Depeche Mode: Exciter era

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

Dream On

First single, April 2001
After starting their last 3 album campaigns with the most radical, but not very representative songs, this era kicks off with a song that's not only a fair indication of what's to come, but also fits into the musical landscape of the time quite well, which was very unusual for a Depeche Mode single.
There were several remixes, mostly not my taste, but I enjoyed Dave Clarke's acoustic version and the Kid606 remix, and Morel's pain is waiting mix is absolutely wonderful.
The video is notable for being the last good one for quite a while, it lacks Anton Corbijn's magical touch but works well with the song and the band's image in general.

Easy Tiger

A not very remarkable instrumental on the B-side, presented in its full length (as opposed to the heavily edited interlude on the album), and a suprisingly funky reworking (sounding more like a cover than a remix), which reminded me of a TV cop show theme from the 1970's (not a specific one, just one in general).


EXCITER

May, 2001 (exactly 20 years ago, to be precise)
The early 2000s were the golden age of illegal file-sharing, and pretty much from the moment advance copies of this album were sent out for promotion, the contents found their way to the fans, and you had to be seriously isolated not to hear this album (after downloading it yourself or getting a copy from fellow fans) by early March at the latest - and the official release date was 14th May.
Listening to the songs (and realizing through Dave's and Martin's voice that it was in fact Depeche Mode), hearing the minimal instrumentation, the barely audible drums, the soft singing, a fairly common opinion was soon formed that this must be some work-in-progress version, this surely cannot be the finished album. But it was. I remember asking one of my friends if she'd come across a copy as "have you heard the latest lullaby-collection by Depeche Mode?"
I can't put it any other way, I was disappointed upon first listen. The sombre tone of Ultra was understandable: it was a period of healing after some very serious trouble in all their professional and private lives, but after the celebratory atmosphere of the Singles Tour, I expected a revitalised band, full of energy and life, and got an album that sounded like tired, old... people sitting in a room humming for themselves. To be fair, it wasn't bad, and it never felt like a betrayal (they still sounded like Depeche Mode, while being distinctly different from previous albums), but it was very underwhelming.
After the initial shock, I started to appreciate the beauty of this album, the vocal performances are really great on most tracks, and I still listen to this album occasionally, but there are no real stand out tracks for me, and I rate most of their albums higher than this one.

Dream On

A perfect introduction for the album, and it seems deliberate to start with a human voice instead of instruments.

Shine

A typical album track of the era: soft electronics, a nice melody with great vocals, slight build up towards the chorus, ending with some digital noise.

The Sweetest Condition

A slightly less sleepy song, and I quite like it. It could have been a single, but I can understand they did not see "radio hit" written all over it.

When The Body Speaks

Not to get carried away, here's a 6 minute-long track with a nice guitar motif, some strings, a barely noticable electronic backing and beautiful singing.

The Dead Of Night

The first loud moment of the album, it was my favourite at the time, and it also worked very well as show opener. Not up there with the classics, but enjoyable.

Lovetheme

A quite forgettable instrumental.

Freelove

Probably the most popular song of the era, a nice long slow song, with some digital noise both at the start and at the end.

Comatose 

The first song with Martin on lead vocals comes surprisingly late on this album, an OK album track.

I Feel Loved 

This is the first ever Depeche Mode song I actively disliked. It sounded like a very uninspired club-remix of a Depeche Mode song, lazy verses, instantly forgettable chorus,
a passable middle bit, its only function is to work as an excuse: if this is the best you can do as a fast(er) song, stick to the slow ones, please.

Breathe

The second Martin-song is the more interesting one of the two, with slight Twin Peaks vibes, not for the first time (see Death's Door, for example).

Easy Tiger

The second instrumental interlude, wouldn't miss it if it wasn't there.

I Am You

The second to last song sort of rhymes with the second song: a nice slow one, great vocals, ending with digital noise. The string part after the second chorus is a bit too similar to Home, a song overall far superior to this one.

Goodnight Lovers

After almost putting us to sleep throughout an entire album, the closing track is a proper lullaby, ending with a sound urging us to keep quiet, framing the album nicely by both the first and last thing you hear is human voice.

*

I Feel Loved

Second single, July 2001
Quite an obvious choice, and given the terrible four-to-the-floor rhythm in the original, the remixes couldn't really ruin it any further. In fact, Danny Tenaglia's version with bits and pieces of older songs gives it a playful feel almost making the song enjoyable.
In a way, the video fits the song, trying a touch too hard to fit into the zeitgeist.

Dirt

I've never been a fan of covers, and this reworking of a Stooges-track won't convince me otherwise, but it's almost deliciously trippy.

Freelove

Third single, November 2001
There were at least 4 attempts (by Flood, Johnny Dollar, Steve Osborne and David Bascombe) at shortening and remixing this song for the single version, with Flood's version ending up "winning". The others remain promo only, but they are all good efforts.
The single is notable for being the band's first one to include the dvd format with a live video and 2 audio recordings from the current tour. It did not feature the promotional video, which wasn't a huge loss in my opinion, its heavy American South vibe never really fit the song or the band in general for me.

Zenstation

Probably the most interesting instrumental of the era, combining some weird electronics and strings with (wordless) Martin-vocals, plus there's a delightfully bonkers remix by Atom.

Goodnight Lovers

Fourth single, February 2002
This release almost feels like an afterthought: a not very radio-friendly song in its original album version, a very cheap looking and unremarkable video, an album track (When The Body Speaks) with the electronic backing track removed as a B-side, plus 2 remixes to make it ineligible for the UK chart (it cannot fail if it's not in competition).
The isan remix of Goodnight Lovers is worth checking out.

Exciter Tour
Easy Tiger (taped intro) -> Dream On (guitar intro, played live)
The Dead Of Night
The Sweetest Condition
Halo
Walking In My Shoes
Dream On
When The Body Speaks
Waiting For The Night
[Martin's acoustic song]*
Breathe
Freelove
Enjoy The Silence
I Feel You
In Your Room
It's No Good
I Feel Loved**
Personal Jesus

Home
Clean / Condemnation
Black Celebration
Never Let Me Down Again

*until mid-July: The Bottom Line
from mid-July to early October: Surrender or Sister Of Night (alternating almost night by night)
from early October: It Doesn't Matter Two, occasionally replaced by Judas
also played: Dressed In Black (3 times), Somebody (2 out of the the last 3 shows), Condemnation (only once in this slot and sung by Martin). World Full Of Nothing was also performed at the last show, but at the start of the encores, before Home.

**dropped from the set after 8th September

North America June-August 2001
Europe August-November 2001

The stage personnel was almost unchanged from the previous tour: the band members were accompanied by Peter Gordeno on keyboards, Christian Eigner on drums, and this would be the last tour to feature two female backing vocalists: Jordan Bailey returned, paired this time with newcomer Georgia Lewis.
The setlist was the most daring ever put together by the band: probably as a reaction to the previous tour where they only played singles (plus Sister Of Night on a few occasions), they dropped quite a few hits for an entire tour for the first time since they were released (Stripped, Behind The Wheel, Policy Of Truth, World In My Eyes), yet featured older album tracks (Halo, Waiting For The Night, Clean, Black Celebration). It's also weird that on the back of an album full of seemingly not very stage-friendly slow songs, 2 of those 4 tracks (Waiting For The Night, Clean) aren't exactly speedy to begin with, and one (Black Celebration) was performed with a much slower drum beat. You might think that all this would result in a snooze-fest, but the set actaully worked really well. The live drums really worked wonders on some songs (The Sweetest Condition, Breathe and Freelove especially), and Dave got used to performing without liquid (or other) courage.
Relying heavily on pre-recorded or pre-programmed elements, the band's style doesn't leave much room for spontaneity at a live show, and this hasn't changed much despite the technological advances making it possible. Up to this point, they pretty much stuck to the same set of songs through an entire tour, and this seems to have formed a habit for Dave: he's comfortable when the lyrics become second nature to him, so he can concentrate on the other aspects of his on-stage persona - he doesn't seem to crave change very much. However, from this tour on, Martin found a way to be more unpridectible with his song choices. For quite some time, whenever they were on tour, he often found himself - after a drink or two - at a hotel bar, singing whichever song came to his mind (from classic hits to pretty much anything from the DM-catalogue) accompanied by Alan Wilder on piano. He didn't lose this habit after the line up change, now backed by Peter Gordeno, and this kind of spilled into the Depeche Mode set: he would come up with a song he'd like to sing, Peter would work out a piano arrangement, they'd try it out at soundchecks and perform it whenever they fancied.
Apart from Martin's acoustic song, the set remained the same up to early September, when they started to replace Clean with Condemnation whenever they played the second time at the same venue, and I Feel Loved was dropped. This was the last tour when I only saw them once, and dispite my dislike for the song, I was slightly disappointed not to hear it live - a performance can sometimes change my opinion on a song, and this became a missed opportunity for that kind of thing, but I was very pleased to hear Surrender, which was wonderful.
Starting with this tour, the band seems to follow a formula for live video releases: they pick a venue towards the end of the tour where they play 2 nights (allowing for multiple takes and different camera angles), and end up releasing mostly the second show, with bits and pieces from the first one, maybe some bonus tracks not included in the main video. The oddly titled One Night In Paris (recorded over 2 nights in Paris) did exactly this: mostly the second night (so you have Condemnation in the encore), but they choose to include Martin's acoustic song from the first night (It Doesn't Matter Two), so the one from the second night (Sister Of Night) appeared as a bonus track. They even included Surrender as an easter egg, the same piano version that they used throughout the tour, just performed in the dressing room. What didn't end up on the relase, was Clean. And after almost 20 years, I'm still not entirely over it. Not only because it's one of my favourite songs ever, but also, it never appeared on a live release, and it was played 75 times during this 83-date tour (I'm not counting the warm-up date), so its inclusion would have been a faithful representation of the tour. It didn't help that I'm not the biggest fan of Condemnation, which replaced it, and that song already had live versions released on a single, a live album and a previous live video as well. I don't even mind that one being in the main film, but why not include Clean as a bonus track? I thought they cannot make a bigger mistake than this, until they released a live video without a song played 129 out of 130 times on a tour... and THAT song... in THAT version... but we're not there yet.

*

All 3 chart-eligible singles made the Top 20 in the UK, Dream On even made the top 10 (peaking at #6) and became their second (and up til now, last) #1 hit in Germany, yet it never returned to their live set since, much like almost every other song from this era. Only Goodnight Lovers was played on the next tour, and Martin sang stripped down versions of Freelove (on Tour Of The Universe) and When The Body Speaks (on Delta Machine Tour) on a few occasions.

*

The years following this album and tour saw some noteworthy re-releases from the band's back catalogue: 

2002 - Videos 86>98+ dvd with a bonus disc of additional videos and EPKs

2003 - 101 movie on dvd with a bonus disc, plus the live album was remastered, featuring a full length recording of the concert intro (Pimpf) as a hidden track, released on hydrid SACD/CD format

2004 - Singles boxes 4 to 6 (from 1987's Strangelove to 2001's Dream On) were released, with the first 3 re-released as well

2004 - Devotional on dvd, again with a bonus disc of additional content

2004 - Remixes: a new remix single (Enjoy The Silence 04) and 3 different formats of a remix compilation album (Remixes 81-04) were released, featuring some old remixes on cd for the first time, and quite a few new ones. While I didn't enjoy 90's electronic music too much, with the rise of Electroclash and minimal electro in the new millenium, the remixes started to sound much closer to my taste, so there a quite a few good ones here: I really like the Ewan Pearson and Richard X remixes of Enjoy The Silence, the Goldfrapp remix of Halo, the Rex The Dogg dub mix of Photographic, the Black Strobe mix of Something To Do, the Cicada remix of World In My Eyes, the BRAT mix of Mercy In You, the Ulrich Schnauss remix of Little 15 and the LFO remix of Lie To Me.

2003 was also the year when the band members all went solo: Martin released a full length follow up album of (incredible) new covers 14 years after his Counterfeit EP and did a handful of very low-key live shows in small venues (with a breathtaking setlist, I still wish I could have been there), Andy started DJing and founded a record label, and Dave made his debut as (co-)songwriter on his first solo album, followed by a lengthy tour including festival appearances. He clearly felt like having a lot to prove, and while the album was OK, the quite rough sounding live shows (filled with very uninspired versions of the most obvious DM-classics among his solo tracks) weren't that good, but ended up influencing the future Depeche Mode tours with a more guitar-oriented sound, more and more rock clichés, a willingness to appear at festivals and a heavy reliance on the more crowd-pleaser type songs. His new found confidence as songwriter also resulted in pretty much wasting the entire year of 2004 - Andy and Martin were ready to start the next Depeche Mode album early that year, but Dave's demands to include his (co-)compositions needed some lengthy negotiations, before they all made their peace with the new situation.