Depeche Mode FAQ


Book Description

The preeminent synth-pop outfit for four decades, Depeche Mode have endured an ever-shifting musical landscape, rising above fads and battles with personal demons, somehow managing to retain a hold on the charts and the audience, the latter which continues to grow as new generations discover them and become “devotees.” Depeche Mode FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the World's Finest Synth-Pop Band shows how a group of schoolmates influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, Joy Division, and mid-period David Bowie carved out their own musical niche until they became one of the most influential bands to come out of England. Depeche Mode were Europe’s best-kept secret in the early '80s with the albums Construction Time Again and the—perhaps—tongue-in-cheek-titled Music for the Masses. They became a worldwide phenomenon as the '90s dawned, with the landmark LP Violator, containing the smash hits "Personal Jesus," "Enjoy the Silence," and "Policy of Truth." But success came at a price as depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and personnel departures threatened to derail the band. It wasn’t a question of whether the music of Depeche Mode would be able to withstand fickle industry changes, but rather if the members of the group themselves could make it out alive. Depeche Mode FAQ shows how they did, becoming legends in the process.




Depeche Mode


Book Description

In 1993, tragic turbulence takes over Ukraine in the post-communist spin-off. As if in somnambulism, Soviet war veterans and upstart businessmen listen to an American preacher of whose type there were plenty at the time in the post-Soviet territory. In Kharkiv, the young communist headquarters is now an advertising agency, and a youth radio station brings Western music, with Depeche Mode in the lead, into homes of ordinary people. In the middle of this craze three friends, an anti-Semitic Jew Dogg Pavlov, an unfortunate entrepreneur Vasia the Communist and the narrator Zhadan, nineteen years of age and unemployed, seek to find their old pal Sasha Carburetor to tell him that his step-father shot himself dead. Characters confront elements of their reality, and, tainted with traumatic survival fever, embark on a sad, dramatic and a bit grotesque adventure.




Depeche Mode


Book Description

"Captivating images of band members on stage, with fans, and in official photos, and detailed images of album covers, disc labels, cassette boxes, and all sorts of memorabilia frame approachable descriptions of specific events and the surrounding history. A complete tour schedule including all of the earliest dates and the dates of 18 official tours is included, as is a bibliography of over 60 album reviews in a wide variety of magazines. All-in-all, this is a visually stunning and worthwhile read. It is both entrancing and heartfelt while at the same time informational, genuine and candid, and the reverence felt for the band by the author is contagious." --Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal "Depeche Mode fans know that Monument is a song on its seminal 1982 album A Broken Frame. It's a fitting title for this encyclopedic yet intimate photo book that covers the band's career, with a special section devoted to fan culture." --Los Angeles Times, Holiday Gift Guide "Featuring more than one thousand objects from Burmeister's archive, Monument is a detailed chronology of the band who--after 100 million album sales--still show no sign of stopping." --Dazed "A bonanza for the serious Depeche Mode lover." --The Current (Minnesota Public Radio) "The massive coffee table book is graphically appealing and well designed, as befits a tribute to a group who were almost as visual at their inception as they were musical." --Shepherd Express "Even if you think you know everything there is to know about Depeche Mode...there is surely something new to learn here." --Philadelphia Gay News "Essential...Monument is everything it aspires to be, an impressive achievement and a fine gift for the Depeche Mode fan in your life." --PopMatters "This book-long love letter from some of the Depeche Mode's diehard fans...This is a meticulous, obsessive compilation of the band's oeuvre and is a must for any DM fan." --Style Zeitgeist, 2017 Gift Guide Depeche Mode: Monument illustrates the amazing synth-pop success story that began in 1981 and is still going strong after 100 million album sales. This book contains information on all of the band's releases from 1981 to 2017, over a thousand images, including never-before-seen photos, concert posters, and album artwork, a special look at fan culture, interviews with stage managers, friends, producers, tour companions, radio hosts, and fans and much more. Along with an unprecedented collection of artifacts presented together for the first time, this coffee table book offers extensive information, background facts, and anecdotes that will cater to both newcomers and die-hard Depeche Mode fans alike." --Delaware County Daily Times, Holiday Gift Guide Depeche Mode: Monument illustrates the amazing success story that began in 1981 and is still going strong after 100 million album sales. This book contains: information on all of the band's releases from 1981 to 2017; over a thousand images, including never-before-seen photos, concert posters, and album artwork; a special look at fan culture; interviews with stage managers, friends, producers, tour companions, radio hosts, and fans; and so much more. The affection that Depeche Mode command year after year from their ever-growing fan base is incredible. No other band possesses such a vital, self-organized fan culture. Along with an unprecedented collection of artifacts presented together for the first time, this volume offers extensive information, background facts, and anecdotes that will cater to both newcomers and die-hard Depeche Mode fans alike.




Stripped: Depeche Mode


Book Description

An electrifying new biography about the four Essex lads who became award-winning stadium superstars and champions of synth pop! Jonathan Miller's groundbreaking book features in-depth interviews with founder member Vince Clarke and producers Gareth Jones and Mark Bell, and contains never-before seen interviews with the band members themselves. With additional input from Gary Human, Howard Jones and Thomas Dolby this is a unique portrait of a band that almost lost control when their lives went off the rails and lead singer Dave Gahan's heroin addiction nearly killed him. In the end Depeche Mode not only survived, they triumphed, racking up a staggering 40 million-plus album sales on the way. This is their amazing story, told in full for the first time. Born out of the post-punk backlash in the early 80's, Depeche Mode took their name from a phrase in a French style magazine and became the definitive international synth-pop group. Vince Clarke, Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore had started out as an Essex guitar band but it was their bright and upbeat synthesizer-driven brand of pop fronted by Dave Gahan that was to find global acceptance and enjoy unlikely success in the US. Despite a handful of early plaudits in the music press, the group won only intermittent critical acceptance over the years, its often light musical approach contrasting with lyrics that sometimes plunge into darker topics like S&M, religious fetishism and the scourge of capitalism. But whatever the music press said, the fans finally bought into Depeche Mode in a big way. Their Violator tour at the start of the 90s sold millions of records and turned them into major US concert stars. In true rock style, Depeche Mode's members have suffered their share of internal strife over a long career. Dave Gahan reinvented himself as a lead singer with both a harder musical edge and a near-fatal drug habit, while internal acrimony often marred the later stages of their career. Jonathan Miller has made an exemplary job of telling the Depeche Mode saga in its entirety and goes a long way towards explaining how the group have managed to thrive when almost all their post-punk contemporaries fell by the wayside long ago.




Depeche Mode


Book Description

Depeche Mode are an 80s band still going strong into the 1990s. Based on detailed interviews and extensive research, this book probes into the motives and detours of their journey. Previous ed.: 1999.




Depeche Mode Faith and Devotion


Book Description

"From the band's earliest stirrings in Essex to the eve of their 40th anniversary, Depeche Mode: Faith and Devotion is a tale of triumph from adversity: the extraordinary history of a unique global synth-rock phenomenon."--Back cover




Dave Gahan - Depeche Mode & The Second Coming


Book Description

THE FIRST AND ONLY BIOGRAPHY OF ONE OF MUSIC’S MOST INFLUENTIAL AND ENIGMATIC CHARACTERS.Dave Gahan’s extraordinary life as the frontman of one of modern music’s most successful bands is a tale unrivalled in rock and roll folklore. From a colourful childhood and youth in Essex, Gahan went on to become a huge star all over the world. For years each Depeche Mode album was more successful than the one before but in 1995 the increasing pressures on the band and within Gahan’s personal life almost killed him.From this harrowing abyss, Gahan has bounced back and forged a new acclaimed career as a solo artist. Gahan’s stunning rehabilitation as a songwriter and rejuvenated frontman means he deserves his own chapter in music history - this unauthorised biography includes new and exclusive interviews with numerous people who’ve worked with and around Gahan.Aside from recounting his turbulent private battles, this first ever book on Gahan examines his musical legacy and suggests he is arguably Britain’s most under-rated and interesting rock vocalist. Recounted for the very first time, Gahan’s tale away from his band-mates overshadows even the remarkable story of Depeche Mode - the combination of his difficult yet triumphant story plus the thrilling music he has recorded, make this a story like no other in rock and roll history.




Depeche Mode on track


Book Description

For four decades, Depeche Mode dominated electronic music, from the naïve melodies of 1981’s Speak & Spell through to 2023’s Memento Mori. Through changing line-ups featuring Vince Clarke, Alan Wilder, and Andy Fletcher, singer Dave Gahan and main songwriter Martin Gore have been the band’s core. Starting as teenagers and now in their 60s, they have survived worldwide fame, addictions to drink and drugs, and near-death experiences, while continuing to innovate as technology and the music business evolved. An acclaimed live band, it is through their fifteen studio albums that Depeche Mode have best expressed themselves, from the industrial darkness of Black Celebration (1986) to their popular breakthroughs with Music For the Masses (1987) and Violator (1990) and the emotional upheaval of 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion. The band survived the chaotic fallout from that album and tour in the mid-1990s, with Gahan experiencing a near-fatal drug overdose, to regroup with Ultra (1997). They continued their explorations of love, death, sex, and politics on acclaimed albums Playing the Angel (2005), Delta Machine (2013), and Spirit (2016). Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, proven survivors Depeche Mode have their story told here in song-by-song detail. Brian J. Robb is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling biographer of Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt. He has also written books on silent cinema, the films of Philip K. Dick, Wes Craven, Laurel and Hardy, the Star Wars movies, Superheroes, Gangsters, and Walt Disney, as well as science fiction television series Doctor Who and Star Trek. His illustrated books include an Illustrated History of Steampunk and Middle-earth Envisioned, a guide to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (Winner, Best Book, Tolkien Society Awards). He is a Founding Editor of the Sci-Fi Bulletin website and lives near Edinburgh, UK.




The Cure FAQ


Book Description

Led by the iconic frontman Robert Smith, the Cure remain one of the most beloved and influential bands in the history of alternative rock. Thanks in part to classic singles like "Just Like Heaven," "Boys Don't Cry," "Lovesong," "In Between Days," and many others, the Cure have sold millions of records worldwide and have performed in front of countless fans in every corner of the globe. Albums like Disintegration, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and The Head on the Door are universally hailed as landmarks of the genre. For the first time, The Cure FAQ covers the band's forty-plus year career while offering fresh insight into each song in the Cure's vast canon. Each album is dissected and reviewed with candid commentary and extensive research. With their March 2019 entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame firmly establishing the Cure's place in the musical stratosphere, the timing for a career overview is perfect and The Cure FAQ delivers.




Depeche Mode


Book Description

In the world of music, there are one-hit-wonders and then there are legends--legends that have diehard fans who have loved them for decades. Now these fans can share their love of bands like DEPECHE MODE with their children, nieces and nephews, or even grandchildren! Enter the world of Band Bio Records, a picture book series that gives children a look into the history of some of the biggest bands around: Metallica, Depeche Mode, the Ramones, and Queen. In a large picture book format meant to replicate the size of a vinyl record, children will learn the story behind the bands that will one day be their favorites too.