#gothic synthpop

[leaxardozia]

[milafm2002]

[musicbydelorme]

(CountessM)

[darthemed]

Depeche Mode - Violator [1990, Mute, Sire]

Though the band had been putting out album since 1981, it was 1990's Violator that really exploded the already substantial popularity of Depeche Mode.  Spawning several singles in the forms of "World In My Eyes", "Sweetest Perfection", "Personal Jesus", and the near-inescapable "Enjoy The Silence", Violator has received over 150 pressings in various formats and marketing locales, both official and otherwise.  As one of the foremost synthpop bands, they could be pointed to as having more than a hand in pushing electronic dependence and flavor deeper into mainstream pop, with Violator providing some textbook examples of the tenets.

There's ballads ("Waiting For The Night"), love songs of loss ("Enjoy The Silence") and new flames ("Policy Of Truth"), sex ("Sweetest Perfection"), longing ("Personal Jesus", with an additional telephone theme that never caught on), and redemption ("Clean").  By soaking some clichés in electro, Depeche Mode managed to repackage it as something candy-coated enough to appear fresh, despite the lyrics never managing to sink deeper than "That's all there is / Nothing more than you can feel now" on "World In Your Eyes".

The electronic side of it is sharper, with hooks of melody that give it more power than the lackluster lyricism.  They manage to make room for both traditional 4/4 dance beats and some more experimental fare (like the inexplicable groan, drone, and keyboard passage at the very end of "Enjoy The Silence", or the synth-harpsichord outro into blurred drones of "Blue Dress"), but the impressive part is that they manage it without throwing off the balance; additionally, despite coming from an era where drum machine models could be identified by an ear for their sample libraries, the synths and percussion of Violator don't sound too dusty, despite edging up on the quarter-century mark.

With such dedication to form, they achieve an almost archetypical blueprint for the successful pop album, one that is itself a love letter to that form, and one with some genuine fondness to it, for all its over-the-top melodrama.