SINGLES 19 - 36

Depeche Mode (box sets)

I have to listen to some rubbish along with the good stuff in order to write these randomly constructed sentences every week, you know and sometimes I need to let off some steam. My chosen method this week is to review something I'm pretty much guaranteed to like. Now, it probably won't surprise you to learn that when the first three box sets came out at the back end of 1991, I pounced on them like a love-starved bunny rabbit. There's two reasons for this - firstly, I was a lot younger and had enough energy to do silly things like that back then and secondly (and far more importantly), very few of the tracks had been released on CD before. If I was being awkward I'd probably have moaned at Mute Records for not putting the People Are People and Master And Servant remixes on the discs, but considering they'd been kind enough to bung the singles out at all, that'd be a bit harsh, after all, what are the chances of New Order's Factory singles ever seeing the light of day again (come on London Records, sort it out)? So now the second set of box sets is out and things are very different to those halcyon days. For a start, while Singles 1-18 showed a band growing up and slowly gaining confidence, Singles 19-36 show a band reaching the height of their powers and then gradually letting the quality slide. Another point worth mentioning is that all of these singles are already available on CD, however, these CDs give you much more for your hard-earned money than the originals. "How much more?" I hear you ask. Well, a lot. Until chart regulations dictated that you were only allowed a certain number of formats to qualify for the chart (currently three), you could just about release formats indefinitely. A 7" here, a cassette there, a 12" the next week, a remix 12" the week after, a nice little gatefold 7" with exclusive B-sides six months down the line, you get the picture. Wet Wet Wet released eleven formats for just one single and not only were all of them chart eligible, but not one of them contained a decent song either. What all of this means is that there were a lot of B-sides and remixes required and just about every single one of them has been found and put on CD (and in quite a lot of cases, for the first time ever). From a rare remix of Dangerous that was only found on a limited Personal Jesus 7" to the entire contents of the rarer than a Wimbledon win Everything Counts 10", it's all here. Each box set has at least fifty tracks on it - let's face it, even if this was a band I hated, I'd still give a big thumbs up on the value for money score. As far as which boxes are the best, well, Box 4 covers 1987-90 and finishes with Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence, in my opinion the greatest song ever written, so that makes it pretty hard to top in my book. Mind you, Box 5 has a good go at it, containing two singles from the Violator era and all four from the Songs Of Faith And Devotion (the best album they've ever done) era. Happy days. Then we come to Box 6. By this time Alan Wilder has quit the band and Dave Gahan's been to Hell and back (just ask the paramedics) and has decided that the drugs don't work. Things start off in a Business As Usual style, as Barrel Of A Gun and It's No Good are fantastic and Painkiller is one of the best B-sides you'll ever hear. The lacklustre Home, however, is the start of the downward trajectory which is temporarily halted by Useless before the drab Only When I Lose Myself and Dream On, with it's oh-is-that-it-then feel finish things off. A shame really, but to be honest it's a bit much to ask for 36 fantastic singles from just one band. Everyone has off-days. Still, that leaves two can't-recommend-them-highly-enough box sets and the other one to complete the set. I'll happily settle for that.