To this day there is a funny rumor that all the machine sounds, the sighs, hammering and pressing on “Some Great Reward” were actually reserved for the Einstreichen Neuhäusern. The band around Blixa Cash is said to have disagreed with the sounds that producer Gareth Jones had developed with them. And so Jones used them for Depeche Mode when they recorded parts of “Some Great Reward” with him at Hansa Studios in Berlin in 1984.
On the song “People Are People”, which brought the Brits their first number one in the German single charts, we hear this clever combination of clattering and hitting, colliding and detaching, metal on metal, with air in between, which has its very own, rhythm that no one else has ever reproduced; in “Blasphemous Rumors” the musicians even seem to be hitting steel plates. “Something To Do” opens the record with a sort of vicious-sounding jet of water.
Goodbye, synth popper!
Since their debut “Speak & Spell” in 1981 until the mid-90s, Depeche Mode have increased their success and fame with each album. Even if the song material of “Some Great Reward” doesn’t come close to the phalanx of the eternal top 4 from “Black Celebration”, “Music For The Masses”, “Violator” and “Songs Of Faith and Devotion” (1986-1993). , it is an essential album in the band’s development. Not only did the arrangements become more sophisticated, but the themes also became even sharper. S&M, as in “Master and Servant” and the turning away from God in “Blasphemous Rumors” are in the foreground. Depeche Mode finally became a dark band, and the term “synthi-popper” almost seemed like an insult. They wouldn’t release another optimistic piece until 1997’s “Home.”
Above all, “Some Great Reward” marks the final breakthrough for the shy-seeming Martin Gore. While the songs had only been written by him for years, the band also released the first single with him as lead singer, “Somebody” (double A-side with “Blasphemous Rumors”). However, the piano ballad is only superficially friendly; In the second half of the song, Gore even makes fun of the beautiful sound: “although things like this make me sick / in a case like this I’ll get away with it.”
Anyone who saw Depeche Mode live on their “Some Great Reward” tour could expect to see a full load of tools and equipment: metal pipes, corrugated iron and bicycle tires. It sounded, of course, great.
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