The finest band in the world.
VI - 27 September 1998
THE SINGLES 86>98
Depeche Mode (album)
A couple of weeks ago I told a whole host of failed eighties bands to get lost. This is why. Imagine, for example, an Oasis Greatest Hits. Songs from Be Here Now would easily fit on Definitely Maybe and vice versa because there’s no apparent evolution. Right, now you try popping, say, Barrel Of A Gun on the Music For The Masses set. Can’t do it, can you? You know why? Because the Mode have grown up and updated themselves with each passing year and with every album there’s at least one mark of genius, be it Stripped, Never Let Me Down Again, I Feel You or, in the case of the best song ever written, Enjoy The Silence. Fair enough, it starts off all synth-pop and mood-laden but then starts to brighten up just a little before the power and the glory of Personal Jesus heralds a bright new dawn. From there the Mode rock out with real guitars and everything. This album shows to the world exactly how it should be done and why bands like ABC have gone down the dumper.
TOP OF THE WORLD
Brandy featuring Mase
Ho hum. More swingbeat. More rap. More weeks on the chart than Morrissey’s back catalogue put together. So what lifts this out of the ordinary? Mase, rap’s very own Kenny McCormick (the hooded one in South Park), who can never say anything intelligible. Perhaps, that’s the idea, making you go out and buy the single so you can eventually work out what he’s saying, I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that dying at the end of every song would be one hell of a sales gimmick.
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This review ©1998 Simon Darnell.
