The big three-oh approaches in less than two hours, so it seems appropriate – having just watched School of Rock – to stick some great (old) music on. First up: Depeche Mode, who just couldn’t get enough when I was around a third of the age I’ll be in around two hours.
Appropriately, the CD itself is of an 80s vintage, which means there’s a page in the back of the sleeve notes (kids – I’ll explain later) telling buyers about the “Compact Disk Digital Audio System”. The advice it offers is useful for those of us who, at the time, were still smearing marmalade over CD surfaces as advised by Tomorrow’s World (kids – I’ll explain later: it was the single most memorable moment in 1980s TV, and it happened in 1981. It was a long decade after that, really).
“For the best results, you should apply the same care in storing and handling the Compact Disc as with conventional records [kids - I'll... oh, never mind]… If you follow these suggestions, the Compact Disk will provide a lifetime of pure listening enjoyment”.
See, even then they were talking about a lifetime, not for hundreds of years. So that’s that solved.
In other news, the Mode (as we know ‘em) helpfully put quotes from the reviews that met their now-classic records. With their trademark dour humour, they put the shit quotes first. Take this searing indictment of Everything Counts, from Gary Bushell [laughter] writing for Sounds magazine [more laughter]: “And the band played on – whether the members of Depeche Mode are actually dead or alive is a question that has baffled the medical profession for years”. Or Roy Hay [cries of "who?"] writing for Record Mirror [gasps of distant recognition], on People are People: “I really laughed the first time it came on”.
The only decent piece of dissing came from one Neil Tennant. In Smash Hits [recognition applause], he wrote of Blasphemous Rumours that it was “a routine slab of gloom in which God is given a severe ticking off”. A comment which, itself, is a routine slab of camply dismissive bitchiness by Tennant. At least he managed to go on and do something with his life – a something that sounded not unlike the Mode, ironically.
Happy birthday – I remember the day well!
Neil did warm to Depeche Mode, a lot even. Supporting them in LA with Electronic and recording ‘The End of the World’ as a tribute – ripoff, if you will – to ‘Enjoy the Silence’. Which he freely admits in the Behaviour reissue sleevenotes, mind you.