Violator- Depeche Mode

While Depeche Mode had written a lot of really successful and amazing music, their first defining album for me, was “Violator”. My sister had it on cassette along with Erasure’s “The Innocents”. I stole them both and ran the tape ragged. I’d never heard something as blissfully dark as “The World In My Eyes” or as singable as “Enjoy The Silence”. “Halo” and “Policy of Truth” were similarly somber, yet begged to be sung along with. This very idea of melancholy, foreboding pop was so infectious. Of course I soon discovered The Cure and The Smiths and a love affair kinda set in with this kind of music. That first experience with Violator though, has never left me.

It’s one of those special records made when digital recording was just starting to emerge, made with a number of digital synthesizers and drum machines (although using some analog synths like ARPs and Oberheims) but still recorded on analog tape. More and more records in the 80’s were recorded on Digital as the decade went on and there’s a general sterility that can sort of be felt on a lot of the music from that time. The digital technology was young and higher sample rates/bit depths weren’t an option on most equipment, so recordings lost some of the fullness and intimacy they could have had. Not Violator though. If there’s two things it definitively is, it’s big and intimate. You should honestly buy this album if you don’t already have it and play it loud over some decent speakers and feel it’s seriousness. This is pop music that is not playing around.