I loved the forthright, brooding declarations of Dave Gahan. I learned that I’d definitely heard “Enjoy the Silence” before. I went home and downloaded Violator on Limewire (those were the days) and listened to it all. I’d heard of them, yet somehow one of their biggest radio hits had totally missed my radar. It’s by Depeche Mode.” Sure, he pronounced their name as “Depetchy Mode,” but he was correct. I’m animatedly singing its praises at school when one of my classmates interjects and says, “Uh, that’s a cover. Marilyn Manson puts out “Personal Jesus” - I am immediately very into it. Thanks DM! – Joan Wasser, Joan As Police Woman Listening to Violator now I’m more into it than ever.
In 2003, along with Maxim Moston and Jane Scarpantoni, I recorded the strings on Dave Gahan’s Paper Monsters album.
Because much of the music was spacious, it allowed the lyrics for songs like “The Sweetest Perfection” and “Waiting For The Night” to clearly dive into the subjects of addiction, sexuality and despair.
Flood’s production was very much the sound of that moment: industrial plus pop plus euro-techno. The ubiquitous cover art by Anton Corbijn perfectly symbolized the sound - the image of a flower but filtered to leave only black and red. The singles were everywhere on the radio, “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy The Silence” and the future-gloom felt like it had made it to the mainstream. I think I initially heard it because it’d been released on Mute and I’d check out anything from the label that had The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten on its roster.
I didn’t follow Depeche Mode’s music closely through the ’80s as I was consumed with punk/underground but when I heard Violator, I recall I was surprised by its level of darkness. In honor of Violator turning 30 on March 19, Billboard spoke with a slew of recording artists from all across the world to take their temperature on Depeche Mode’s goth-blues maneuvers of 1990 inspiring their listening habits and helping shape the sound of music for future generations. The short documentary released about the making of the album is called If You Wanna Use Guitars, Use Guitars, and that’s precisely what Martin Gore, David Gahan, Andy Fletcher and former member Alan Wilder achieved in the studio with the man they call Flood at the controls on this exceptional crossover pop classic (the 30th anniversary of which is being commemorated by Rhino Records with a collector’s edition deluxe box set containing ten 12″ vinyl discs showcasing the singles, “Personal Jesus,” “Enjoy The Silence,” “Policy Of Truth,” “World In My Eyes” and all the rare remixes and b-sides that come along). Violator remains, 30 years on, the band’s most definitive statement. Depeche calling their 2013 album Delta Machine was a confirmation that their roots in Son House are as powerful as their origins at the plastic feet of Kraftwerk. And it’s no secret lead singer Dave Gahan has been delving deep into his love for the blues as the de facto lead singer for the English production team Soulsavers (replacing their previous collaborator Mark Lanegan) over the course of the duo’s last pair of LPs. The guitars have stuck around for nearly every album they’ve released since, most prominently on 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion and the excellent Spirit, the last proper DM studio LP from 2017.