REVIEW: Depeche Mode, The Singles 86>98 (Reprise)
- Robin Lapid
Here's something for hard-line goths, new wavers, and classic techno-heads to rejoice in. Depeche Mode, the pop-synth fixture of the 80's on, chronicle the second half of their career with The Singles 86>98 . For the diehard completists and casual listeners, the two-disc release nicely captures the seedy yet otherworldly pop sensibility that made the Mode mainstays and pioneers in electronic-based music. Featuring every single from Black Celebration through Ultra, along with a few bonus collector tracks, the compilation is meant as a companion piece to 1985's Catching Up With Depeche Mode compilation.
The first disc, covering 1986-90, contains some well-known but still relevant tracks that veer toward Depeche Mode's more pop-synth sensibilities, as opposed to the much blacker rhythms of their later years. Tracks like "Never Let Me Down Again" and "World In My Eyes", with its trickling stream of electronic beeps and rhythms, have provided a blueprint sound that bands like the Smashing Pumpkins have translated with great fanfare. That the band could use layers of synths to make gritty and morose-flavored -- but still largely pop -- songs pays testament to their cult-like appeal.
The second disc stutters into 1993's Songs of Faith and Devotion and on, from the screech and wail of "I Feel You" and to Ultra's steadier but rather unremarkable fare. Also included are the tracks "Little 15", released in 1988 as a single only in France, a live version of "Everything Counts", and the new track, "Only When I Lose Myself", which sounds like prototypical Depeche Mode.
Techno and mainstream artists owe a debt to the band that could create menacing hooks with keyboards and Dave Gahan's re-filtered, slightly off-kilter baritone couched snugly in the songs. The Singles 86>98 touches on the band's peaks and plateaus, but it serves as primer, reminder, and enforcer of Depeche Mode's staying power.
