Depeche Mode – Speak and Spell

Depeche Mode - Speak and SpellSo, here we go, I’m sure I’ll hear about this. Yes, I like that electronic group whose music careens back and forth between brilliant and banal. And sadly, the group’s debut album was – at least to me – more banal than brilliant. Though Depeche Mode really didn’t start finding its more familiar voice until after founding member Vince Clarke left, there are a few shining moments amid the primitive drum-machine- and-synth droning of the first album; “New Life” and “Dreaming Of Me” are worth a listen, though “Photographic”, a song which a high school friend of mine often played which was one of my first points of interest in Depeche Mode, has never quite rating: 1 out of 4fascinated me as much as the group’s later tunes. The same can be said for much of the rest of this album. I know it was revolutionary at the time, but Sgt. Pepper it’s not.

  1. New Life (3:56)
  2. Puppets (3:57)
  3. Dreaming of Me (3:42)
  4. Boys Say Go! (3:04)
  5. Nodisco (4:13)
  6. Order this CD What’s Your Name? (2:41)
  7. Photographic (4:58)
  8. Tora! Tora! Tora! (4:24)
  9. Big Muff (4:21)
  10. Any Second Now (Voices) (2:33)
  11. Just Can’t Get Enough (6:41)

Released by: Sire
Release date: 1981
Total running time: 44:30