Depeche Mode "Speak and Spell" - Music for cookies and milk

I was listening to this album in the car yesterday and, as usual, many memories started popping up. I’m one of those “cursed” with the music/memory paradigm…you know, when you hear a particular song and/or album, you can recall when you first heard it, or what the weather was like, or what you were wearing, or some string of events that may or may not be related…

Depeche Mode’s debut album was originally released in 1981 with 11 tracks. They were one of the ‘original’ Mute Records stable bands (along with Fad Gadget), and were popular initially based on their unique sound and cult following driven by many successful underground club performances. While they were originally signed to Some Bizarre, and recorded a demo for the label, for some reason they went to Mute and the rest is history.

They were hailed at first as “innovative,” but most of us know this simply isn’t true. Where this album is nothing less than a singular masterpiece isn’t dependent upon their originality or any technical ‘innovation’…if anything, the group (and producer/label boss Daniel Miller) deserved a large slap for ripping off and/or gratuitously borrowing elements from the works of Gary Numan, Bowie/Eno, Kraftwerk, and others. What is special about this release is that it is a marvelous representation of boiled, cleaned, and sanitized electronic pop at its infancy; completely void of emotion, classical influence, and personality. Kraftwerk innovated the design and implementation of electronic instruments to demonstrate classical music with a minimalist influence, for example – Schubert, Mozart, et al. David Bowie brought this concept (along with Brian Eno) into the pop music world, but not as pop music, but as vehicles for minimalist and experimental technique coupled with mutated pop elements featured as ‘companion pieces’ within the Bowie/Eno trilogy of albums (“Heroes,” “Low,” and “Lodger”). Numan moved the use of synthesizer from an ‘accent’ instrument (special effect) to a more cohesive ‘band’ instrument (even temporarily replacing the guitar on some albums) with his groundbreaking album “Replicas.”

Depeche Mode wasn’t the first to assemble a combo based entirely upon the use of synthesizers, but their theory and execution was so mechanical and flawless, it was nothing less than a sizable cry into the stratosphere for exploration, and many heard the call. The use of cold, dry, and inhuman weapons to perform routine, freshly passé dance-oriented (disco) music had never been so successful. Their later work presented the same presentation but with more emotion and feeling (although naïve at first, and then nearly condescending and self-indulgent); while albums like “Some Great Reward” are fantastic in their own right, they all pale in comparison to the synthetic and sterilized virtue of “Speak and Spell.”

This is largely due to the fact that co-founder and main songwriter Vince Clarke left the band soon after “Speak and Spell” to become half (or part) of Yazoo, Erasure, and The Assembly. These bands followed the same mold as later Depeche Mode material, where the feeble injection of emotion somehow justified the impulsive use of synthesizers as the ‘main voice’…a puzzling dichotomy. Clarke was also the ‘main thrust’ behind some of Depeche Mode’s earlier naïve homosexual lyric base, popping up in songs like “Boys Say Go!” and “What’s Your Name?”, for starters.

Well, back to MY side of the story now!

My introduction to this band came sometime in 1982 through an article in CREEM magazine (Boy Howdy!) about the ‘New Romantic’ craze in British New Wave…Depeche Mode were featured along with Our Daughter’s Wedding, Ultravox (of whom I was already a fan), Visage, Orchestral Manouvers in the Dark, John Foxx, and Soft Cell (another fave at that time) and a host of others. Subsequently, I came into possession of their material through 2 compilations, via the tracks “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Dreaming of Me.” In the socially-sequestered burg I lived in at the time, I was unable to obtain their LP, even through my favorite record shop, and enjoyed the band’s work through these two songs alone. I was moderately obsessed with the ‘New Romantics’ movement for a short period of time, and having been a longtime fan of Bowie, Numan, and Kraftwerk, I was genuinely interested (in an elevated sense) in Depeche Mode. The homosexual connotations in their material didn’t sway me at all, where it would have done so for others…I was not ‘that way’ and I could care less. I mean, Depeche Mode (and many of these other bands) were essentially ‘dance music’ and I despised dancing also…music is music. While some genres inherently promote some kind of lifestyle (like the stereotypical rage of drugs, drinking, fighting, sex, etc.) with Depeche Mode’s taste for fashion, homosexuality, and dancing out of the picture for me…ha ha…there’s no other activity left. Their music at this time was so ‘whitebread,’ eating cookies and drinking milk are about the only hedonistic activity that’s comparative for partaking in.

External of my small circle of friends, there was another ‘clique’ that existed, of which I was on more than speaking terms with one fellow, Dan. Dan’s best friend Brian K, I learned, possessed the “Speak and Spell” LP and I went ballistic trying to get a copy. Not wanting to slander Brian K too much (he recently passed away, leaving his wife and kids, and was more than likely a nice guy – you have to remember, the events I’m discussing occurred in the early 80s, during those ‘weird’ high school daze), he was the example of my first encounter with an ‘elitist.’ For unknown reasons, I could not persuade him to tape the LP for me, despite my most furious efforts. Finally, it was through Dan (who was enamored with my sister) that I was able to obtain a copy of the LP and I was, as you can surmise, blown away.

Hearing this now, and at other times, brings back that summer in full bloom. The teenage confusion in my heart, the unnecessary bewilderment about the events in my life, the terminal happiness of my youth and this period of time in particular. Although I finally obtained a copy of the LP in late 1983, the tape is still in my rack (but nearly transparent) and the experience solid. “Speak and Spell” didn’t change my life at all, but it’s one of those musical memory nuggets…I hated the town I lived in, and didn’t understand the relationships I was involved in. Other than a few true friends, most of my peers were mysterious to me and very aloof towards me. I was young; I learned much later that this is pretty much the social makeup of the ages…I wasn’t playing the same game as others, and while I was proud of it and reaped the strength it lent me, I was sad and confused about it at the same time. “Speak and Spell” and it’s nihilistic soundscape was an appropriate soundtrack for that summer, and an example of the cold nature of my peers.

That’s what I feel when I hear it…NIHILISTIC. Bring on the cookies and milk...