver, a peak of creativity that introduced their trademark synth tones to the world of rock music. Previous albums had seen the Depeche output mature from its pop sound (on 1981 debut album Speak & Spell and largely on its follow-up A Broken Frame), through the industrial sample-laden Construction Time Again to the darker, more thoughtful trio of Some Great Reward, Black Celebration and Music For The Masses.

This last album did what it said on the tin, introducing the band’s sound to America – which led to a US tour documented in the excellent 101 documentary, and closing with an epic concert at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena in front of 70,000 people. So with six varied albums already released in the 80s as the band marched to perfect their sound, with a bigger following than any other in the world right then – what were Depeche to do as the 80s closed? Only go and record their best album to date…

Violator was recorded in Milan and Denmark and mixed in London by François Kevorkian, who had worked previously on Kraftwerk’s 1986 album Electric Café. It might sound like a complicated process, but the band had every intention of making it as simple as possible – at least at the outset.

“We wanted to take a different direction with this album, for the songs to come across in a more direct way and not to be so fussy,” Gahan said in an interview shortly after the recording at Puk Studios in Denmark, where they completed Violator before it was mixed in London.

“We didn’t want to be so critical about things and wanted to get more of an energy on to tape when we were recording, rather than play around with sounds for so long that by the time it came to recording, you’d have forgotten about the original direction of the song.” – Dave Gahan

“So we wanted to work a lot faster but, in fact, we’ve probably taken more time, as you end up experimenting more until you find the right direction for the song! “But the songs sound a lot harder, not just in a rocky way, but they are a lot more edgy in terms of sound and feeling.”

A point he reiterated to MTV in 1990: “We didn’t want it to be so cluttered, we wanted it to be more direct. We worked with Flood [aka Mark Ellis] who helped us a lot. He steered us in a direction that we were trying to find but didn’t even know ourselves. He helped develop the songs into something that maybe we wouldn’t have done before.”

Indeed, Flood and long-time Depeche Mode band member Alan Wilder’s inputs cannot be understated. The two worked tirelessly during the album’s recordings to provide the atmospheric frameworks within which Martin Gore’s songs for Violator sat. Yet there was another factor that led to the success of the recording, that is perhaps less well-known.

THE SONGS

1. WORLD IN MY EYES
Described as one of Depeche Mode’s sexiest songs, World In My Eyes much sums up the mood of the band at the point of recording Violator – all were involved and in perfect unity. It originated from a Gore demo, as most Mode songs do, of course, but its evolution in the studio was a dramatic one. Not only that, but all the band contributed vocals to it – a rare occurrence but perhaps one that signified the unity and friendship that ran through the Depeche Mode camp at the time.

2. SWEETEST PERFECTION
Interestingly, Sweetest Perfection could well have been a Gahan-led song, according to the lead singer. “There are songs on the album where I might have sung, but Martin did instead,” Gahan told MTV in 1990. “Sweetest Perfection is a song that maybe I would have sung.” This swapping of traditional roles on Violator was intentional – partly because Flood bought a ‘no rule book’ approach to the recording of the album. In this case, Sweetest Perfection was originally more suited to Gahan, but Gore sang it – the opposite happened on the later track Waiting For The Night. Sweetest Perfection is not the best track on the album – but in context, is still great. It builds to an almost psychedelic conclusion, complete with filtered beats and layers of atmosphere – “the kind of thing you resort to when you haven’t really got an ending,” Wilder recalls – and while not the strongest, is perhaps the most timeless track.

3. PERSONAL JESUS
“Obviously, it has religious overtones,” Gahan said in 1990, “but the idea for the song actually came from when we were touring America. When you are in America, there are all these TV channels where you switch on and there is someone trying to sell you some sort of religion and you usually have to pay like $20 or something and then they send you your own personal rainbow or whatever you want to call it. These sorts of people seem to be very hypocritical of their own religion. To be a Christian or whatever is supposed to be private and you find something that is important to you. It’s also when you are at your most vulnerable that you turn to religion, so these sorts of people who take money from those who ring up who just need someone to talk to, it just seems all twisted and wrong – that’s why Martin wanted to write the song, because he felt this was making a mockery of the Christian movement.” Martin was also apparently inspired by how Priscilla Presley had described her relationship with Elvis. Either way, the song caused enough controversy to help make it become one of Depeche Mode’s biggest hits around the world (No.13 in the UK, No.28 in the States). It also notably had a guitar riff, one of the first Mode tracks to feature one so prominently. The song was also famously covered by Marilyn Manson and Johnny Cash (separately, not together) and not so famously by Tori Amos and many others.

4. HALO
Halo is one of the unsung heroes of Violator, perhaps because it sits in the shadow of …Jesus (the song that is). Yet of the two, Halo has actually worn far better over the following 28 years. It’s Depeche Mode at their best, with a stomping electronic intro – the bass produced from two classic synths, an ARP and Minimoog – and searing string-laden chorus. Alan Wilder also states on his own Recoil website that it is one of his favourite tracks from the album. “I like the string arrangement and the fact that we used drum loops on it – something we had hardly done before that time.”

5. WAITING FOR THE NIGHT
The low-key Waiting For The Night is an astonishing Depeche Mode track for many reasons, not least because such a simple arrangement resulted in such a memorable track. It was also one of the few completely shared vocal tracks that Gahan and Gore have been credited with. “It was a song that Martin would possibly have sung,” said Gahan, “but is actually a duet between us. I just phoned him up and said ‘I really like the song, can I sing on it?’” With that stunning and simple arrangement, it’s Flood and Alan Wilder that once again steal the show. “Flood and I had been listening to Tangerine Dream and decided to try and create a similar atmosphere for this track,” Alan Wilder says on shunt3.0.recoil.co.uk. “The main sequence was put together using his ARP and the sequencer that accompanies the synth. The charm of the ARP sequencer stems from the slight tuning and timing variations that occur each time the part is played. This gives a sense of fluidity and continual change, which seems to suit the song.”

6. ENJOY THE SILENCE/ INTERLUDE #2 (CRUCIFIED)
“It’s just about a feeling of not wanting anything else, feeling totally satisfied, when even words are an intrusion,” Martin told MTV in 1990 when asked about Enjoy The Silence. “You just don’t need anything else.” The track was the second single from Violator, and went Top 10 both in the UK and the States and even won the band a Brit in 1991. The final version of Enjoy The Silence was very different to the original demo, something that appears to have happened a lot with many of the songs on Violator but in this case it was the most dramatic change of all. “Strangely, the thing that immediately came to mind was that I could hear Neil Tennant singing it in my head,” Wilder says of his first listen of the original demo. “Something about the line ‘all I ever wanted’ sounded very Pet Shop Boys to me.”

7. POLICY OF TRUTH
The third, and some would say best, single from Violator landed Depeche Mode another Top 20 hit in both the States and the UK. Again, it’s classic Mode with singalong verses and a chorus to get any 70,000 stadium going. The only thing that lets it down is the rather screeching sound that follows the, ‘the time before’ lyric at around two minutes.

8. BLUE DRESS/ INTERLUDE #3
Blue Dress is Gore at his stalking best, a song about him simply watching someone get dressed, but don’t get too caught up in thoughts of Martin doing this – you might miss the fact that Blue Dress is an exceptional track. It’s one that marries guitar riffs and electronics perfectly and builds through layers of strings and class, all the time underpinned and undermined by a cat- like sleazy synth and some rather terrifying, perverted cackling at its close before it drifts into another interlude on the album.

9. CLEAN
By God, Clean is good – the fact that it closes the album shows the strength and depth of Violator. Clean opens like a great stomping track from any previous Mode album, but when those tearing strings come in at around three minutes, the hairs on your arms will stand up such is the emotion they bring in. You can’t ignore the irony of the lyrics either. Gahan might have been the ‘cleanest I’ve been’ during the recording of this, but little did he know he would one day be so immersed in drug addiction that it would kill him – albeit for just two minutes…

Kevin May, the author of HALO, a book about the making of Violator, reveals: “Martin Gore, who was still the sole songwriter in Depeche at that point, said years later Violator was the last time they had fun making a record. “It shines a light on the mood of the band at the time and, in particular, the excitement that was being generated with what was then a new producer in Flood and how they were approaching the entire process.

“He saw an opportunity to marry the band’s core synth sound with ‘traditional instruments and really pushed a new tactic for the band, urging Gore to strip his demos back to as basic a form as possible so that they would be more open to manipulation during the recording – essentially allowing Alan Wilder and Flood to add atmospheres, melody, percussion and other elements to each track.”

“I just thought it needed another perspective,” Mute Records owner and band mentor Daniel Miller told Electronic Beats on why he brought the producer in, “and Flood is technically very good, very musical, and very open. He’s not one of these: ‘This is the way it has to be’. It’s more like: ‘How can we do it differently?’ He was in sync with the band’s mentality – and my own.”

A fresh approach to the instrumentation also offered a new perspective to everyone, combining electronics and traditional sounds. And it seems Flood was the perfect producer to link these two elements. Martin Gore, the album’s songwriting architect, however, downplays his own talents as ever, and told an MTV reporter in 1990 of the songs on Violator: “I don’t have a natural process, I just sit down and write a song. Words come, melodies come and that’s it.”

THE PLAYERS

MARTIN GORE
Depeche Mode’s main songwriter since Vince Clarke left in 1981, Gore provided all the tracks on Violator.

FLOOD
Producer Mark ‘Flood’ Ellis was brought in by Daniel Miller and sought to marry DM’s electronica with natural instruments. An inspired choice.

ALAN WILDER
Co-producer with Flood and Recoil founder. Wilder provided the LP’s atmospheric textures and arrangements.

DAVE GAHAN
DM’s charismatic frontman. Although Gore is the still the main songwriter Dave has since written hit songs including Suffer Well and Cover Me.

FRANÇOIS KEVORKIAN
One of the forefathers of house music, Francois mixed everything except Enjoy the Silence. The unsung hero of Violator.

ANDREW FLETCHER
“Martin’s the songwriter, Alan’s the good musician, Dave’s the vocalist, and I bum around,” Fletch reveals in the 101 documentary film.

It’s difficult to speak about Violator without talking about the tour that preceded it – with that Pasadena closing show – and the album that came after it. Songs Of Faith And Devotion couldn’t have had a more different sound: gospel, soul, rock and electronics, and that’s just on the track Condemnation. Yet its inception was hell – the opposite to the apparent happiness permeating the Violator sessions.

Ironically, though, it’s hailed as the other Mode masterpiece – although it nearly destroyed the band, as the egos spawned by success, drugs and rock’n’roll nearly swallowed their owners. “During Violator, the band had still managed to keep their feet on the ground,” says May.

While they had an inkling early on that they were creating something important, unique, creative and what would eventually turn out to be an important album for fans and acclaimed by critics, they were, in the words of many in the camp at the time, extremely down to earth and often didn’t appear to understand how big they were becoming. This is perhaps difficult to believe, given the success of the previous records and tours…

Yet they were still young (Alan Wilder was the oldest, in his early 30s) and, at least outwardly, had largely avoided the trappings of fame.” After the recording, Kevorkian mixed the album – the most difficult part of the process. “He’s one of the most intense people I know,” Miller told Electronic Beats. “He would work for 18 hours a day and I think he got through at least three different engineers, because they couldn’t take it. He’s so obsessive and so brilliant, and made a great record in Violator.”

Miller made a very important contribution to the final recording, taking an early version of Enjoy The Silence that he wasn’t pleased with and remixing it with engineer Phil Legg.

“I think they were so burned out by the end – it took a long time making that record – that they said: ‘Okay, whatever you say,’ and they used that version.” – Daniel Miller, Mute Records

That version went on to be the single and contributed greatly to the overall success of Violator. And what a success that was. All four singles from Violator charted around the globe while the album even scored a No.2 in the UK – the home country finally embracing its own band. The World Violation Tour followed, one as crazy and excessive as anything that had gone before. Over 88 dates, the band played to 1.2 million people.

The experience would wipe the Mode out for a while and it would be two years until they got their breath back to reform for Songs Of Faith And Devotion.

“A lot of things happened to the individuals in the band during and after the Violator tour. They never changed as people, they were always very down to earth, but they’d been elevated into superstars and that does have an effect on people.” – Daniel Miller, Mute Records

May adds: “Gahan had moved to Los Angeles and found his life being consumed by a heroin habit, as well as falling in with the emerging grunge scene and sound; and there was a general feeling that Flood and Wilder wanted to push the musical style that they had generated on Violator even further, using full segments of live musical performance in the recording.”

Where everything came together so well for Violator, it fell apart for SOFAD. Even though that album was a huge commercial success, it couldn’t have happened without the experiences of Violator. The two are linked intrinsically because of this, even though the styles and the experiences recording them are so different…”

Inevitably, Violator laid the foundations for when things started going wrong structurally,” May agrees, “but that is often what happens when important moments in the history of a band take place and things begin to unravel.

“Depeche’s fans argue endlessly as to the merits or otherwise of everything the band produces, yet none will begrudge Violator’s pivotal role in the their evolution and the impression that it left.” – Kevin May, author of HALO

Wilder would leave the band after SOFAD, but his reasons perhaps stem back from those earlier sessions working with Flood. “The simple answer is I’d just had enough of being in the group and felt I couldn’t really do much more,” he told this author in 1997. “There were difficulties and communication breakdowns. I think most of the detailed work was too boring for the other members of the group, so they tended to disappear and allow me and Flood to get on with it.”

Since then, of course, Gahan has once again become the cleanest he’s been, and Depeche Mode have released several further albums. However, none have matched Violator – it really was the sound of a band on fire and form, and one that worked as a unit in its most creative phase of the last four decades.

THE VIDEOS

PERSONAL JESUS

This was the first colour-ish video of the band from director Anton Corbijn. Personal Jesus finds the Mode on a ranch in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, in Spain. DM are soon tempted by a bevvy of beautiful women and it’s suggested that the ranch is a brothel. MTV were so appalled by this insinuation that they elected to edit out some of Martin Gore’s more suggestive mouth movements during the bridge and replaced them with cut footage from the video. It’s all tongue in cheek, though, as the boys can be found on rocking horses and generally larking around. Reach out and touch Dave!

ENJOY THE SILENCE

The now iconic video for Enjoy The Silence video initially split the Depeche Mode community with some fans citing it as cheesy. The truth is even its star believed that shortly after filming it… “We did it in Portugal, in the Swiss Alps, Scotland and London,” frontman Dave Gahan told MTV in 1990. “It took about a week, mainly me walking around with a king’s outfit on which I hated, but was convinced by everyone it would be okay, and everyone after said it looks great, but I still think I look a prat in it… The only thing the band did were two hours in London looking moody.”

POLICY OF TRUTH

The original song riffs on the theme of keeping a part of yourself hidden from others and this Anton Corbijn collaboration illustrates this perfectly. DM are shot individually throughout – partnered at first and then singled out as various images flash behind them. Martin Gore is seemingly caged by a wire fence and Gahan is prowling a red-light district in his car. The video is mostly shot in shadows and is very grainy – with flashes of harsh coloured light occasionally beamed onto the band.

WORLD IN MY EYES

There are two versions of this Anton Corbijn-directed video. The first aired on television and features Gahan entertaining an anonymous girl at a drive-in, while watching the (World Violation Tour) concert film on screen. The second version was shot for the Strange Too VHS release. They are basically the same, although the newer video shows the entire band in the car at the drive-in, has a lot more abstract concert footage edited into it and a much longer, silent Gahan ending.

Depeche Mode-30 years in the name of the Rose



The title story of the ÜBER Album in the new Musikexpress

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Depeche Mode's 'Violator' at 30: Artists Share How It Impacted Them

When Depeche Mode introduced electric guitars into their music on 1987's Music for the Masses, it opened up the English synth-pop pioneers to a whole new realm of possibilities and a more rock-oriented fanbase.

By 1990, however, the simple yet effective guitars played by chief instrumentalist Martin Gore on songs like "Personal Jesus" and "Policy of Truth" helped make their album Violator the band's commercial and creative breakthrough, establishing them as a crossover success on par with U2 and The Cure, a feat that didn't seem possible when the band debuted in America with the goofy, bouncy single "Just Can't Get Enough" just nine years earlier. Violator peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, with "Enjoy the Silence," "Personal Jesus" and "Policy of Truth" hitting the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100.

The guitars have stuck around for nearly every album they've released since, most prominently on 1993's Songs of Faith and Devotion and the excellent Spirit, the last proper DM studio LP from 2017. And it's no secret lead singer Dave Gahan has been delving deep into his love for the blues as the de facto lead singer for the English production team Soulsavers (replacing their previous collaborator Mark Lanegan) over the course of the duo's last pair of LPs. Depeche calling their 2013 album Delta Machine was a confirmation that their roots in Son House are as powerful as their origins at the plastic feet of Kraftwerk.

Violator remains, 30 years on, the band's most definitive statement. The short documentary released about the making of the album is called If You Wanna Use Guitars, Use Guitars, and that's precisely what Martin Gore, David Gahan, Andy Fletcher and former member Alan Wilder achieved in the studio with the man they call Flood at the controls on this exceptional crossover pop classic (the 30th anniversary of which is being commemorated by Rhino Records with a collector's edition deluxe box set containing ten 12" vinyl discs showcasing the singles, "Personal Jesus," "Enjoy The Silence," "Policy Of Truth," "World In My Eyes" and all the rare remixes and b-sides that come along).

In honor of Violator turning 30 on March 19, Billboard spoke with a slew of recording artists from all across the world to take their temperature on Depeche Mode's goth-blues maneuvers of 1990 inspiring their listening habits and helping shape the sound of music for future generations. Here's what they had to say.

I didn't follow Depeche Mode's music closely through the '80s as I was consumed with punk/underground but when I heard Violator, I recall I was surprised by its level of darkness. I think I initially heard it because it'd been released on Mute and I'd check out anything from the label that had The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten on its roster. The singles were everywhere on the radio, "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy The Silence" and the future-gloom felt like it had made it to the mainstream. The ubiquitous cover art by Anton Corbijn perfectly symbolized the sound -- the image of a flower but filtered to leave only black and red. Gothic and pretty. Flood's production was very much the sound of that moment: industrial plus pop plus euro-techno. Because much of the music was spacious, it allowed the lyrics for songs like "The Sweetest Perfection" and "Waiting For The Night" to clearly dive into the subjects of addiction, sexuality and despair. In 2003, along with Maxim Moston and Jane Scarpantoni, I recorded the strings on Dave Gahan's Paper Monsters album. Listening to Violator now I'm more into it than ever. Thanks DM! - Joan Wasser, Joan As Police Woman

Let's go on a journey back through time. Eighth grade. Marilyn Manson puts out "Personal Jesus" — I am immediately very into it. I'm animatedly singing its praises at school when one of my classmates interjects and says, "Uh, that's a cover. It's by Depeche Mode." Sure, he pronounced their name as "Depetchy Mode," but he was correct. I'd heard of them, yet somehow one of their biggest radio hits had totally missed my radar. I went home and downloaded Violator on Limewire (those were the days) and listened to it all. I learned that I'd definitely heard "Enjoy the Silence" before. I loved the forthright, brooding declarations of Dave Gahan. And the synth arrangements made me realize that maybe Trent Reznor wasn't the only person capable of perfectly producing and utilizing those kinds of effects. As an adult, having a copy of Violator on vinyl became necessary as soon as I had a record player. It's been out for thirty years?! Happy birthday, Violator, you're a real one. - Rae Amitay, Immortal Bird

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. Before the internet... Outside of my grandfather being way into old country, I didn't have much of a musical family. Fortunately, I had a cousin go off to college which meant I eventually got my hands on one of her mixtapes. This was probably 91-92, so we had The Cure's "Lovesong," Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" etc., and the lone synth band, Depeche Mode. Gore's songwriting and Gahan's vocal immediately struck me. Dark, brooding melody wasn't something I had much experience with by that point. This would eventually become a lifelong obsession and possibly a formula to my detriment as a novice songwriter. Black Celebration through Ultra are still timeless, constant plays in my record collection, but Violator will always be the standard, the gateway, not only to the band's discography, but to my fascination with the electronic/synth-based genre as a whole. - Jeff Wilson, Chrome Waves

It's the height of summer, around 34 degrees. Seven bodies laid out on the grass somewhere in Cologne. It's 2017 and it's been four days since we lost the keys to the tour bus. Inside the tour bus is all our passports and belongings. We have one phone with charge between us. The phone has no data and the only album downloaded onto it is Violator. When "Sibeling" comes round for the 4th time that day I hear someone mumble 'I feel like we're going to die here.' We all nod in agreement. But then the album replays and we all start enjoying ourselves again. Someone's made friends with some locals and managed to get us some free beers. We laugh about the fact that the only album we have is Violator and the first words of the first song are literally "Let me take you on a trip." We've made the joke before but it feels wrong not to mention it every time. "Personal Jesus" seems to be our favorite, and some of us get up and dance like something out of Midsommar. Someone returns with a bottle of Campari just as "Blue Dress" begins. Cigarette rations are passed around. Soon "Memphisto" will come round and we will all be aware that the strange journey is about to begin again. I haven't listened to the album since. - Diva, Jadu Heart

My first real connection with Depeche Mode was prolly hearing Failure cover "Enjoy The Silence" - they did it so well that I found myself easily drawn to the original. Then at some point, I had a cassette copy of Violator that rarely left the tape deck in my car. The demos for this album are also great and very much worth seeking out for a minimalist spin. - Stephen Brodsky, Cave In

To write this story I just put on the Violator album to get back in touch with the feelings I had when I first popped the cassette tape into the stereo of my 1968 green Volkswagen Bug on March 19, 1990. The Bug had a pretty amazing speaker system, my dad had installed it as it was his car before he gave it to me on my 16th bday. He had bought a Delorean and didn't need the VW anymore! For the record my dad would play Jean-Michel Jarre and Kitaro as we drove in his Delorean down the coastline from San Francisco to Big Sur, and he would tell me how the future of all music would be electronic.

I had graduated high school in 1989, and by 1990 I was completely immersed in my college dreams and getting out of the bay area. This record was the soundtrack to me exploring my future to be. I remember the cassette I bought, it was purchased at Tower Records on El Camino in Mountain View, Calif, now better known as the Silicon Valley. I purchased it on cassette specifically so I could listen to it as I drove around. I had my mall job at Nordstrom, I had my boyfriend in Redwood City, I had my drives over the mountains to Santa Cruz, drives with my dad in his Delorean, (he would play my music). I had my drive in the middle of the night when I would sneak out of my window to meet my friends ("Waiting for the Night"). This album got me into my soon to be adulthood, it gave me the power and the attitude to fearlessly explore myself ("Personal Jesus"), dissolving my insecurities around exploring sexually, ("World in my Eyes"). Interesting fact, Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Erasure, Grizzly Bear) would later mix my first EP In the Light. He actually recorded "Stripped," I didn't realize that when we covered it. We decided to do a Depeche Mode cover because they've always been one of my favorite bands and I don't think they've been given enough credit. When we played a live radio session in for Xray FM in Portland OR, not knowing who they were, EMA the artist was there shadowing the engineer at the studio. We did our "Stripped" cover and Erika (EMA) came running out of the sound booth "OMG, I just opened for Depeche Mode on a world tour, that song is so in me from that tour, I can't believe you just played it!" I love my connection to them, it feels really magical to me. - Shana Falana

My vocal style ultimately owes more to Dave Gahan than anyone, probably. That little melodic figure in "Clean," where he dips low on "…what is in my own *hands*," I end up accidentally jacking that over and over again in my own songs. When I was nine, "Enjoy the Silence" was all over the radio, and it was the first music ever to give me goosebumps. It didn't even occur to me that I could get the album and listen to the song whenever I wanted. I somehow thought that buying albums was some rebellious thing only badass teenagers could do, something I couldn't ask my parents about. I thought my only option was to secretly tape it off the air. So I would wait for long stretches for the song to come on Z100, with this tiny red mini-boombox my parents had, my finger on the record button. I couldn't catch a full take of the song for weeks, and when my parents saw what I was doing, they offered to take me to Sam Goody and get the tape. I was ecstatic. And I wasn't even prepared for the other eight pitch-black tracks, every one as gripping as "Enjoy." - Charlie Looker, Psalm Zero

Violator is one of my personal top 5 albums of all time. I was a kid at summer camp when it came out and one of my friends gave me the tape. I had just moved to a new town, very shy, didn't know anyone, fighting with my mother and in full pre-teen angst mode so this album could not have been more perfect. It was on repeat that entire summer and fall as I sang along with Dave, out of my vocal range, alone in my room. The unique melodies, progressions and arrangements affected me deeper than I was aware of at the time. The lyrics were for the most part mysterious poetry and it didn't matter if I understood fully the context. I somehow understood the transmission completely. As a whole album it just flows. These songs lay dormant inside me until I started singing, writing music and playing synthesizers years later. I believe I am unconsciously always striving to create music as deep and interesting and essential as the perfection that is Violator. When I listen now it makes me happy to think about how something so creative and somewhat experimental in pop music became so popular. - Monika Heidemann, Phenomenal Handclap Band

Violator has always been my favorite Depeche Mode record. It felt darker and more dangerous than their previous work yet still sleek and keeping their pop sensibilities in place. Violator was a huge influence on my project with James Dewees, Death Spells." - Frank Iero, My Chemical Romance

Growing up in a very strict religious home where listening to secular music was particularly verboten, Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" was one of the few massive pop songs that pierced the holy armor and made its way in. It felt like the song's undeniability reached across all manner of walls and barriers, whether religion or genre, touching everyone from punks to goths to new wavers to rockists to all the regular kids out there not even paying attention, inspiring all kinds of people to get down to the same song in spite of their differences, like a "We Are the World" for a weird generation. - Michael Tapper from Practice

"Silence" is just one of those perfect songs that can't age. The beat, the lyrics, that haunting vibe that you can't help but dance to. I remember hearing it for the first time as a kid, my mom blasting it on the car stereo and me just begging her to play it again and again. I think I drove her crazy that summer. - Nicole Mercedes

My first introduction to Depeche Mode was a Depeche Mode 101 VHS lent to me by my geography teacher. I quickly fell in love with the band and their minimal, powerful imagery. Violator was no exception. A truly classic album in every sense of the word. - Matthew "Murph" Murphy of Love Fame Tragedy, frontman of The Wombats

I can't hear this record without conjuring up images of my parents' musty basement. Shots of vodka. Cordless telephones. The sentiment of youth. Head out the car window, hair blowing in the breeze down a winding country road. Freedom. It's sexy nostalgia. Perhaps the perfect make-out record. With an undeniable rhythm that calls to the whole body. Perhaps something I'm always returning to in my own work. - Lou Canon

When I was coming up, I'd go to these new wave dance parties. They always had some dumb name like "Shakin' To Be" or "Boys Don't Jive," that kind of thing. But what's in a name, you know? What I mean is, whenever they threw one, I was there. For us, they were real-deal heaven, a degenerate Shangri-La, "120 Minutes" with booze and make-outs. It's where I first heard Violator — more specifically, "Policy Of Truth." Look, I don't know if it was drugs or lust or youth, but when you dance to that record in a dark room with someone you really want to kiss, it cracks you in half. And lifts the dust—for a little while anyway. Here's the thing, if you need it super abridged, listen to :48-1:07. If you've got a bit more, listen to 2:54-3:34. But mostly, listen to the whole thing, Side A, Side B, top-to-bottom. When you come back, good and cracked, all this sentimental rambling will make a lot more sense. Or it won't. Either way, there'll be a strange ease in your next footstep. Mine, too. - James Alex, Beach Slang

Violator changed everyone's perception of Depeche Mode, in some ways, it was the beginning for the band. This album gave them a real gravitas, with more provocative, lustful and supposedly filthy subject matters, I think people were shocked into wanting to be that brave and outspoken too. The album stirred people up, the new desire for the band evident in the hysteria and 'rioting' at their L.A. signing. This album was the moment their real purpose, importance and worth as Artists' was cemented. The songs are well-crafted, confidently simple and earnest, and people fed off of that.' Any album that has "Personal Jesus," "Enjoy the Silence" and "Policy of Truth" therein has to be counted as one of the greats. Couple that with Anton Corbijn's cool black-and-white videos of the desert and those Brooklyn streets and you have the ultimate sex mix! - Sarah Palmer, Fassine

From a songwriting perspective, Violator taught me the importance of layering melodies, and using sounds differing timbral qualities. There’s this collective feeling of sparseness that sucks you into the rhythm first, but underneath the hood it is this masterpiece of intricate countermelody and syncopation without ever sounding busy. My favorite track is "Policy Of Truth" - it’s one of those songs that can make any house party feel like a darkened gothed-out disco -- which is you know, the only way to disco. - Art d'Ecco

My band played many TV shows in Europe in the mid-80s with DM when they were the Dagenham pop band and I kind of lost focus on them as they moved over to the States. The next time I saw them was in Toronto in 1990 and I expected the gig to be in a big club; but oh no..... they were playing the Violator tour to a sold out 30,000-seater Skydome. It absolutely blew my mind at what a huge sounding, rocking mega-band they had become. And this album's collection of songs sounded massive!

Lastly on a somber note, I saw them play in London in 2017 and on the way home from the show our train was stopped because of an incident; eventually an hour later we were all marched off and discovered that that was the night that there had been 8 fatal stabbings around London Bridge. Violated! - Nick Feldman, Wang Chung

"It was the crack of the nineties that Violator hit the scene, I was just a kid growing up in Australia but still took notice of their exploration into synthesizers and the twang of their guitar. It was mostly those music videos that had the most immediate effect. They would play on "Rage" Sunday mornings (Australia's equivalent to MTV). It was only later that I realized how much these mornings had rubbed off me in pursuit of my own creative endeavors, whether it be my music or my music videos. Without a doubt, they inspired my sense of urban cowboy fashion, with an eagerness for fringe, leather and a little makeup; I have "Personal Jesus" to thank for that. - Zebedee Row from ZEBEDEE (played Robert Plant on HBO's Vinyl)

This whole album and the vocalist's expression reminds me of The Doors and Jim Morrison. Especially "World in My Eyes." And the lyrics are also very very similar not in a copy paste sense but in a good sense. This album is full of poetry and full of romanticism. It's strange because I didn't see this connection before. Of course I don't know if Depeche Mode are fans of The Doors. The sound of the whole album is like a factory and from pre-Atari period. Now it sounds almost primitive and I think it is its biggest value nowadays, when it is possible do at home a DIY production of great sounds which are ten times better than on this album. But less is more. Technology is not all. Ideas and spirit are the most important. And this is the key value of Violator. So I am listening to this album after many years of not listening and I can hear a mantra repetitive spiritual high quality stuff. I didn't expect it. In my teenager mind it was all about entertainment and masses. And now I can hear and see real spiritual world full of poetry, full of Philip Glass repetitive solutions and instrumental minimalism almost in a Krautrock manner. And the lyrics. Very, very poetic lyrics. William Blake and Jim Morrison kind but also full of Biblical allusions. Really great work of art. As I wrote earlier: this album in some way sounds like music from an early computer games era. Cause that was this period. It's tiny but in same time it's huge. The spirit is huge. And what are the cons? Cause there are some. I really don't like "Blue Dress" lyrics which is sexist and macho. This is the tone of a mentor and teacher - the man who teaches women how she should behave. I totally prefer the poetic metaphors like "Personal Jesus" instead of this "Blue Dress" macho spirit. Also the song "Dangerous" has got this macho atmosphere but not as intense as on "Blue Dress." I guess it was in some way the spirit of the time and the same problem is present in some songs by The Doors. - Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, Trupa Trupa

I remember my first AIM screen name I ever chose: EnjoyTheSilence. The first time I heard Depeche Mode was on the radio driving through the deserts of Tesuque, New Mexico as a single-digit child. "Enjoy the Silence" came on, and I was completely consumed by the darkness and subdued quality that resonated within the reverb of the Moog synth against Dave Gahan's voice and Martin Gore's amazingly tasteful and reserved guitar notes. Fast forward a few years, 1997 - I was in Mazatlan, Mexico with my family and I saw their music video for "It's No Good" on Mexico's MTV. I remember taking my dad (for his birthday) to see Dave Gahan play at the Hammerstein Ballroom with my first paycheck I earned working in a musical instrument store as a 16-year-old. A few years later and my dad bought a guitar (he's a drummer) and I remember teaching him how to play the guitar lead for 'Home' on his shiny new candy apple red Strat. If there's one thing I learned from Martin Gore, it's that less can be more, and you can get a great deal of connective musical resonance through fewer notes. Here I am, all these years later, and Depeche Mode still affects the way I write music, be it for personal use or professional for composing. - Jesse Zuretti, guitarist of Binary Code and composer for Marvel Entertainment

Violator is an innovative record made by true inventors of the craft. Hearing "Personal Jesus" more and more as time goes by reminds me that no matter what a band may achieve you always have to write a song the way music is made, sitting down with people you ride or die for and creating something together that only the power of the people combined can make. Watching videos of David command the stage is an intense experience – so much swagger and "it" factor, it's impossible to not fall in love with everything he is. I learn something new every time I watch a Depeche Mode performance or listen to the records. Being a drummer, I'm always drawn to rhythm. The way they use rhythm as a concept on Violator is an unmatched challenge amongst its peers.

Every spot of sonic atmosphere is occupied and for me it always engages every bit of interest. There's so much to analyze I'm still bowing down to the execution of all these ideas. Violator is truly a defining record of its time and still stands strong and respected today. - Giedrius Kiela, Solo Ansamblis