Damn, I do love me some Depeche Mode, and, while it’s difficult to pinpoint my absolute favourite album of theirs, 1997’s Ultra has seen some fairly heavy iPod rotation lately. These English blokes have been around for, literally, several decades, and their initial formation as a band lands somewhere loosely between 1977 and 1980. The band’s original line-up included Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher, and Vince Clarke. In 1981, Clarke left and was replaced by Alan Wilder. Here is an early 1990s measuring stick taken of Depeche Mode in their Violator era:
Gahan looked particularly tasty in that era, but the good times didn’t last for long. This probably had much to do with Gahan’s impending heroin addiction and smashingly bizarre inability (as a vocalist, anyway) to ever pen any of the group’s lyrics or musics. Citing this “consistent imbalance in the distribution of the workload,” Wilder departed in 1995. Since then, Gahan, Fletcher, and Gore (who probably does most of the work now) have continued as a trio, who are preparing to release (yet another) box set in the near future. In addition, Depeche Mode are currently lubricating their joints for a North American tour that launches in late July, and the group appeared (below) at this past weekend’s Echo Awards in Berlin:
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