The best album ever

I'm cheating a bit, because it's not a proper studio album but a live one. Anyway, 101 by Depeche Mode is my ultimate desert island disc (cheating again, it's 2 discs on both vinyl and cd), the one I can never get tired of, the one I listen to the most, simply put, the best album ever.



Apart from being incredibly fantastic, this album was also the one that pretty much changed my life. As a child, football was my #1 passion (the one that's actually played with the foot), then music took over sometime in my early teenage years. For a while, I listened to all the usual pop stuff, but when I finally discovered 101, it all changed. If you are the kind of person who's drawn to their style of music, Depeche Mode can be addictive. It doesn't only mean that you become a bit obsessive (listen to them all the time,  start collecting records and memorabilia, go everywhere and anywhere to see them live), it also means that they provide a certain high that nothing else can, and everything you liked before is no longer good enough.

Looking at the music itself, it's the essence of the "original", all-electronic DM (there is some guitar playing there, but it's barely noticable). Hits and album tracks, huge stadium anthems and quieter moments, plus the legendarily enthusiastic audience. Every single song is presented in its best version - some of those have a few equally good other versions, but never better. The album is perfect, but not flawless: though not an actual live performance, not including the full intro to save disc space wasn't the best idea (the whole song was meant to be the start of the show, not just the final 50 seconds of it), and Martin's "see the stars they're shining bright..." bit is sorely missing from Never Let Me Down Again. Still, that particular performance of that particular song is the highest peak among all, no words can do it justice.

I could probably go on for quite a while, but a better way to spend my time is to listen to it again... and again... and again...