Review Summary: Depeche Mode begins to hone in on its definitive sound creating its an album with several stellar songs that remain as live staples to this day.
With 2013 here and a new Depeche Mode album, I believe it is very relevant to revisit a seminal turning point in their career. Four albums in, Depeche Mode were already cemented into the 80’s new wave scene. Whether or not they were truly ‘new wave’ would be a very relevant question, considering they have weathered the past three decades while most of their peers have faded in obscurity. They have had many labels thrown at them besides the emblematic ‘new wave’, such as, ‘darkwave’, ‘industrial-pop’ and of course many other indicative electronic music based monikers.
While Black Celebration may have its share of filler songs, it is a defining album, in terms of their sound. The definitive cuts on this album helped refine their sound into something that allowed their music to be instantly recognizable. While they had already flirted with darker sounds; nothing they had done up to this point reached the murky depths that they achieved here. Previous tracks, such as “Everything Counts”, lyrically stood out in terms of a maturing band with topical subject matter, and “Blasphemous Rumours” undoubtedly signaled a different direction for the band in terms of the gravity of its sound.
While playing the opening title track; the listener is greeted by strange samples playing and an ominous keyboard part sounding as if it had been pulled straight out of a horror film. By the time singer, David Gahan, comes in you can already tell this album is going to be something very different than the proceeding albums. The song has an epic feel, as each instrument comes in, one after the other, building to a crescendo. It is perfect in the setting the mood and tone for the rest of the tracks.
The 2nd track, “Fly on The Windscreen”, stays in the same mode, but to less effect, with a song title that sounds gloomier than the actual music itself sounds. It is not a horribly engaging nor significant in playback value. By the time you reach “A Question of Lust” it is a most unexpected turn. Deviating from the sound of the first two tracks, you are greeted by key songwriter, Martin Gore, singing a sultry ballad, that would ultimately serve as a future template for further ballads he would write, most notably “Home”. The 4th track, “Sometimes” is also a prelude to Gore’s fascination with an almost ‘gospel’ sound. He would further explore this on many future tracks, leading all the way up to their most recent single, “Heaven”.
The 5th track, “It Doesn’t Matter Two”, while not an outstanding track in itself, brings the record back to the eerie refrain set in motion by the first two tracks. The rest of the album follows suit, remaining dark with the appropriate textures in the keys and mood. Bringing in the 2nd half of the album is “A Question of Time’ which picks up the pace but lacks the absolute mastery of the song following it. Arguably the most definitive song on the album, “Stripped”; still a staple of their live show and an almost perfect example of their signature sound. Beginning much like the title track, it opens with the sample of a car engine starting and a creepy minor key note progression. David Gahan begins with almost a whisper slowly integrating himself into the music until the first lines of the chorus where his unmistakable baritone erupts with ‘let me see you stripped down to the bone’.
It is here where Depeche Mode truly achieved their power, being able to be a synth-based band, but sounding as brooding and angry as a metal band. This is the point where they truly crossed over from merely another 80’s band with a string of well-charting singles into something else altogether. Not until Nine Inch Nails ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ did another 80’s synth-based band sound so callous and pissed off. Their bigger commercial successes, Music For The Masses and Violator, plateaued them into one of the most successful bands in the world. However, it was here on Black Celebration that the seeds were planted that helped truly transform their sound into the Depeche Mode that the most casual fan recognizes.
