Depeche Mode Condemnation! (Melody Maker, 1993)

[demoderus]

Condemnation!
[Melody Maker, December 1993. Words: Taylor Parkes. Picture: Stephen Sweet.]

 

[demoderus]

A journalist with evidently no interest in or knowledge of Depeche Mode has reviewed the Birmingham show, resulting in a barrage of cheap and largely unwarranted personal abuse directed at Dave, Martin and the crowd. Quite simply, nothing to redeem it and included here purely as a lesson in how not to write a review. A disgrace.
" Oh. It’s supposed to be sexy. Ah. "
If anyone can nail the precise date for this piece, I'd be glad to hear from them.
Many thanks to Michael Rose for kindly supplying a scan of this article.

Thirty seconds in, the shit-fool clapalong is underway. A Basildon lager lad steps out from behind the curtains, begins an awkward, nerdish strut.

“Wooh! Yeah! One time!”

He moves to the front of the stage, spreads his arms into a crucifixion pose. From the stands comes a long, loud, many-throated scream. Here’s something to chew on. Depeche Mode are taken seriously.

“Good evening BirmingHAM!” With a toss of the hair, he slides off his jacket and gobs. More screams. Hands thrown in the air, he starts moving his midriff around, like maybe he’s got lumbago, you know, trying to straighten his spine out. Louder screams.

Oh. It’s supposed to be sexy. Ah.

David Gahan grins the thick, beery grin of a lad who’s just broken wind in the pub.

Martin Gore (the Mode’s creative powerhouse: a poor man’s Julian Clary who rhymes “houses” with “trousers”) takes the spotlight; behind him, two video screens. One shows a giant heart, the other a giant crucifix. Oh, ummm, I get it.

Let’s chew on. Berlin. Leather. Jesus. Bondage. HOW MANY MORE TIMES?

There are interesting possibilities buried in the fleshy rolls of “Stripped”, “I Feel You”, “Condemnation” – the misted shiver of German railway stations, big European chemical conglomerates (Hoechst rock, BASF boogie). The flipside of alienation being a certain brushed artificiality (think of Eno’s plastic tones turning “Heroes” Bowie into the exemplar of tasty, stylish psychosis), and the Mode being from Basildon (in its way a perfect breeding ground for alienation, yet hardly as authentic as East Berlin), these boys are perfectly positioned to exploit that distance, create a blank, PVC ambience that would in theory be unbearably poignant – think of Suede’s saving grace, the acknowledgement of the vacuum that surrounds them, the obsolescence of trying to mean it, maaan. It would be cute, it would not be hackneyed. But, Jesus, they’re trying to do this for real.

Worse: what they’re peddling is alienation chic, the oldest, easiest pose in the book. And they can’t even do THAT properly. The emptiness that pours from the stage of the NEC tonight has nothing to do with alienation, just vacancy; it’s not that they’re tortured by their inability to express themselves, rather that they have nothing to express. As Dave – sorry, David Gahan waddles over to my side of the stage, I squint into the gloom, look deep into his eyes – and hear the wind whistling through his ears.

But nothing can stop the screams – I hate to sound a snob (f*** that, if self-respect equals snobbery then count me in), but when the Mode titled an album “Music For The Masses”, they were spot on – these are, in every sense, the masses. They clap their hands above their head and give me evil looks for not joining in, leave muttering “yeah, that was pretty good”.

“Pretty good”?! – for all their pomposity, their BIG iconography, what Depeche deal in is simple mediocrity.

“I’ll show no repentance”, bellows Gahan, “I’ll suffer with pride…”

The song shudders to a stop. “Alwoight? Aah ya doin’, BirmingHAM?”

Yeah. Enjoy the f***ing silence.

Afterword: It's probably easier to write it this way than in separate footnotes. Given the writer's issues with cliche, I would point out a few he's used himself. Two references to the band being from Basildon. Martin rhyming "houses" with trousers" (something journalists have commented on so often since 1987 the mention of it can hardly be chalked up as originality). As for Berlin and leather, neither had much of a mention in the course of the show so presumably these are the writer's tired preconceptions of Depeche Mode already buzzing around his own head. By the way, the giant heart and crucifix were actually candles.
I have nothing against badly-written reviews, or even negative ones, but I would expect that someone with such an evident dislike of a band would either do their utmost to see through their personal dislike (as I manage to when writing the summaries for negative reviews) or opt out of the assignment on the grounds of keeping a professional standard. Sadly for the writer and Melody Maker, this hasn't happened here.

 

[demoderus]

Melody Maker
Date: December 1993
Pays: Royaume-Uni