Depeche Mode: Some Great Reward (+ Singles) era

The album. The singles. The songs. The tour. The compilation album.



People Are People

The first single from the album, March 1984.
One of my biggest favourites to this very day, and it quickly became the band's biggest hit at the time: it peaked at #4 in the UK (still their highest position on that chart) and spent 5 weeks in the top 10, topped the chart in (West) Germany (their first ever #1), and - with a slight delay of 1 year, charting in 1985 when the tour reached that territory - it became their first hit in the US, climbing up as far as #13. It's not hard to see why it was so well received pretty much everywhere, it's just such a great tune, as Daniel Miller put it, "it sounded great even before we recorded it properly".
Following the tradition from the previous year, beside the 7" containing the hit a and a B-side plus a 12" including extended versions of both tracks, an additional 12" was released, but rather than the live tracks on previous releases, it featured the first ever remix of a Depeche Mode song created by someone outside the band, namely Adrian Sherwood.

In Your Memory

The B-side, written by Alan Wilder, a nice representation of their layered sound. The 12" version highlights it even more how many things are going on in it at the same time.

Master And Servant

Second single, August 1984
Another huge hit. It's a bit weird for me that the band sees this song as a step towards the more serious after its almost too poppy predecessor, but while the lyrics with the S&M imagery are definitely darker, they always felt a bit tongue in cheek to me, and the playful lead melody, the screaming, the whip noises and the call and response bit all made the song quite funny for me.
The limited edition 12" came with 2 Adrian Sherwood remixes, reworking "Master And Servant" and "People Are People" much more radically than before, so much so that the latter was renamed "Are People People?" and contained very little from the original song.

(Set Me Free) Remotivate Me

A surprisingly upbeat track on the B-side, where the bit more than 4 minutes long 7" version feels more repetitive to me than the almost 9 minutes long 12" version, which has a nice instrumental section in the middle. It's not their most memorable work, just a fun B-side.

SOME GREAT REWARD

September, 1984.
Their second "Berlin album", after mixing "Contruction Time Again" at Hansa Studios, this one was mostly recorded and mixed there. Definitely their best so far, it follows in the foosteps of the previous album, with more personal lyrics and a more accessible feel without sacrificing anything from the experimentation.

Something To Do

The first album opener not to be released as a single (could have been though), but a great song and a live favourite, with an interesting verse structure and a slower instrumental bit instead of a chorus.

Lie To Me

It took me a while to get this one, it feels a bit mellow between the frantic opening track and the massive sounding big hit, but it's a great song, with a very effective live version.

People Are People

Not much to add to what's been written before, a clear highlight, and it's great to have it with a proper ending (used in the 12" version) instead of the fade-out on the 7".

It Doesn't Matter

Probably the only way to follow such a great track is to have one that's completely different, and a slow paced song with Martin on lead vocals is a good way to do that.

Stories Of Old

The shortest track on the album (and the only one never played live) closes side 1, probably the least remarkable song on the album, but still a good one (one of my sister's favourites), with an interesting reworking for a studio session 25 years later.

Somebody

On an album called "SOME Great Reward", which opens with a song called "SOMEthing To Do", side 2 cannot start with anything other than "SOMEbody". The first "big" Martin ballad, it's also unique for being pretty much acoustic, with only piano and ambient noises accompanying his voice. Needless to say how beautiful this song is, with somewhat naive but very touching lyrics.

Master And Servant

The second big hit picks up the pace, with a slightly extended intro compared to the 7" version.

If You Want

The only Alan Wilder composition on this album, and the very last one he wrote alone for the band (receiving co-writing credits on 2 B-sides in 1986, and then that was it). "Party time is here again" is not the kind of line you often find in a Depeche Mode song, but this one gets away with it, a good song with - once again - a very effective live version.

Blasphemous Rumours

Not much party time in the closing track, more "why do bad things happen to good people?", very atmospheric verses followed by almost euphoric sounding choruses, another clear highlight and big fan favourite is a great way to finish such a great album.


*

Blasphemous Rumours / Somebody

Third single, October 1984.
A double A-side release pairing a song featuring unusual sounds and dealing with death, tragedy and doubting faith in the face of all that with a nice piano ballad about wanting to find a companion for life. With the band already touring, there wasn't enough time to create remixes (Somebody was slightly remixed with a more prominent heartbeat sound throughout the song), so they used live tracks for a 4-track 7" EP and the 12" (no limited edition 12" this time). They're all great, with "Ice Machine" being escpecially spectacular.


Shake The Disease

Single, April 1985.
Yet another killer track recorded at Hansa at the start of the year, it wouldn't have been out of place on Some Great Reward, and it was quickly introduced into the live set during the summer of 1985.
The video was their first one with director Peter Care, and while it's nowhere near Anton Corbijn's work, I quite like the move away from the typical 80's video trickery towards a more experimental approach.

Flexible

A fairly odd song on the B-side, and one that I wouldn't miss from the band's catalogue if it wasn't there.

It's Called A Heart

Single, September 1985.
A song written specifically to be the obligatory new track on the singles compilation, frequently called as one of their worst by both Martin and Alan in hindsight. Certainly not as good as Shake The Disease and quite lightweight, but I don't think it's that bad, though it's not impossible to understand why they see it as a step backwards.

Fly On The Windscreen

A B-side so good that they decided to include it on the next album in slightly reworked form. A very powerful and quite bleak track, that even returned to the live set years and years later, it would have been a waste as just a B-side, but it's not the kind of thing you would hear on the radio too much, so it's understandable why they chose to put the more poppy tune on the A-side.

The Singles 81 - 85

Compilation, October 1985.
A simple chronological collection of the singles so far, all 7" versions (which were sometimes slightly shorter than the album versions, or, in case of "Love, In Itself" and "Somebody", remixed), with the vinyl version omitting "The Meaning Of Love" and "Somebody" to fit on one record. The US version was a bit different. A compilation titled "People Are People" was released there a year earlier, including 5 singles ("People Are People", "Love, In Itself", "Get The Balance Right!", "Leave In Silence" and "Everything Counts") so they skipped 4 of them including their biggest and only US hit, and kept only "Love, In Itself", which appeared in its album version there. The 2 recent B-sides, "Flexible" and "Fly On The Windscreen" were added, so it was no longer a compilation of only singles, and it was released with the title "Catching Up With Depeche Mode".

Some Great Reward Tour
Master And Servant (instrumental excerpt - intro)
Something To Do
Two Minute Warning
Puppets
If You Want
People Are People
Leave In Silence
New Life
Shame
Somebody
Ice Machine
Lie To Me
Blasphemous Rumours
Told You So
Master And Servant
Photographic
Everything Counts

See You

Shout
Just Can't Get Enough

September - December 1984 (UK & Europe)
March - April 1985 (North America & Japan)
July 1985 (Europe)

A great tour with an almost perfect setlist. A few singles, "Get The Balance Right!" (which worked very well live, but the band weren't too keen on it), "Love, In Itself" (a bit odd choice for a single) and "The Meaning Of Love" (a not too memorable one) are out, and "Leave In Silence" makes a welcome return. More surprisingly, almost 1/3 of the show - 6 out of 19 songs - is made up of songs written by Vince Clarke, but "New Life", "Photographic" and "Just Can't Get Enough" were big live favourites, "Puppets" and "Ice Machine" (returning to the live set for the first time since the See You Tour) are quite atmospheric tracks that are slightly updated and fit in perfectly, and the new version of "Shout" is just so much better than the original it's almost unbelievable. At the first few dates, it followed "See You" straight away as part of the first encore with "Just Can't Get Enough" played separately in the second one, but it was then moved to the second encore (without changing the song order) for the majority of the tour, where it served as a perfect build up to the grand finale.
The start of the show was quite unusual, they prefer slow building intros and opening songs on most tours (which they could have done with "If You Want", for example), but the brief excerpt from "Master And Servant" followed by "Something To Do" is a very in medias res kind of opening. The set is a very good mixture of hits and album tracks, old and new, yet it feels quite cohesive, and it has a good flow - energetic start, slowing down with "Shame" to make way for Martin's "Somebody", then slowly building back up and ending the main set with a series of crowd pleasers and a big singalong, a bit of a breather and then back to a big singalong at the end.
The show was recorded in December 1984 and released in 1985 on the band's first live video "The World We Live In And Live In Hamburg", with only 2 songs not included, but both "Puppets" and "Ice Machine" can be found on a BBC Radio recording from one of the London shows (be careful though, there are 2 versions of their broadcast and only one include "Puppets"), and as mentioned earlier, a live version of "Ice Machine" (recorded in Liverpool) was also released on the "Blasphemous Rumours / Somebody" 12" single, so the whole set can be heard in great quality. The slight tweaks in arrangements and the crowd response makes it a worthwhile listen.
On one of the Japanese dates, "Somebody" starts out as usual, but Martin sings "It Doesn't Matter" over it.
The second European leg in July 1985 included open air dates on a few festivals and unusual locations, visiting the Eastern Bloc (Hungary on Martin's birthday and Poland as the closing date) and Greece for the first time. This clearly shows their attitude of wanting to play everywhere to people who wanted to see them, shared by very few other acts at the time. For this leg, "Ice Machine" was replaced by the new single "Shake The Disease", and the following shorter set was played at festivals where their time slot didn't allow for the full set:

Master And Servant (instrumental excerpt - intro)
Something To Do
If You Want
People Are People
Leave In Silence
Shake The Disease
Blasphemous Rumours
Told You So
Master And Servant
Everything Counts
Photographic
Just Can't Get Enough