Blasphemous Rumours - C/D

These were my exact thoughts on "Everything Counts"

Classick, as is all Depeche.

this is a strange thing to say.

It's great, isn't it? I especially enjoyed the Human League article(s), and the pics are fantastic throughout.

The main prob is that the descending bassline chorus thing is just too circular. It doesn't really go anywhere, it doesn't build like, say, the structurally similar, stunningly superior "A Matter of Trust".

Well, it was a single. I remember it being pretty big for them at the time. In retrospect it might be minor, but it was definetely part of the "sobering up" process between fluffy filler like "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Boys Say Go" to their more sombre, serious, Gore-written side (ala "Shake the Disease" onward...)

I thought the overview of the early years came off as superficial, but everything from SOFAD onward was very well done.

Most enjoyable though I'm already catching a few examples of oversimplifying and reduction.

I'm not sure why they felt they had to have articles on Bowie/Eno and Kraftwerk. They weren't long enough or detailed enough to convey the significance of those artists, who have already been written about a million times anyhow.

By minor, I just meant that, compared the compositional astonishmens to come, it's not, um, major?

Some sense of general apologia, I think. Keep in mind an issue like this, though fraught with the usual 'box everything up and make it neat' peril, essentially is a cave to the reality of the fact that electronic/synth music isn't antithetical to 'real music, man,' or whatever construct has been clung to all this time by some extremely stupid people. In a fairly hamhanded but brutally effective way, this is a shoehorning of that as an honest to god tradition -- roots music, if you like -- into the canon. Not the first attempt, of course, and the whole point of Depeche as the core focus of the article is that it gives them a chance to talk about rock and roll hijinks from a group that didn't start in the sixties or seventies for once.

It'll be a long while before that fully happens for hip-hop in terms of Q/Mojo, though, beyond a fetishizing of the earliest days and/or up through Public Enemy, probably. Hip-hop understood as roots music over the last ten years is clear enough in a forum like here, but not there.

Pop authenticity is always bogus. Artiface has more shadings.
You might see why i love the Mode.

Interpol's your favorite band, right?

"blasphemous rumours" is still one of my favorite DM songs -- even if lyrically it's "deep" in a teenager/early 20-something way, it still hits the spot.

Actually, as long as I don't have to look at them, Interpol's fine.

A terrific thing about Cocteau Twins and RAMMS+EIN is I'm never troubled by what they might be singing about.

Very true -- and the same can be said for the first Human League article, with the stories about those wild early gigs in front of punk audiences. That's part of the reason that I liked those articles so much.

Keep in mind an issue like this, though fraught with the usual 'box everything up and make it neat' peril, essentially is a cave to the reality of the fact that electronic/synth music isn't antithetical to 'real music, man,' or whatever construct has been clung to all this time by some extremely stupid people.

Except that few of the aforementioned "stupid people" will read the magazine, so making the "synth-pop has actual roots in critically appraised music" argument is a case of preaching to the converted. But you're right, there's no any harm in lumping Bowie/KW/Eno/etc. in there for the sake of completeness.