Depeche Mode’s non-conformist fourth album, Some Nice Reward, joined the wealthy lineage of German-recorded pop classics – and eventually broke the band within the States…

Many artists have discovered their muse in Germany. A number of the best rock and pop albums of all time – from David Bowie’s “Heroes” to Iggy Pop’s The Fool to U2’s Achtung Child – have discovered inspiration in Berlin’s bohemian vitality.

And so it was with Depeche Mode in 1984, for his or her fourth album in as a few years. But except for the Bauhaus structure and cultural throb of West Germany’s capital metropolis, it was Martin Gore’s relationship with new girlfriend Christina Friedrich that knowledgeable a lot of the writing of Some Nice Reward.

“Martin’s in love once more, see,” Andy Fletcher advised Melody Maker in early ‘84. “The purpose is to see one thing necessary and to put in writing about it truthfully, even when it is just necessary to your self. Some individuals are inclined to assume that love songs shouldn’t be handled significantly, that it’s provided that you’re writing about social issues {that a} tune turns into severe.”

Not that many individuals listening would have interpreted Some Nice Reward’s tracks as love songs. “You deal with me like a canine/ Get down on my knees,” Dave Gahan sings on Grasp And Servant.

“I can really feel melancholy throughout/ You’ve acquired your leather-based boots on,” he intones on One thing To Do. Tales Of Previous, in the meantime, presents up “I wouldn’t sacrifice something in any respect for love.”

Some Nice Reward could nicely have its love songs, however filtered via Martin Gore, they change into thrillingly completely different.

Gore spent two years in whole in Berlin, however, not like a few of Mute’s different acts who had arrange camp there, equivalent to Nick Cave, he was cautious of mythologising town and its inhabitants.

“I went out to some golf equipment and knew just a few individuals, however I didn’t take it very significantly in any respect, although it might need had some unconscious affect,” Gore stated in a 1985 interview, quoted in Depeche Mode: A Biography.

“The Berlin scene is a little bit of a fantasy – the concept that it’s filled with weirdos and junkies, although there are rather a lot. The golf equipment are fairly good, however not as surprising and completely different as individuals think about.”

That stated, there’s a daring transgressiveness about a lot of Some Nice Reward, and it’s exhausting to think about that Berlin’s picture of itself as a mecca for misfits and mavericks didn’t feed into the album’s strident bohemianism.

It’s wonderful to assume how subversive lots of Some Nice Reward’s songs had been, and the way Gore was sneaking these lyrics onto mainstream TV and radio.

Even 4 many years on, Grasp And Servant, with its overtly sexual, BDSM-evoking lyrics, stays surprising. However what actually elevates Some Nice Reward’s second single, is that the tune’s sadomasochistic content material can be learn as political allegory, of submission and management.

“Grasp And Servant is the one that individuals will pick, as a result of they assume it’s nearly S&M,” Gore advised Vox. “When you analyse it, it’s not.” Even the album’s lead-off single, the extra innocent-appearing Individuals Are Individuals, was equally politically and socially charged.

“This was the primary tune of ours that made a dent, actually, into fashionable radio,” Dave Gahan advised Leisure Weekly in 2017. “We had been utilizing all these tape loops to create rhythms and the expertise was fairly superior, nevertheless it wasn’t something like it’s as we speak, the issues that you are able to do.

“We used to enter studios, and the very first thing we’d do, we’d ask the place the kitchen was – actually for pots and pans and issues that we may throw down the steps, and report the rhythms they’d make crashing round, after which make it into loops.”

No much less controversial was third single, the double A-sided Blasphemous Rumours/Someone, with the primary tune telling the story of a botched teenage suicide (“Lady of 16/ Complete life forward of her/ Slashed her wrists/ Uninterested in life/ Didn’t succeed/ Thank the Lord for small mercies”), whereas the second is a Gore-sung love tune with a darkish twist.

Regardless of the lyrical content material of a lot of Depeche Mode’s output, amongst Berlin’s in-crowd the group had been thought to be one thing of a throwaway pop band, to not be taken significantly.

“Now and again a member of [Einstürzende] Neubauten would flip up within the studio to see Daniel [Miller],” Alan Wilder recalled in Depeche Mode: A Biography. “They’d ignore us as a result of we had been so uncool. They’d type of mutter in German after which go away once more.”

When Some Nice Reward was launched on 24 September 1984, it grew to become Depeche Mode’s highest-charting album up to now, peaking at No.5 within the UK and No.51 on the US Billboard (and No.3 in Germany).

It additionally garnered the band a number of the finest evaluations of their profession, with Smash Hits writing: “Opening with what appears like an overheating mind scanner, the LP ends with a human breath. What lies in between is a fancy interplay between a metallic computerised rhythmic core and extra natural sound starting from spanking to spinning tops.”

Melody Maker’s Barry McIlheney, in the meantime, famous a “actually outstanding improvement” in Dave Gahan’s voice, concluding that whereas “it was okay to slag this bunch off due to their lack of soul, their supposed artificial attraction, their reluctance to essentially pack a punch”, the album “simply trashes such unhealthy outdated discuss into the bottom and calls for that you just now sit up and take discover of what’s taking place right here, proper underneath your nostril.”

“I’m more than happy with the vocal sound on this one,” Gahan advised the press. “It’s loads to do with being snug with the engineer [Gareth Jones]. Additionally, I took a few classes with [vocal coach] Tona de Brett, scales and issues, and though I didn’t see a lot software to singing pop songs, I wished to study extra about respiration management.”

Some Nice Reward provided up a number of the most textured and complex studio work Depeche Mode had but put out, and was a giant leap ahead artistically for the four-years-young band.

And it spawned the only that lastly broke them in America. When Individuals Are Individuals was launched in the USA, it peaked at No.13.

4 years into the profession, these Basildon boys had been lastly, with a German-recorded album and successful single in America, a very worldwide group.