Depeche Mode Speak & Spoll

went with "Photographic"

bump?

new life

Odd man out, love the instrumental "Big Muff".

"Just Can't Get Enough" is gonna pwn this thread

there is not a bad song on this entire album

No there isn´t, but later 80s works by the same group contain a larger number of perfect ones.

Voted "Photographic" in the abscence of "Dreaming Of Me" (which, I know, has only been included in some versions of the album)

"any second now", although the instrumental is better. perhaps. if we were including the B-sides/bonus CD tracks then it'd be "ice machine" in a heartbeat, but we're not, because this is a purist's poll and i salute you for it, curt1s.

i love this album. during my "vince clarke is god" phase in 1989/1990 (nobody else was doing it then; there was a gap in the market) i swore blind that it was the only good depeche album, and that the post-VC band wasn't worth shit. (look, i was 14. if you can't hold dear completely insane ideas at 14, when can you?)

i still find it odd, intense and unsettling to listen to. the lyrical content fascinates me to this day. i'm going to have to listen to it later today, i can tell.

if we were including bonus tracks I'd go for "Shout!" no question

"shout" is also blinding, and about 12 years ahead of its time.

(somewhere -- fuck, where? that's going to annoy me; nowhere particularly rare or unusual, IIRC -- i've got an excerpt from some early-ish mode gig: after they'd got big among teenage girls, but long before they broke america. they do "shout" live and there are teenyboppers screaming through it. which is kinda awesome.

er, )

blasted parentheses.

<checks iTunes> mute box set, of course.

Oooh yummy! I get to vote for "I Sometimes Wish I Was Dead" which wasn't on the US version. I first heard it in a concert I taped off Nickelodeon (with Talk Talk opening!) and eventually found it on Revenge of the Killer B's.

And right, not a duff cut on the album. Fantastic sleeves too.

LOLed hard at the fuk u image.

Hmmm...Puppets, I think.

"I Sometimes Wish I Was Dead" is often my favorite song on this album

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Still losing my shit at the fuk u gif.

http://images.google.com/

I voted "New Life" but "What's Your Name?" never fails to make me smile. I think I may have lied on my vote - "Just Can't Get Enough" is probably my actual fave. <3 Vince Clarke.

P-R-E, double-T-Y!

"What's Your Name" but like ENBB the real answer probably is "Just Can't Get Enough".

i love "boys say go!" to death - the breakdown in this song encapsulates everything i love about vince clark, that effortless ability to combine melancholy with dancefloor bangingness. not to mention the general ridiculousness of the lyrics and the nail-biting intro

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

haha what i swear i voted

listened to the version w/bonus tracks the other day (Dreaming of Me, Ice Machine, Shout, etc) -- ignoring the vocals, you'd think there would be a lot of pop/indie artists trying to emulate depeche mode's musical style from this era (tons of intricate hooks & silly spontaneous bursts overdubbed onto one another, introducing new sounds just for a few seconds, married to DM's particular melodic phrasing and respect for sonic space that seemed to remain constant even in the transition from Clarke's to Gore's songwriting) -- it's very arresting

i listened to this repeatedly over christmas, and the thing that stood out most beyond the incredible songwriting, was how cohesive and consistent the synth programming and sound design is. they really managed to find a signature sonic style on this album, lots of percolating, rhythmic, lfo'd out sounds that match the hyperactive energy of vince's hooks, that hugely addictive bass sound, all wrapped up in just the right amount of reverb to allow some space. production wise it's one of the best sounding albums of the early synth pop era.

It's to Daniel Miller's credit he turned out to be both a great producer *and* a pretty good businessman -- not that this is necessarily unique in music but it's still pretty rare in general.

it would be interesting to know how much involvement daniel miller actually had in the synth programming side of things though. there's some similar sounds on the silcon teens record but both speak and spell and upstairs at eric's sound incredible

Did Eric Radcliffe engineer Speak and Spell? I'm under the impression both Miller and Depeche pretty much credit him a hell of a lot (understandably). Then you've got Gareth Jones for a lengthy run through Black Celebration...

curtis have you listened to joy electric? he sounds like an even more hyperactive speak & spell era dm sometimes, though the song writing can get overbearingly twee

XP: Eric Radcliff engineered everything up to and including the "Get The Balance Right" single. You immediately hear the shift from Radcliff to Gareth Jones on "Everything Counts", with its more "metallic" and sample oriented sound that would be their trademark sound for, well, the rest of the 80s at least.