Black Celebration (1986)
Anyone who sets off fireworks wants to celebrate. But the fireworks in “Stripped” suggested otherwise. It sounded deeper, more distorted, slow motion, like the last seconds of a life. Dave Gahan sang “Come with Me / Into The Trees” and at the end “Let me hear you crying / Just for me”.
The record company had advised Depeche Mode against releasing “Stripped” as the pre-single for their album “Black Celebration”. It seemed too dark and lurking to them, and it was also quite slow. But that’s exactly how the four musicians wanted to appear. Singer Gahan in the role of a seducer who celebrates a “black mass”.
The producers Gareth Jones and Daniel Miller distanced themselves from the industrial sound of their predecessor “Some Great Reward” (1984), the machines of Berlin, the gasps, hisses and the banging of iron were a thing of the past. They developed a new, leaner sound that was much more elegant and at the same time more vicious. “Black Celebration” was a stinger presented in a velvet glove.
It sounded like palaces surrounded by pillars of fire, like in the title track, it sounded like a waltz with the devil (“Dressed in Black”) or playing an organ whose pipes are made of skeletons (“It Doesn’t Matter Two”). The album cover, red roses growing towards a skyscraper, looked like it was taken from Stephen King’s Dark Tower. And always with death in mind, which determines our view of life: “Death Is Everywhere / There Are Flies On The Windscreen / For A Start”. And you can also hear it scattered throughout songs: the ticking of a clock. Time is running out.
The feeling only teenagers know
Depeche Mode proudly report today how they had to fight against prejudices with this record. The documentary accompanying the 2007 re-release quotes Daniel Miller in its title: “The Songs Aren’t Good Enough, There Aren’t Any Singles And It’ll Never Get Played On The Radio”. In Miller’s defense, it must be said that he based his judgment on the demo versions.
Martin Gore placed four pieces that he sang himself on the record, more than ever before or since. Depeche Mode studio albums are carefully compiled, and the tracklist usually represents a dramatic development. Here Gore had several with “A Question Of Lust”, “Sometimes” and “It Doesn’t Matter Two” in positions three to five breakwater. The 24-year-old has never sang about the feelings of teenagers so beautifully, so vulnerably, so beyond all kitsch. Gore has retained this quality to this day, 30 years later. Even if recently, as in the “Delta Machine” piece “The Child Inside”, he looked back even further, to his childhood.
Even more than 30 years later, the band still appreciates this record. The title song regularly makes it onto the setlist, as do the singles, as does “Fly On The Windscreen – Final”, which unfortunately wasn’t released as a single, and Martin Gore breaks down “Dressed In Black” and “It Doesn’t Matter Two” live in one Piano version to the bone. On the “Spirit” concert tour, “I Feel You”, the monolith, regularly has to give way to “A Question Of Time”.
Which song was the most celebrated on the 2013 tour? Not “Enjoy The Silence. But “But Not Tonight”, a B-side!