Shake the Disease

Depeche Mode

"What am I trying to do what am I trying to say, I'm not trying to tell you anything you didn't know when you woke up today..."

The American release of People Are People, the fourth album from Depeche Mode, brought together for the first time a string of hit singles from one of Britain's most innovative groups. For U.S. audiences, the Depeche Mode story began in 1984 with their s mash alternative radio hit "People Are People." For English fans, the story began almost four years before.

In 1980 a group of fledgling musicians from Basildon, Essex, got together under the moniker of Depeche Mode, a French term taken from a fashion magazine, meaning "fast fashion." (A more accurate translation though, would be "fashion dispatch") The group's first album, 1981's Speak and Spell, reached the Top 10 on U.K. charts and yielded two smash singles. After the departure of founding member Vince Clarke, Depeche Mode continued with its original lineup - Andy Fletcher (guitar, vocals), Martin Gore (guitar, vocals) and Dave Gahan (vocals) - and recruited Alan Wilder (keyboards, vocals) in time to cut their second album, Broken Frame, in late 1982. Tours of America and the Far East followed. The group returned to European charts in 1983 with Construction Time Again.

With the release of People Are People in 1984, American audiences discovered what their Continental counterparts had known for some time. Depeche Mode's alluring blend of state-of-the-art musical technology, danceable rhythms and emotionally resonant son gwriting put them in a category all their own. "People Are People," the single, was the band's first stateside success, while this album served as an introduction to Depeche Mode's previous history of hits.

Aside from a handful of dazzling new originals, People Are People contained British chart toppers "Get the Balance Right" and "Leave in Silence" from the Broken Frame album and "Love In Itself" and "Everything Counts" from Construction Time Again. (Liner notes from "People Are People")

My Favourite Song
Stripped

"Come with me, into the trees..." This song is about the vulnerability you lay yourself open to when you fall in love...

"We'll lay on the grass, let the hours pass..." How exquisitely easy it is to lose track of time when you are with the one you love...

"Take my hand, come back to the land..." The search for your soulmate, who views the world exactly as you do...

"Let's get away, just for one day..." How much you want to escape from the minutae of daily life, to feel like you are the only two people on earth...

"Let me see you stripped down to the bone..." Baring bodies, souls, minds, hearts, and spirits to one another... "Take my hand, come back to the land..." The search for your soulmate, who views the world exactly as you do...

"Let's get away, just for one day..." How much you want to escape from the minutae of daily life, to feel like you are the only two people on earth...

"Let me see you stripped down to the bone..." Baring bodies, souls, minds, hearts, and spirits to one another...

The following pictures take a rather long time to load. To give credit where credit is due, I got all these from a one time aquaintance of mine, Thomas Esselman. His page is no longer devoted to Depeche Mode but you can still check it out here.