Album Essentials: Depeche Mode - "Some Great Reward" (1984)
By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor
When it comes to electronic music, there are often two camps. One is wholeheartedly invested in the technological aspect and creating sounds and, sometimes, other worlds. The other, first and foremost, are songwriters, with electronic music as their chosen path to executing those songs. Ideally, those two worlds should collide, and when they do, some great music can be offered up. Such has always been the case with Depeche Mode.
From their debut run of singles, “Dreaming of Me,” “New Life” and “Just Can’t Get Enough,” all released in 1981, it was obvious there was more here than flashing technology. These great songs would have worked on an acoustic guitar or many other modes of transportation. From the start, this helped Depeche Mode stand apart. Their strong singles run continued through the next couple of years, with equally significant LPs, Speak and Spell, A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again.
With each new single, LP and video, Depeche Mode stacked up more and more fans, as well as good reviews from critics. It was a slow and steady climb as their debut barely made the U.S. Top 200, while their fourth offering, Some Great Reward, went Top 50 in America. In addition to college radio and MTV, the ever-popular 12-inch remixes would become huge hits at the dance clubs.
Released in September 1984, a golden year for U.K. pop sounds, Some Great Reward showed the band growing and experimenting. The singles “People Are People,” “Master and Servant” and “Blasphemous Rumours” all became hits at college radio and MTV and went on to become signature Mode songs. The band continued to branch out and experiment with sounds. “You have to take risks,” said singer Dave Gahan. “You can’t be safe all the time.”
Working with Mute Records chief Daniel Miller and engineer Gareth Jones, who had lent a hand to their Construction Time Again LP, the band opted to record this new album in Germany, home to a vast history of electronic music. “We definitely wanted to go somewhere else,” said singer Dave Gahan. “It was time to try something different. The idea of going to another country really appealed to us.” The band ended up in Hansa Studios, where David Bowie and Iggy Pop had previously created magic.
One interesting example of this was the use of toy instruments on “Master and Servant.” “People tend to think that if you’re using toy instruments then they have to sound whacky,” said member Alan Wilder in a 1984 interview, “but we put some to very good use because as soon as you sample them they take on a whole new quality and when you transpose them it puts them in a completely new context.”
Though a lot of people think of Depeche Mode as terribly serious about things, they have maintained a slice of humor along the way, as Gahan pointed out in a 1984 interview. “Martin’s got a very weird sense of humour, and that of humour comes across in his lyrics. For instance, the lyric in ‘People Are People,’ ‘people get along so awfully.’ The word awfully is a funny word. You don’t really say that in conversation, I get on with you so awfully. There wasn’t really anybody who picked up on that.” Alan Wilder recalled being asked by a fan what the song was about, and replied, “It means exactly this: people are people, no bears or wallabies. I think this says a lot.”
Depeche Mode continued to grow in the years that followed with the albums Black Celebration, Music for the Massesand Violator. They continue to this day, still on a creative run and standing above the fray of similar acts.