101
[Record Mirror, 11th March 1989, Words: Eleanor Levy.]
Depeche Mode “101”
Gone are the days when artists released live LPs purely as a quick and easy way to fulfil contractual obligations. No more are we fed a haphazard collection of songs that sound like they’ve been recorded on your dad’s Fidelity music centre.
Now the capturing of the ‘live experience’ has become as techno obsessed as the studio variety and, as Depeche Mode have proved themselves at the forefront of that environment, so they’ve come up with a double LP celebrating their last US tour that’s as clean as Mary Whitehouse’s diary, but with rather more going on between the lines.
So clean, in fact, that on many of the 17 tracks here, there’s little difference from the original records, with even Dave Gahan’s famed live guttural yobbo yells being mixed down to give added emphasis to his remarkably strong vocals.
Most live albums try too hard to recreate atmosphere at the expense of the quality of the songs. The recent ‘Rank’ from the Smiths being a good example. They sound, quite simply, a bit ropey. ‘101’ avoids this admirably, making full use of modern post production techniques to deliver an energetic, well-recorded – and above all, good and loud – sound, while at the same time producing a quite exceptional ‘Greatest Hits Part II’ collection.
With only ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ remaining from the Vince Clarke era, later tracks like ‘Behind The Wheel’, ‘ Stripped’, ‘Master And Servant’ and the disturbingly erotic ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ sit like a dark shroud around the group’s traditional fluffy pop framework.
‘101’ is not so much a better than average live album. It sits as a timely reminder of Depeche Mode’s position as one of the few truly subversive pop groups around at the moment. * * * *
[Record Mirror, 11th March 1989, Words: Eleanor Levy.]
Depeche Mode “101”
Gone are the days when artists released live LPs purely as a quick and easy way to fulfil contractual obligations. No more are we fed a haphazard collection of songs that sound like they’ve been recorded on your dad’s Fidelity music centre.
Now the capturing of the ‘live experience’ has become as techno obsessed as the studio variety and, as Depeche Mode have proved themselves at the forefront of that environment, so they’ve come up with a double LP celebrating their last US tour that’s as clean as Mary Whitehouse’s diary, but with rather more going on between the lines.
So clean, in fact, that on many of the 17 tracks here, there’s little difference from the original records, with even Dave Gahan’s famed live guttural yobbo yells being mixed down to give added emphasis to his remarkably strong vocals.
Most live albums try too hard to recreate atmosphere at the expense of the quality of the songs. The recent ‘Rank’ from the Smiths being a good example. They sound, quite simply, a bit ropey. ‘101’ avoids this admirably, making full use of modern post production techniques to deliver an energetic, well-recorded – and above all, good and loud – sound, while at the same time producing a quite exceptional ‘Greatest Hits Part II’ collection.
With only ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ remaining from the Vince Clarke era, later tracks like ‘Behind The Wheel’, ‘ Stripped’, ‘Master And Servant’ and the disturbingly erotic ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ sit like a dark shroud around the group’s traditional fluffy pop framework.
‘101’ is not so much a better than average live album. It sits as a timely reminder of Depeche Mode’s position as one of the few truly subversive pop groups around at the moment. * * * *
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