Depeche Mode: Memento Mori is the new album by the super guests of Sanremo

Paschal Ancona

01 February

In the past few hours, Amadeus has announced that the super guests of the final of the Sanremo Music Festival 2023 will be of Depeche Mode. A great coup scored by the artistic director and conductor of the event, which brings to Italy a band that has marked the history of international music.

training and meeting dave gahan

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The group was founded by Vince Clarke, Martin Lee Gore and Andrew Fletcher in the late 70s, going through several phases and changing name and formation. In 1980 the three were joined by David Gahan, a boy with excellent lungs, it is said, but with a face to ‘nerdy’ teenager. According to critics, it was precisely this ordinary nerd face that allowed the band to break into the hearts of young people, who identified with him. In clubs and pubs, Gahan specialized in some covers. One evening, while the others in the group were inexplicably listening to him, Gahan beautifully performed a cover of Heroes Of David Bowie and the three brought him into the project, which at this point took on the definitive name of Depeche Mode.

the name

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Dépêche mode it comes from a French fashion magazine that Gahan himself almost inexplicably found in his hand one afternoon in 1980. A name that, knowing a little French, is not accidental. Dépêche mode, in fact, means fast and passing fashion: a sort of manifesto of the dynamic and ever-changing nature of the band’s projects. The pinnacle of success came with Violator, album released in 1990 and recorded in Milan. To date, it is one of the most popular records in the history of music, thanks to the presence of two of the group’s most famous songs: Enjoy the Silence (one of the greatest commercial successes ever) e Personal Jesus (released as a single six months before the album). The resulting tour (The World Violation Tour) proved to be a huge success: within 8 hours, the chronicles tell us, 42,000 tickets were sold for Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, and 48,000 for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The tour, however, also marked thebeginning of the end of their golden season: also due to the stress of a whole year of non-stop live performances, the group began to deteriorate, gradually losing pieces.

Indeed, from that point in their career, Depeche Mode began to slow down the output of your discsso much so that the next album, titled Songs of Faith and Devotion, saw the light only in 1993. Since the 2000s, however, the band has resumed the publication of its albums, obviously without reaching the success of the 90s but always captivating its niche of audience. Today, Depeche Mode can count over 100 million records sold.

the loss of andy fletcher

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On May 26, 2022 Andy Fletcher passed away at the age of 60. The announcement is made by the bandmates, explaining that he passed away due to an aortic artery dissection. On August 15, 2022, three months after his death, on the official profile of the Depeche Mode a photo appeared with Dave Gahan And Martin Gore in the recording studio working on a new album with the caption: “Finding stability in what we know and love and focusing on what gives life meaning and purpose.”