Depeche Mode – Some Great Reward [180g Vinyl LP]

Depeche Mode – Some Great Reward [180g Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Gatefold, Stereo
• Catalogue Number: STUMM19 / 88985330011
• Barcode: 889853300112
• Genre: Synth-Pop / Electronic / New Wave
• Label: Mute / Legacy / Sony Music
• Originally Released: 24 September 1984
• Reissue Released: 26 August 2016
• Pressing: 180 Gram Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Some Great Reward is the fourth studio album by Depeche Mode — released on 24 September 1984 on Mute Records — and the record on which the band's creative and commercial trajectory changed permanently. Recorded at Music Works in London and Hansa Mischraum Studios in Berlin — the studio where David Bowie had recorded Low, Heroes and Lodger just years earlier — and produced by Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones, it marked a decisive shift in subject matter and sonic ambition from its predecessors: darker, more provocative, more politically conscious, and more sonically assured. The album reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and number forty-seven on the US Billboard 200 — their first US chart entry — establishing the American foothold that would grow across every subsequent album. It has sold over three million copies worldwide and is certified Platinum by the BPI.

The album was built around three singles of exceptional quality. "People Are People" — released as the lead single in March 1984, reaching number four in the UK and number thirteen in the US — became the band's first American hit and their biggest UK single to that point; its industrial-tinged, sample-driven production was genuinely novel at the time of release. "Master and Servant" — the album's most controversial track, a barely coded meditation on sadomasochism framed as a commentary on power relations and workplace hierarchy — reached number nine in the UK and demonstrated the band's willingness to push subject matter and imagery well beyond any mainstream pop convention. The album's third major single was the double A-side "Blasphemous Rumours / Somebody" — two of the most emotionally significant songs in the Mode catalogue: "Blasphemous Rumours" is a six-minute meditation on arbitrary suffering and divine indifference that remains one of the most genuinely unsettling pieces of mainstream pop ever made; "Somebody" — a delicate acoustic-inflected ballad performed in its live incarnation by Martin Gore alone at the microphone — was the first Gore-penned ballad to appear on a Depeche Mode album, establishing a template repeated on every subsequent record. All songs on the album were written by Martin L. Gore, except "If You Want" — the only album track written by Alan Wilder, who had joined the band in 1982.

The album's remaining tracks are consistently strong. "Something to Do" opens the record with a mechanistic, propulsive energy that sets the album's dark tone immediately; "Lie to Me" is a five-minute piece of brooding electronic noir; "It Doesn't Matter" and "Stories of Old" complete Side A's run with characteristic restraint; and "If You Want" on Side B demonstrates Wilder's compositional voice with an understated confidence that makes its solitary appearance the more striking. The album's production — built on sequencers, samples and processed vocals with almost no conventional instrumentation — was an evolution from the relatively thin synth-pop of A Broken Frame (1982) and Construction Time Again (1983) into something considerably more physically imposing, and its influence on the subsequent development of industrial pop, dark wave, EBM and synthpop was extensive.

This 2016 Mute / Legacy / Sony Music reissue presents the album on 180 gram black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with a printed lyric inner sleeve, and represents the authoritative current edition of the album, carrying the original Mute catalogue designation STUMM19 alongside the Sony distribution number. Made in the EU.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Something to Do
2. Lie to Me
3. People Are People
4. It Doesn't Matter
5. Stories of Old

Side B

1. Somebody
2. Master and Servant
3. If You Want
4. Blasphemous Rumours

Credits

• Dave Gahan – Vocals
• Martin Gore – Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals, Songwriting
• Andy Fletcher – Keyboards
• Alan Wilder – Keyboards, Drums, Songwriter (If You Want)
• Daniel Miller – Producer
• Gareth Jones – Producer, Engineer
• Label – Mute / Legacy / Sony Music