New Depeche Mode sounds great

Don't know about the new Bowie yet... but the new Depeche Mode sounds great. The whole album is up at youtube and needs to be listened to in one go. (I listened to a couple of singles at first and wasn't as impressed, found bits a little slow). But as a whole its really good. Wow.

I find myself agreeing with Konietzko on the issue...

The talents of the smiths can be touted but not DM? Depeche Mode are where it's at.

I've never been much of a Depeche Mode fan, but the new album is really good.

Depeche Mode I hated in the early 80s when they didn't really get anywhere in the UK ('I just can't get enough'....yes I can, shut the fuck up). They had some pretty stiff competition but the UK basically said no thanks. They then tried Europe and assorted shit like Erasure and Yazoo.

Like Def Leppard, another UK failure, they moved to the US and made it big there. I am nothing if not consistent. I hated their pretentious twaddle then, I can't see much has changed in 35 years. Of course, I went the route of pub rocking and Dr Feelgood while die hard smack addicts went to DM and sundry other pseuds like Visage and Teardrop Explodes.

Personal opinion only, of course, but fuck them...

Yay for 1000 posts

I haven't heard it yet, after the last couple of DM records I'm finding it harder to get excited about anything that they're doing. "Ultra" still feels like the last proper DM album to me, despite a couple of decent tracks on "Exciter". I'll check it out on ye olde Spotify.

But now I'm waiting to hear Visage thanks to Andy...not a great band by any stretch of the word, but they had a couple of great singles.

You really should take a listen to Cold Cave, their most recent record and singles. They have a DM-ish quality but modern, a little rougher, and more seedy club than stadium. If you hear only one, make it the track "Underworld USA".

Southern California has such a hard on for Depeche Mode. Them and Oingo Boingo. I never really got this. They're OK. I like their early stuff, and VIOLATOR was a solid album, but man, there were a ton of those bands. I think 808 State, Renegade Soundwave and the like were more prescient.

I maintain an 80s synth sound playlist (from the 80s and sounds like the 80s) on Spotify.

I am looking forward to Daft Punk's new album, due in May. Say what you will, those guys have figured shit out.

The funny thing is I dodn't think I would like this album at all -- it's kinda slow in places and doesn't feel like typical DM - but if you listen to it with your eyes closed on a good pair of headphones it gets across. Anyhow, I don't really think they have to try and emulate their most famous matreial now, everybody's got to develop. It is missing a new DM track harkening back to theold days, like that Precious song did on that other album, but that's ok.

In the 1980s I didn't listen to DM. I only began listening to them after I moved to Europe. Just like me to get into it 20 years later Seen them once. The earlier fluffier stuff is innocent in the way that a lot of bands were when they started out, Beatles or whoever. Some it is lighter but Everything counts is great.

Thanks for the tip, Mike. I'll have a listen to that.

Heard half of it. It seems that DM has gone and made a The The album! It's not terrible, but it is awfully mature and portentious. I miss the teenage drama.

Everything Counts is one of their all-time best tracks...between that, Stripped, Never Let Me Down Again, Blasphemous Rumours, It's No Good, Enjoy the Silence, Master and Servant, A Question of Time, and Behind the Wheel you've got a best-of compilation.

The new Daft Punk is going to be amazing. This is a record that is guesting Giorgio Mordorer and Paul Williams (!!!), produced by Nile Rodgers. The 15 second or so clips they've put out on this weird TV commercials reveal some shit-hot future disco.

When Daft Punk first came out, I kind of dismissed them...I wasn't crazy about "Homework" and all that. But "Discovery" was absolutely incredible, one of the best records of the past 20 years. There is NO song more positive, full of life, and universally appealing than "One More Time". A lot of electronic music doesn't age well, but that record still sounds fresh today.

Michael Barnes wrote: When Daft Punk first came out, I kind of dismissed them...

Same here, I totally dismissed them as just pop techno, akin to the Chemical Brothers. I didn't pay attention to them for years and just now realizing how brilliant they've been all along.

ThirstyMan wrote: Depeche Mode I hated in the early 80s when they didn't really get anywhere in the UK ('I just can't get enough'....yes I can, shut the fuck up). They had some pretty stiff competition but the UK basically said no thanks. They then tried Europe and assorted shit like Erasure and Yazoo.

Like Def Leppard, another UK failure, they moved to the US and made it big there. I am nothing if not consistent. I hated their pretentious twaddle then, I can't see much has changed in 35 years. Of course, I went the route of pub rocking and Dr Feelgood while die hard smack addicts went to DM and sundry other pseuds like Visage and Teardrop Explodes.

Personal opinion only, of course, but fuck them...

Yay for 1000 posts

That about covers my opinion of DM, too.

(For good or ill, Def Leppard, on the other hand, was part of the soundtrack of my highschool years. It *was* the US in the 80s; the car tape deck was always full of pre-power ballad LA metal, midwestern punk and WaxTrax pseudo-industrial, and New York speed metal....Plus, and this was always a concern at that age--even before their huge hits, Def Leppard was enormously popular with midwestern highschool girls. Absolutely guaranteed to hear Rock of Ages or some such at every single "my parents are gone this weekend!" party in the lower quarter of the state)