Depeche Mode's "People Are People"

Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade Electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. When you've got a job to do, Lowe's knows how to help you keep it moving. Milo's Pro Rewards members save more with member volume discounts on eligible orders through a quote of $2,000 or more. Plus, save time with job site delivery on select purchases. Not a member? Join for free today. Exclusions, more terms, and restrictions apply. Can't be combined with any other discount, including but not limited to contract and or special pricing. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at lowes.com slash terms. Subject to change. What up, One Song Nation? Today, we're bringing back one of our absolute favorite episodes of all time. It's part one of a two-parter we did on Depeche Mode. In part one, we tracked the emergency. In part two, we tracked all the ways they handle international fame. And hey, we'll be back October 15th with a brand new, really big, big, big episode. Mark it on your calendars now, October 15th. In the meantime, check out this One Song classic, classic two-parter, started with People Are People by Depeche Mode. Hello, One Song Nation. Just a quick note before we begin, we're splitting our Depeche Mode episode into two parts. That's right, y'all. We've got so much to say about this incredible band. We needed a little time to break down two Depeche Mode songs. Time for all the fun facts, synths, samples, stems, all that good stuff. So welcome to part one, where we're going to cover the early years and the genesis of the band, starting with the song People Are People. And next week in part two, we'll cover their later years and break down one of their biggest hits. Now get ready to enjoy our Depeche Mode episode. Luxury, today's song is by a monumental English band that we absolutely love. This hit reached the top five in several countries in 1984, number four, in the UK and Switzerland, number two in Ireland and Poland, and number one in West Germany. West Germany, remember that place? Yes, I remember it. But it was also the first time they got attention outside of Europe. That's right. Over the course of their five-decade career, this group became international superstars. They've been pioneers defining the sound of electronic music with their dynamic approach to using synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers. But before all that happened, it was this song that took them from the underground scene to breaking into the U.S. market. It's one song, and that song is People Are People. People Are People by Depeche Mode. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and music hall of just luxury, also known as the guy who talks about interpolation on the internet. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And also, please subscribe. Okay, we're so excited to do this episode. We talked about it pretty much from the beginning of us doing this podcast. Admired Depeche Mode for years. But Luxury, I'm interested in what was going on in your life when you first heard People Are People, and what does this band mean to you? Depeche Mode were like the coolest band in seventh grade. Everything about them was cool. I'll never forget the time I was at a party at Kirsten Stromberg's birthday party. You're eventually going to give a shout out to everybody you ever went to school with. I mean, look, seventh grade was a very crucial year for me for many reasons. And that was the same party where I remember Louisa Smith was going on a long diatribe about the importance of Depeche Mode. And I never heard of it. She played them at this party, and I was like, you know, just imagine this scenario, a bunch of 13-year-olds tooling around in the 80s. Was it this song? It was People Are People. It was Some Great Reward was the album that this is from. And I was smitten, not just because of the music, but also because how cool I knew they were and how important I knew it was. Yeah, I love that. What about you, Diallo? How did you come to learn about, find, and adore, because I know you do, Depeche Mode? Man, strange love. Yeah. You know, like, listen, I heard. Just Can't Get Enough, I heard People Are People. But it was strange love. But I remember I always did my homework at my desk. I had my little alarm clock radio. You know, like, back in the days when, like, your radio was just. It was also your alarm clock a lot of times. Was it LED or LCD? Or did it have the little flipping numbers that were actually. No, it was LED. Plastic numbers. I remember, I think it was, like, whatever Atlanta radio station. It was before 99X. It was before they went alternative. But it was the station I listened to. It had all, like, you know, Pet Shop Boys and that sort of era stuff. All the good stuff. And they played Strange Love. And I remember thinking, like, I love that song. And then, I don't think I bought music for the masses, but that was the point at which I was like, I love this band. I love their sound. I knew very little about them. Yeah. As people who listen to the show know, I was at an all-black school, so I didn't have any goths to sort of add. You know, like, what's up with this group? But I loved it. I just loved it. And I followed their career ever since. And I'm going to just put this out there at the beginning of the episode. You know, we don't talk about it a lot, but there is a little bit of a when did you discover this band going on with these two episodes. Because in 1984, when this song came out, I probably wouldn't have been able to sort of get into Depeche Mode. But by the time that I'm listening to Strange Love, and we're going to talk about the Violator album later, in this two-part episode, I was fully of the age to really dive into this group. And I stayed with them through Songs of Faith and Devotion. We're going to talk a little bit about the Exciter album. And we're going to talk about this band, because they are, as you said, just to this day, one of the coolest bands that has ever been on. We're going to talk about so much stuff. But one thing I do want to address, an elephant in the room, you know, the word goth. With Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water. To help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Not a member? Join for free today. Can't be combined with anything. Any other discount, including but not limited to contract and or special pricing. Subject to change. When it comes to Depeche Mode. I knew as soon as I said goth, you were going to say that. I just want to like address the idea that there isn't a single band that one would listen to that we would characterize as listeners as goth, who themselves would call themselves goth. It's just one of those genre names that nobody wants to own. But to be fair, I would say that Suzy and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Sisters of Mercy, these are bands that are kind of core goth. And then like one level outside of it, I would say, synth pop industrially, Depeche Mode is there. But importantly, anyone who is a goth loves Depeche Mode. They may not themselves be goth, but goths love Depeche Mode. That's what I would go on record to say. By the way, I said goth because I'm talking as 1987. Right, and it was sort of more of a generic term for people wearing black. It was a term for like the white kids who dressed in all black. Right, right, right. And who probably did listen to all these bands. And honestly, the band dresses like that in this period. But yes, I feel like nowadays, we know that there's a huge, there's a wide difference between Suzy and the Banshees and Depeche Mode and The Cure. I think those divisions are far more important in quotes, in like major quotes than air quotes. Now, at the time, no one, it wasn't really as big of a deal. Here's what's cool. I know so many black people who love Depeche Mode. I always say that the instruments and the machines used, let's say, to create, hip hop and to create pop and to create industrial, they're all the same thing. You know what I mean? That's right. So when I hear those mechanized drums and I hear those dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, you know, like it might as well be like an old junior track. Yeah, like it's all the same instruments being used. Giant drums, it's, and you're absolutely right. You're hitting the nail on the head. We're going to get into that when we talk about the sound and the stems a little later on, but the connections are real there. We're even going to talk about the black person in Depeche Mode. We are indeed, because there is one. There's some, there's some fun facts on the way. First things first, we got to talk about how prolific Depeche Mode is. They've sold over 100 million records worldwide. They've had 54 charting singles. All of their studio albums have reached the UK top 10. And along with U2 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Depeche Mode has charted at least once on Billboard's alternative airplay chart in every single decade since its debut in 1988. I did not realize that about the Red Hot Chili Peppers being in the same camp. That's another surprise. That is another episode. May or may not be another episode. Like we mentioned, Depeche Mode has defined the sound of electronic music. And listen, some people, we just talked about this. Some folks call them synth pop. Some call them post-punk. Are they party goth? Party goth? I have never heard that expression. I think I made that up. Okay. Party goth. I love it. That's my new favorite genre. Well, listen, if you go back and you watch 101, which is like an amazing documentary, there are so many scenes of people literally throwing down hard on the dance floor. 101, just for people who don't know, that's the documentary that came out in '88 or '89 based on their 1988 Rose Bowl live show that Depeche Mode did. But what's interesting about the movie, it's directed by D.A. Pennebaker, is that it is also kind of an early MTV-like reality show, but they've got these eight concert winners who go across the country, who follow them. So this film goes back and forth between watching these eight teenagers in 1988 and the band. - It's called V-H-S-E. - Yeah, it's called V-H-E. - Like it literally starts with, "Start the tape." It's like, doop! You see that old VHS thing pop up. Listen, not only are we learning new things, we're actually putting new things out in the universe. Party goth might be a thing, cyber goth already a thing. Before we go any further into talking about people where people, let's talk about the band's origins. For starters, Depeche Mode wasn't even the first name that the band chose. Luxury, walk us through the early days of Depeche Mode. Very, very brief overview of the origins of this band leading up to this song. So it starts in Basildon, which is about 30 miles to the east of London. And Vince Clark and Andy Fletcher are a couple of guys in high school. And they start a band. They're big Cure fans. They start a band called No Romance in China. What a great name. It's a great name. I mean, it's so new romantic. It's so up to time. Like literally, it's got romance. And China, there's a band called Japan, which is probably one of their favorites, one of my favorites. But when I hear No Romance in China, I'm like, these guys, in addition to their stated love for Sparks and OMD, and the Human League, they also like Japan. Anyway, that's for another day. What I will say is that at the time, it was just the two of them. And at the time, Andy Fletcher, who we'll talk a little bit more about, he's a little bit known as the mysterious fourth member sometimes. But at the time, he was the bass player in this earliest incarnation. Vince Clark was the singer and the main songwriter. And at a certain point, they meet Martin Gore, another young, I think they're all in their late teens at this point. And they merge forces. Martin's in another band called The French Look. The French Look. They've already got the French thing going on, too. They already know who they are. They become composition of sound. So this is Vince, Andy, and Martin. Now, I've heard the story, or maybe I heard Martin tell it, that the only reason they wanted to work with him was because they heard he was a guy who had a synthesizer. I think at the time, that stuff's really important. Yes. No, I think, listen. Access to equipment. They were like, that guy's got a synthesizer? Right. Who is this Martin Gore? Right. And at a certain point, they realize, because they're all Human League fans, and this is the moment. This is the moment where all these early synth pop bands are starting to exist. And I think they might even see the Human League live. But if not, it's certainly on TV where they become aware that you can be a band but not have a drummer. Because they have this issue of having to rehearse, but they don't have a rehearsal space. So they're like, wait a second. We can just get a drum machine, and we can rehearse with headphones in our living room. So the earliest incarnation of this band, part of the reason why they're not using live drums is because they think it's cool because the Human League do it. And also, just, they need to, to not have a drummer. I didn't realize that. So Depeche Mode has never had a drummer. Depeche Mode in their earliest years. In a traditional sense. Right. Later on, and in our next episode, we'll get into their later years a little bit more. Wilder, who hasn't joined the band yet, just a little foreshadowing, he does play some live drums on Songs of Faith and Devotion, and he plays them live. And to this day, there actually is a live drummer playing with the band. Of course, of course. Yeah, but it is interesting because, you know, we're drummers. Yeah. And I feel like most. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade Electrolyte Zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Not a member? Join for free. Free today. Can't be combined with any other discount. Including but not limited to contract and or special pricing. Subject to change. Most of the music that I've ever loved, one of the reasons it's been so hard for me to get into singer-songwriters is because there ain't no percussion. I like percussive music. Yeah. Whether it's freaking Luther Campbell and Two Live Crew. You need that rhythm. Or it's Depeche Mode. Or rhythmically centered music, right? Yes, yes. Me too. The drums on Never Let Me Down are so prominent. Yeah. It's weird to think of this group as starting out without a guy sitting down at the bass and the snare. Because that was a new thing you could do. Because that template had already been formed. And Human League, even if they were bold enough, they went on TV in early footage. And they had this reel-to-reel teak tape deck. They weren't trying to hide that they had no drummer. They were really up front and like, this is a new avant-garde thing to do. You get the sense that in this Thatcher-era Britain that everybody was really excited about the new music machines. Right. And by the way, I love Human League. Whether it's Don't You Want Me or Human, like, what a great group. Don't you want me, baby? Don't you want me? Oh, don't you want me? I think at the end of the day, like, this also reminds me, we're talking genre early. None of these genre names exist. There's punk, and this is maybe post-punk, new romantic. There's kind of these ideas floating around. I think post-punk, I'm thinking Gang of Four. But I guess, you know, even like those early U2 things, like, clearly punk, you know, it's like, it could, like, just completely change the landscape of how you look and how you sound on a record. But now the idea is you can start incorporating these other styles of music, like dance music. Like, this is dance music. That was one of my favorite scenes in 101 was when they're listening to a bunch of different music on the bus. And, like, at one point, like, this really early dance track comes up. And you're just like, oh, I get it. Yeah. They were, like, listening to a little bit of everything and sort of putting it all into the synthesizer. Putting it all into the mix. That's right. And sort of nothing, punk has sort of an orthodoxy to it. And in the post-punk years, it's like, you know what? It doesn't have to just be the three chords and guitars and the speed. We can try all these other, we can be danceable. Things can be punk without being the, I was going to say the sex pistols, but we know that that's a whole nother can of worms. We're not going there. But talking more about the bands coming together. So at a certain point, they decide they need a singer. So they audition for singers. This gentleman named Dave Gann enters the picture. Apparently, for everybody listening who might be mispronouncing, mispronouncing the name, pronounce his name. Oh God. Now you put me on the spot. I do believe there's a little bit of a bounce in Gann. So it's not just Gann, but it's not Gahan. It's somewhere in between. Which is what I've probably been saying most of my life. Well, look, forgive me, Mr. Dave, if I'm saying it wrong, but what I've come to understand it to be is Gann. He starts to sound like a Star Wars character. Because the more I say it, the less confident I am that it's right. But I'm certain that people listening to this episode will correct me in the comments on YouTube. Dave is going to come find us. He's going to be like, that's not my name. So Dave, Dave shows up. For the rest of this episode and the next one, will be known as Dave. So Dave, quote unquote, looked better than we did and had more contacts. And he sang well. Yes. I like that he sang well is the third. Is the third thing that comes up. He had good contacts. That's what Andy Fletcher said. And he comes up with the name because he's, I believe, decorating windows or something. He's got like a fashion background of sorts. And there's a magazine, a French magazine called Depeche Mode. So he brings that into the band and says, I think this would be a good name. Boom, that's the name. Depeche Mode. And Depeche Mode in French means? Well, let's see. It means, Depeche literally means hurry up. So it's said that Depeche Mode means like fast fashion. But I think the magazine, what it really means in the format that it came from is like the news, the fashion news. Yeah. I always heard it meant the new fashion. That's what I always heard. Again, like the words, if you break them down, literally, Depeche means hurry up. Depeche-vous, Depeche-vous means hurry up, hurry up. By the way, there was nothing more fun than watching old news reports about the band and hearing every type of pronunciation. You heard, you heard Depeche Mode. I remember that one. There was one that was like Depeche Mode. I think they were still maybe figuring it out because I've seen early flyers where they have some of the accents. It would be Depeche and whatever. And at a certain point, they're just like, you know what, let's just not. The news reporters are always like about 20 years older than the music fans. So like, there's always like, you know, a little bit of like, you know, disdain on their tongue when they're like, this new band called Depeche Mode. Mark me down as somebody who's not going to be at that concert. It's important you mention that too because there was a lot of rockism at the time. Like all the journalists What is rockism? Rockism is just what it sounds like. It's this bias towards guitars and live instrumentation. I thought it was someone who couldn't pronounce racism. And along with it, there's like a whiteness component and there's a maleness component because that's kind of And there's like a sort of like, oh, who are these like, who are these people who are these British guys? Which, by the way, most of those reporters were like huge Beatles fans. So you'd think they would see it as a new wave, but they wanted nothing to do with this group. They are coming out of, especially with British music, this sort of, in the 60s, the Stones and the Beatles and the Kinks and the Who and Zeppelin. And that carries on through the 70s. And when Depeche Mode come out and it's synthesizers and also we've got Soft Cell over there and the Human League, there's a little bit of a like feminization of the sound and the look. And also they're young and pretty looking. They're dealing with Wham! They're dealing with Culture Club. So these journalists, many male journalists from NME and Sounds and Melody Maker have a strong bias against the people. And when you watch or read some of the interviews you're talking about, and Depeche Mode talk about it all through the 80s and their interviews, how much disdain they feel coming from the music press. They are always like, we're hated in England. They never give us any good press. And I think in part comes from this raucous journalist bias. So gradually, the four of them, it's Dave, it's Michael, it's Martin, it's Vince, it's Andy. Gradually, they all get synths. They start playing around London and they put out their first demo. And here is one of the songs from that first demo. This is a song called Photographic which eventually makes it to the Speak and Spell record. It's by Vince Clark and it goes a little something like this. What is that? 135 BPM? That's really fast, isn't it? That's really fast. I love that BPM. Can I just. Can you just admit that? Like, if I was at that concert, I'd already be like, you got me. It's like crazy 80s. 80s dancing tempo where it's like they dance really fast in the 80s think think about molly ringwald in the breakfast club it's like everything is so fast i wonder why everything in the 80s was fast i wonder if there was a what if there was a drug perhaps on the scene that made everything go a little no reason there wasn't any reason that's a great demo that's a great demo that's a song photographic it's by vince clark again a re-recorded version eventually gets on their first record speak and spell but like it's interesting listening to it because it's very like experimental sounding i hear a lot of suicide in there right i hear suicide like sheree like sheree yeah we've talked about that band we'll talk about it many times it's such an important band so this demo tape um they shop it around back in those days you had to go in person to like shop your demo tape around you'd show up at the record label they get turned down by everybody yeah they go to mute records yeah i'm gonna ask you how did they lay their first record they shop it to daniel miller who's the founder of new records and we'll talk about him in a little bit um and he rejects them too but later he goes to see them play live and that's when things turn that's when he realizes that there's something special about these guys in no small part because they've packed the place with all these you know young people that are dancing yeah one thing one of the comments he makes seeing them live is that they're supporting fad gadget in london and all the fans were dancing and not looking at the band so he's like there's something going on something special with these guys um so they do a hand that's interesting they weren't looking at the band so he thought they have a good sound the fact that people were just engaged dancing and like we're just they were into the music the music was really special right so for putting up music on a record label yeah at the time like that's what matters is yeah the sound you don't have to go to the record label you don't even have to see the band to dance but i've never talked about this really on the on the podcast before but i did briefly work as an anr assistant at hollywood records in the early 2000s okay um and i'm happy to say that like you know well no no group so to speak that i helped my bosses discover ever really blew up but i do remember like occasionally getting a demo you would hear a good demo you'd go see him you'd be like oh they don't their look is all wrong like these guys are all like tightened up but then you go see other groups uh when you like their demo you'd be like they made it and then there would be a bidding war i say all that just to say that uh a good demo i i missed those days i'm getting like slightly triggered and i use that word very lightly because like there was a time when i was i was a band guy sending out demos and the stress involved that i personally had with like which song should go first because you're thinking oh they're only gonna listen to five seconds so like if i put maybe they like the second song i should reverse them and then there's actually like especially at the time like getting cds made getting addresses and putting them in envelopes and then should you put a little prize in the envelope are they just gonna like throw it like every my brain went crazy no listen it should go crazy because every anr guy and every anr assistant has had at that time a stack of cds right by their desk most of them not getting listened they just throw them directly out yeah yeah sometimes but like um yeah some some of the good ones some of the good people at those labels yeah made sure to listen to everything because every cd on on any particular one you know you could maybe discover big group. Going back to Daniel Miller, Daniel Miller is the founder of Mute Records, but you also may know him because he was The Normal. There's a band called The Normal, but it's really just him. Famously, this song that he put out in 1977 called Warm Leatherette. So Daniel Miller, huge Kraftwerk fan. He actually owns Ralph and Florian's custom vocoder. He's collecting synths. He's really into this, again, at the time, avant-garde music. This isn't like a normal thing to have synthesizers be at the center and the core of pop music and be on the charts. There's Kraftwerk, there's OMD. It's more underground, though, and it's more the kind of cool kids in the know. I was going to ask you, who inspired Depeche Mode? I feel like there's definitely an OMD influence there. Am I wrong? No, I agree. I think Human League, OMD, definitely Kraftwerk. There's a lot of Kraftwerk across the catalog. In fact, there isn't an album that goes by where I'm not like. Oh, that's from Radioactivity. Oh, that's from The Model. If anything, it seems like, and we're going to talk more about this as we talk about these albums, it seems like what they did was they took the sound of some of these groups. But they sort of, in their own weird way, like I know that Depeche Mode has this reputation for being sort of like singing very coldly, if that's a term. Teutonically. But exactly. But the fact that they are even loaning their real voices to these tracks, in ways that like Kraftwerk just, you know, Kraftwerk is so enveloped by the whole, like, we're machines, we're robots sort of thing. Right. I agree. I think a big thing that Depeche Mode did was they added a little humanity. Dave, as a singer. Yes, they added some humanity to it. Added some humanity, added some vocalizing, and lyrically too, because they're not just singing about robots or radioactivity. So there's real storytelling. It's not so much the sounds of Kraftwerk, but the idea of sound. One big thing we're about to get into in a really fun way on this episode, and talking about Depeche Mode across both episodes is. How much they do crafting sound and coming up with new sounds that have never been used before, is a big part of who they are and what they do. Absolutely. And Kraftwerk, getting back to that point, to your question, I think a big part of what they bring from them, besides the idea of sound, is simple melodies, simple melodies. What you'll find across the catalog, but especially in this song, is a lot of simple melody. So hook, hook, hook. When we get into the stems, I'll point that out to you along the way. So Depeche Mode is set by 1980, and their first album is Spellbinder. Speaking of Spell, which drops in 1981, how does working with Daniel Miller, how does that affect the output? How does that affect their sound? So Daniel Miller, if you haven't noticed already, he's, I guess, the unsung. We always have unsung heroes. He is probably the unsung hero of this era and of this episode, but also of this band, because they did a handshake deal with Mute Records, a one-man record label. Those never go south. Well, they've never left the label, and they are still working with Daniel Miller to this day, which is incredible to think that 40-plus years have gone on. They're still working with the same. It must have been a good deal. If they were getting raked over the coals, they would not have stayed with Mute. They obviously have. It must have been a decent deal. They have a decent. Well, from what I understand in the earliest days, at least, it was quote unquote 50-50. Maybe that's been renegotiated. But the idea is, look, we pull our resources together, and in this case, Daniel Miller is helping produce them. The label gets 50 and the band gets 50? 50-50, label and band. To be clear, that's on the recording, the masters, nothing to do with the publishing. So one thing that Daniel Miller did was he introduced them to sequencers, because prior to that, with everything Vince Clark had been doing, he had been doing a lot of things All of their synths were mono-synths, so you could only play one note at a time. And it's all being played by finger. Wow. So all of those early demos, at least, by the time it gets to the first album, they're starting to bring in some new capabilities. So sequencing was new. They had an ARP 2600 sequencer, and there's only two synths on that first record. It's one of them. And their first single is Just Can't Get Enough, which is, to this day, in film and TV, one of the biggest songs of all time. Every wedding, bar mitzvah, party that you want to get everybody going. You play this. You play this. It's their first single. It's a massive hit. And this record comes out. It does pretty well with this single. And Vince Clark quits. At the time, this was devastating and terrifying for these guys. At the time, Vince has since explained that he was a bit of a control freak. He liked doing everything himself. He was like, I don't need all these other guys. I have these ideas that I want to implement. Why am I bothering with these things? I don't need all these other jackasses. So he starts this pattern, which he's done twice now, of finding just a singer. In this case, he went with Alison Moyet to form Miaz, another incredible band. Incredible! Sounds like it could have been a Depeche Mode song. It could have been. Well, certainly, it sort of was. Yeah, it came out of that kitchen. Half the DNA of earliest Depeche Mode is certainly in that record. And by the way, Don't Go, great song. Miaz, great record. Miaz, great song. Miaz, great album. Great album cover. Upstairs at Eric's. That's right. Upstairs at Eric's. But that's not the last time he does it. He goes on to do it again with Erasure, where he brings in Andy Bell, and it's another singer, and he does all the other stuff. So he finds his niche being the guy doing all the music and finding an incredible singer. He's almost like, what is that, Zellig, who just pops up everywhere? He just pops up everywhere in all these great two-person entities. And just excellence follows. Yeah, and excellence follows. So they're a trio, and it's time to make a new record. Yeah, a massive one. A broken frame. A broken frame comes out in 1982, and Martin Gore takes over the songwriting. He buys a new synth to inspire himself. It's a PPG, which is an early, it's a wavetable synth, which kind of lays the groundwork for the sampling we're going to get into later. But as Daniel Miller describes it, it was almost like a blank sheet of paper. And what's very interesting about their two different writing styles, as I mentioned, Clark was kind of a "control freak," as he put himself. He did all the recording parts himself. He enjoyed that. But Martin doesn't like writing songs that way. Martin likes to write the song and focus on the songiness of the song, and he's much less interested in how it's recorded. Where does he start? Does he start with a melody and then try and put it into the machine? Or is he like, just listening to what the machine does? What is his process? I'm glad you're slowing me down a little bit here, because this band is right on the edge of how songwriting begins to change. And we're going to see some of that in this song. It used to be that you would write a song completely separate from the recording of that song. And the production process was, first of all, expensive. Hard to access. You needed money. You needed to be signed. You needed to have a place to put the music when you were done with it. So a label deal. And you might write songs in your bedroom with your guitar on a piece of paper and a tape recorder, or maybe on the piano with a legal pad and write the lyrics down. The separation of the songwriting process and the recording process, I've actually kind of forgotten about it, because now it doesn't really exist. When you're writing something, you're kind of also recording it. Recording it at the same time. Exactly. But back then, Martin would have his little tape machine, and he would have some extensive synths and his guitar, and he would just come up with parts. He would come up with melody and lyrics and chord changes and where does each bit go. Was he writing the lyrics too? writing the lyrics he's writing the melodies he's singing the whole thing but what it comes down to is there's a complete separation of what the song is and how the recording sounds martin is not interested in getting in the studio at this time and spending hours selecting drum sounds and going for like well should we try this synth patch should we try it on guitar should we try it on bass enter alan wilder who is interested in these things okay just to finish that quote from daniel miller because it expresses exactly what you're what you're asking about we're talking about is vince had a specific idea for what his songs should sound like but martin did not it was more like here are the words here's the melody let's figure it out so it's really interesting to kind of remember an era when those things were completely separate yeah songwriting was different from recording that song and it goes to this day we have the grammy which famously no one ever knows why is it song of the year and record of the year for that exact reason totally the song of the year is about the song as a self-contained if you played it on acoustic guitar with no production does it stand on its own song of the year is the composition that's right the record of the year is the recording the bells the whistles the everything combined exactly so his first single is actually a bigger hit and it's this song it's called see you that song was a bigger hit than just get enough at the time so this is encouraging in this moment because this is his first effort to like replace vince clark who had this big hit i think it's easy to say now that see you is not the bigger hit between that and just oh of course no no no but at the time eclipsed yes to be clear and what matters in that moment was the confidence that it gave him yes he also does a song which by the way i noticed this is a song called leave in silence which i only noticed years later in listening back it's like i think the song is about vince clark leaving here's a little snippet of it and the lyric what can i say i don't want to play anymore what can i say i'm headed for the door i can't stand this emotional violence leave in silence it sounds like he's describing what vince did he's just like i'm out here yeah it's also interesting that uh silence pops up because that's going to be a part of another big song for them it sure is i'm a writer i care about words the names of their songs the names of their albums right they're significant in themselves they are poetry that a broken frame like there's so much in that why is the frame broken i just i just i i care too much please continue it's art it is art it's art that like gets you like it carbonates you you feel something inside this is just like letting it roll off the lips but please continue so at this point we need a fourth band member and alan wilder answers an ad in melody maker keyboard player needed for established band no time wasters it says which i love and it says they're looking for someone under 21 alan wilder is 22 so he lies and says he's under 21 but he gets the gig he goes on tour with them and what he brings to the band is he does have a lot of production experience he's been in several bands before and what clearly seems to happen in this moment when alan joins the band we finally have this sort of perfect songwriting chain where martin gore is focusing on the lyrics the melody for dave gann to sing remember he's the singer but he's not writing right coming up with any of the melodies that he sings and separately from all that further separately from that is the production is really being helmed by this fourth band member alan wilder along with daniel miller and the engineers they work with so it's so interesting to think about this chain the songwriting chain from martin to dave to alan it's like the separation of duties but it it works and it works really well and it works for about a dozen years i should say in 1995 walder has had enough he ends up leaving right uh quote increasing the internal relations and working practices of the group so it works for a while and then it doesn't work anymore and we'll get into some of the the external factors if you will right that sort of lead to that there's a lot more going on within the band not just the songwriting second album does pretty well the third album construction time again has one of my favorite songs everything counts to me this song is a confessional going back to the songwriting process because if you listen to the lyrics the grabbing hands grab all they can and by the way martin is singing that it's not dave singing that line so martin sings they're grabbing hands grab all they can all for themselves after all it's a competitive world everything counts in large amounts clearly he's talking about you know business deals and bad maybe offers coming from record labels but maybe he's also talking about himself a little bit because his publishing company is called grabbing hands publishing for his music i think that he has a lot of self-awareness about how unusual this is because he is 100% the published writer of nearly the entire depeche mode catalog wow there's only nine songs in their entire body of work that aren't martin gore exclusive publishing royalty money yeah which is a huge imbalance over time you know they're doing fine don't cry any tears for how much money dave has but there is more money that comes when you are the sole publisher so it's very interesting i mean i think it's deserved we talk a lot about unfair splits but i will say martin gore i think the man's a genius and i think i'll just take this opportunity to say right now uh martin gore we found out years later is half black his father was stationed uh in britain he was an american gi and as a black depeche mode fan i do take some pride that's awesome yeah he didn't find out until much later in life he ends up meeting him briefly and it sounds like it didn't go so well it was a bit of like discouraging experience yeah but um you know i think dave also had a similar experience with his father he grew up thinking his stepfather was his father as well it's one of those interestingly it's one of those right he only found out later that and then the the it's like it's like biological father came back to be in his life briefly but also was not there very long oh that's crazy yeah it's like jack nicholson finding out that his aunt was actually his mom and his mom was his aunt which considering he was in chinatown where it's like she's my sister she's my daughter like how ironic that this guy has something far less gross but something like that in his life before we go any further we do have to answer the question that everyone has every depeche mode fan who's not a deep fan i think how much is enough that's one of the main that's one of them maybe the second most asked is what did andy fletcher do we did mention early on that he was the bass player in that first incarnation with vince clark but over time as he himself says in 101 in the documentary that we talked about earlier he literally says my job is to keep everyone together martin's the songwriter alan's the good musician dave's the vocalist and i bum around every group i swear has that personality type like i always said like what did jeroby do in a tribe called quest yeah like um even in outcast like we always think of them as a perfect duo but there was mr dj yeah in those early outcast albums and then big rube was on every album like they're always those guys who are there i feel like in a way that's just to remind them of where they came from so that the ego is the early friendship and maybe to kind of be a peacemaker when there's moments in the studio we're not quite at that part in the story of depeche mode yet but i do find it interesting that we are a duo yeah and at some point depeche mode becomes dave and martin and the unique you know personality push and pull of that duo what you're saying is really hitting me because i think if there's one fun thing that's been discovered as we make the show i think i went into this show thinking oh we would talk about this talk about that so many episodes it's a surprise to me how it comes up the collaborative nature and the duo nature how important that is to the story but also how that important that is to us it's almost never a perfect trio either it always seems to come down a little bit to a duo and like a third or fourth it has to be impossible it's impossible to be 50 50 and the nature of a of a good successful operation of a group a duo whatever is that you recognize that and you realize that sometimes okay someone's going to get a little more songwriting someone's going to spend a little more time in the studio someone's going to be the front man that everyone wants on the front cover of their of their magazine but as a whole we make this music together we are this group together and i think one thing that i really loved i saw martin gore on zane lowe recently say after after fletcher he passed away andy fletcher passed away a couple years ago during covid um what he said about him was that andy was the band's biggest fan he enjoyed being in depeche mode more than the rest of us did it's like the guy on the in the happy mondays who would just dance on stage yeah he was just glad to be there this leads us finally to depeche most fourth studio album um the album with the song we're discussing today and the album some great reward another great title yeah uh this is what helps them break into the u.s which is what every british group at some point really wants to do we'll get into that really really soon you're absolutely right and as dave himself says it's the first song that quote made a dent on popular radio propelled us into a new cosmos at that time made us number one in a lot of countries and then it let us go off and make the music that we wanted to make so this is the one they cross over in the u.s um it's funny though because it's sort of a classic thing like we see with radio had so many bands right it's their first big hit in america as martin says and there's a quote from martin gore i really don't appreciate the song anymore nowadays but without it we may not have been around as a band anymore um it's almost like me myself and i by de la soul they don't do they don't like doing that song in concert anymore maybe that's the rule and not the exception like it's the big hit that makes you break and then you just you're not into it anymore song two by blur was was done ironically and then it was their biggest hit in the u.s i'm sorry go ahead no i was just gonna say and fledge said is it's our biggest hit we don't play anymore so it gets to pech mode it breaks them in america it breaks them through the world it becomes this next chapter moment for them but they're sick of it it's such an interesting but i'm not sick of it you're not sick of it well we gotta talk as a person who didn't know who depeche mode was because i was listening to my little you know pop station um i thought the lyrics were cheesy like it felt like the messaging was not for me like it almost felt like all lives matter like it's like people are people but i realized even at my young age that is totally a context like when did you hear the song yeah i mean like when i heard the song i like the beat i love the beat but i did think i thought the message was a little cheesy but the message wasn't for me it was very direct it's very earnest it's very i think it was directed like you know quite honestly like some of their potentially racist fans in europe i can just tell you in 1984 hearing this and hearing the message so clear like even though i don't know that i felt necessarily oppressed i was a straight white kid in seventh grade in marin county for me though something appealed to what felt oppressed because i wasn't super happy my childhood wasn't unhappy but like you know i had my usual stresses about whatever friends and girls not liking me but for whatever reason people are people so why should it be you and i get along so awfully i think i was just feeling like you tap into that as a listener you tap into someone in your life who you're not getting along with you're tapping into some situation in your life where you feel judged and no matter who you are whatever context it spoke to me you know that's interesting to say that because i always heard it in sort of like a racial context like people i think that's absolutely correct it can it can actually be applied to you know like if you're like honestly going back to earlier if you're like the goth kid who's getting picked on in school or if you're the gay kid hey yes or yes exactly if you're any any sort of group where you feel like you're the minority or the other totally it could totally work i grew up in atlanta it's the home of martin luther king jr from the time i could speak the idea that we were all to be judged by the content of our character was sort of baked into me yeah so to me this felt like uh yeah you know it's almost like it's almost like if someone did a song called like puppies are cool you know like i was like no kidding okay people are people but again i wasn't probably the person who needed to hear that message and some people probably did so after the break we'll dive into how people are people was made and how it paved the way for them to create some of their later chart-topping hits stay with us welcome back to one song luxury walk us through it tell us how did some great reward get made so we're going to talk about this fourth record which is called some great reward uh people are people was the first song that was recorded it started in london but then they moved to berlin and that feels important to me because there's a lot of german-ness that i feel is happening in this song of course in this band we talked about the craftwork already teutonic yeah very teutonic but berlin at this time was a very teutonic band and it was a very teutonic band and it was a very teutonic band at this point it should be remembered is very it's post-war it's not kind of like if you go to berlin now it's a very different world it feels like williamsburg in some places if you go to mita it feels like you know certain parts of manhattan um but at the time it was still very post-war very industrial and that's really important because some of the sound of this band not just the vibe but also literally the sound yeah comes from that because in early 1983 martin goes to see a band called einstürzende neubauten and i'm glad we have you here to pronounce the names of the abba musicians i know how to pronounce this band name because when i was in high school i used to make their little logo on the every single school book i had that would be my little marker my name and then the einstürzende neubauten logo because it was so cool but if you don't know who einstürzende neubauten are and i've said the name three times you certainly know who they are now this is a band from east germany uh the name means destroying new buildings and it is literally the sound of the band is they go to these industrial spaces and they have this incredibly interesting and it's difficult to explain so i'm just going to play you a snippet this is from einstürzende neubauten's 1983 song armenia so this is something that martin might have seen live which changed his life so by the way that's what my mom thinks punk sounds like that's so funny i was so surprised the first time i heard the sex pistols because i heard about them before i ever heard them and i assumed the same thing too i thought it would be like abrasive and noisy noise not like you know a 60s girl group band after the ramones basically so what if the video for this isn't is like a mind-blowing thing in of itself picture if you will three or maybe four shirtless german guys banging on metal in a giant open industrial post-war like you know exploded dream yeah and that's blix a bar geld later of of the bad seeds nick cave the bad seeds that's him playing guitar and screaming and shrieking yeah it's experimental it's noise and martin comes out of this experience hearing sound and he hears this idea of like what if we took those sounds and some of these ideas of percussion they're banging on pipes yeah um there's not maybe not a beat to speak of but like what if we made a beat what if we made a rhythm what if we used these sounds in a pop context yeah so this kind of changes his head space perhaps coincidentally perhaps not they end up working with for this record gareth jones as an engineer who had also been working with einsturzende neubauten so it should be said that depeche mode had already been experimenting on their third record construction time again they'd been experimenting with this idea of sampling and using samplers but this type of sound to be putting in the sampler was a new thing so that factors into how this song gets made and as we get into the stems i'll go a little deeper one more thing i'll say about the process of making this record because gareth jones the engineer and co-producer along with daniel miller talks about as mentioned earlier martin's songwriting process being so unique at this time martin writes a song he says and quote he considers it tedious to be endlessly playing around with synthesizers and making different versions in his mind the demo is the guiding light and he wants other people to try different things all this to say that the making of this record after the songs are written is really daniel miller alan wilder and gareth jones the three of them they're in the studio all the time while martin and dave go and andy go off to the pub and have a drink they're there till like six in the morning on this record i love doing this sort of anthropological uh dive into the music because i've always said that like craftwork made john cage listenable you know like they did a more listenable version of what he was doing and then groups like depeche mode did an even more pop version of what craftwork was doing they were listening to and loving the other really weird avant-garde uh experimental stuff right one person takes it a little bit more to the mainstream and the next person takes a little bit more and and by the way hip-hop like when they sample things like beach house but then they put that you know that infectious beat underneath the sample like it's all the same process of taking something that's you know uh atmospheric and then just slowly working it towards the mainstream in many ways that's what the history of pop music really is totally folding in and and the expression the band pop will eat itself right that's what this idea comes from it's it's ingesting its sources and sort of it's almost always taking things from the fringe whether it's fringe because it's atmospheric or avant-garde or it's from some marginalized group we're going to take right it's always a matter of just taking it from like the small place and just trying to figure out what's the through line to make it more pop and this is called cultural appropriation it's actually just called appropriation by the way it could also just be it's also just be art it's all things and one thing i love about depeche mode is when i listen to them it makes me want to write songs because you're just like oh this sounds fun they're sampling they're doing stuff uh i interrupted you let's talk about the album well that's a perfect intro into what i was about to talk about which is a little quick backstory about samplers and sampling as we alluded to earlier in this episode sampling exists it's in hip-hop prior to that we have quote-unquote sampling in jamaican music it's at the time it's a little different you're taking the entire recorded instrumental and putting a new vocal on top or maybe you're playing around with instruments coming and going that's recorded being reused is already an idea in the world but this is kind of a new capability because samplers have just come on the market they're very expensive the very first samplers there's the fairlight is about twenty five thousand dollars the synclavier is even more expensive it's two hundred thousand dollars so most artists don't have access to this labels do but guess what guess who has a label daniel miller who happens to be the producer and the and the the founder of mute and shout out yeah shout out to mute and kind of the fifth member of the band in many ways so he has a synclavier which is this two hundred thousand dollar device it's large it's you know it's hot it heats up the place it melts down in the summer but they have this new capability where and it should be said that the earliest uses of synclaviers and samplers was actually not intended to reuse recordings they were just looking for new sounds remember in the 70s there's guitars there's pianos yeah there's roads and whirlies your sonic palette for rock and roll especially sure you can do clever things with pedals and such but there's a limited vocabulary of colors that you can use yeah with synthesizers coming into the picture but they're still expensive and they're still limited now with samplers you can take any sound yeah and pitch it up and down the keyboard and suddenly you have a whole new none never arranged they go crazy with this we would literally quote unquote we would literally sample anything and everything that was around a lot of our percussion at that time came from the kitchen they'd go in and they'd find like you know spoons and knives and they would record it they would just try all kinds of stuff of Martin throwing a rock and recording the rock and I'll play that for you and then it ends up being in one of their songs here it is anyway the idea is to roll the pebble on this piece of metal along here window frame thus causing thus making this sort of sound the idea is to take that sequence and to make an interesting rhythm out of it that sound was used in Blasphemous Rumors from the same record and here it is see if you can hear it as Gareth Jones says you could sample almost any sound sound and turn it into a rhythm or melody. And you can even use through intrinsic rhythm within a sound. So what I just played for you with that, you know, kind of rock, you can loop that and that becomes a new rhythm. This was all completely new. This is a new capability. And again, it was maybe being used by like avant-garde musicians. I'm sure it's an annoy about, and I've said five times, I'm very proud of myself. But this is a new idea to bring it into pop music. So because they have access to the synclavier, because Martin happens to see industrial sounds being made by this band that blows his mind in Berlin at the time, they decide to incorporate this into not just this album, but into People Are People. And speaking of People Are People, ladies and gentlemen, we have the stems. So Luxury, let's begin with the drums. Okay, well, let's play some of these big industrial beats in a pop context. We like it percussive. Now, of course, that's how the song starts. We all know that part. But what's going on there is Alan, has programmed this beat on his drumulator, an emu, it's a sampler, a drum machine focused sampler, but he replaces the parts. So he gets a kick drum, he gets a snare, and then he moves it all to synclavier. But what they're doing is they're merging sounds, they're layering them. And again, that's a new capability. Suddenly you can have an actual kick drum from an acoustic kick drum recorded, but you could add some metal sound on top of that. So that every time you hear that kick drum, there's a little bit of metal, there's a little bit of edge to it. So this is a new capability that they have, and they're using it. And to your point about it sounding industrial, it sounds like it could be just a rhythmic machine pressing BMW somewhere in West Germany. Absolutely, yeah. So that's the beat that you hear through the beginning of the song. And then in the chorus, you hear this. I'll give you some context. And by the way, just leave that playing. So as you can hear, there's like a little bit of a tambourine. That's sort of the only hi-hat-like or high percussion. Everything else is a sort of kick and snare. Can you play that again? Yeah. I miss you much. Baby, I really miss you much. I feel like when, it goes back to what I was saying earlier, all these songs are made on the same machines and almost to the exact same pattern. So it makes sense that a person like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, they're going to like these Depeche Mode songs. I'm going to like them because what they're doing at this time is not that different what's happening in R&B at that time. That's a funk beat. That's not a rock and roll beat. Absolutely. That is definitely. It's just interesting that when it comes out and it's packaged with the white guys dressed how I'm dressed right now with the white shirts and the leather jackets, it's sold to one market. And then if Janet Jackson's singing over that same beat, it's packaged to another market. But I mean, to today's credit, to 2024 and 25's credit, I feel like there's less of that now. I feel like we all sort of can all appreciate when a song is made by Tyler, the creator, versus when it's made by Justice. Well, the boundaries are so blurred. It used to be that there might be some distinctive genre markers that would indicate who made this, what did they look like, who would listen to it on what radio station. Now, so much music, almost like most of these instrumentals, you could have Tyler on it or you could have Sabrina Carpenter on it. That could exist. I love it. I appreciate the less balkanization of our musical diet. I agree. I agree. Let's get back into the drums. So going back to Gareth Jones for a second, and this being produced in Hansa Studios in Berlin, one big part of the sound of this record, because those are some big ass drums, the way they got the sound of those big ass drums, it's a combination of the synclavier, but also a production method where they would literally pipe the sounds of the recording into a room and then record that room. So in a giant room, you get the room sound. That makes so much sense. The drums in Depeche Mode songs are so epic. They're so epic. And I think that's one of the reasons why they all sound so epic. I think that's one of the reasons why they all sound so epic. Like, lyrically, these are big songs. Melody-wise, there are big ideas taking place. And then underneath it all is like this layer of drums that are so hard-hitting. So ambient. And it's not even all the drums in one room. They would have just the kick drum in one room, the snare drum in another room, and the toms in another room. So very innovative method of recording. This is the toms room. Can you get out, please? We need to do the toms in this room. Okay, so next up we have this iconic sound, and I will break it down for you because kind of similar to our Poison episode where we had the iconic sound. We had the iconic sounds, then we separated them so you could hear that there was an 808 underneath the snare, right? Here's the orchestra hit that we all know and love. Help me understand. That's this bit. I'll put the vocals in so you can hear the context. I always thought that sound was the orchestra hit on, I feel like on a Casio keyboard. It had a thing called orchestra hit. And it was like, cha-cha-cha. It was that sound. There is a famous orchestra hit that's on the Fairlight, which is known as, or Orc 5, Orc 2. There's lots of videos on the internet. This is not that, but it might be coming from the same idea. I'm sure they heard it somewhere else, in a hip-hop song possibly. But this orchestra hit actually comes from this. That's a recording of Carmina Burana by Karl Orff. And it's a 1982 recording, and it's sampled and it's pitched up using the synclavier. But then it's also layered, because when you hear it in the mix, it sounds like this. So you're also getting this bass in there. Wow. And you're getting this in there. Piano. So together. Help me understand. Help me understand. Now you understand. You helped us understand. I've helped you understand the three layers of that orchestra hit sample. That's great. I always wondered where that sound came from. Let's talk about the bass. Let's talk about that bass. I love this bass. This is the intro. It's almost like throaty. It's got like, it sounds like somebody's. Throaty low. It shows up in every episode. It sounds like somebody's saying the notes. Do, do, do. And it very well might be. I haven't read anything specific. I was going to ask who's playing that bass. Is that Wilder? I believe Alan Wilder. The three of them, the core team, it's the three of them are sort of doing, the production team I should say. It's probably not necessarily Martin or Dave or Andy, but Alan and Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones, the engineer, the three of them are kind of making the song turn into a recorded song. So everything here is a little bit all of them doing this together. But I do know that that bass is a combination of probably a Minimoog or an Arp 2600, which Daniel Miller definitely had. But they also combine that with the sound of an acoustic guitar being plucked with a coin. So I'll play it again and listen if you can hear the layering of synth bass and then just a little bit of like the attack of a coin on some strings. I wonder if it's that. I wonder if it's that dawn. I like that little octave. Here it goes again. Oh no, it was different that time. Yeah, they're performing it. I guess this is in sequence. I've never seen that too. They're actually playing that on the keyboard. That's crazy. And just for some context, here it is with the vocals. We'll be just heard. Love it. I love it too. Alright, so here's another section. It's another man, help me understand. And then the drums. I can't understand what makes a man. It's just boom, boom. That's like the last minute or so of the song. After all the funk and rhythmic stuff in the first couple of minutes, we just end with a minute, I guess you'd call it a coda or an outro, I'm not really sure, where it's just this new vocal section too. I can't understand. That's been borrowed from earlier, but now we have a whole new context for it. I love it. For those wondering, we've used the phrase Teutonic a lot on this episode. That is relating to Germany or Germanic people. This is true. And there is a sound that is sort of associated with Germany, which is sort of marchy. Direct. Yeah, and historically. I can say it. Oh, no, yeah. Say it. This group has been called Synthpop, and so we need to hear some synths, my man. And by the way, the synths are doing more than just playing notes. They're also playing samples, as you said. That's right. The synclavier and the synthesizer, the line between one to the other, they're creating sounds with pure synths, but the synclavier also has synth sounds in it, and it also has the sounds they're making up. I'll play you some more cool ones in a second, but first, here's some of those sweet, sweet melodies. In fact, where the synths end and the synclavier begins is unclear. That all sounds programmed. I think they programmed nearly everything. It may have started life as an acoustic guitar being sampled. It may have started life as a synth part in the 2600, but from what I understand from what Alan Wilder says, almost everything ended up being programmed and sequenced in the synclavier. Here's the first melody. Oh, that did not go the way I thought it was going to go. And I know this song. There's a lot happening in the second half. There's a lot happening. There's a lot of melody, and they overlap sometimes, but it's also linear. You get one melody to the next. If you were to count, it's kind of like the Metallica episode where I was counting how many riffs there are, like six or seven. If you were to count all the melodic or hooky events across this song, there might be seven or eight different melodic ideas or hook ideas. By the way, that was like a guy who was like, I'm going to go half in. I'm going all the way in. He got the second half. I was like, whoa, what's happening? Where's this guy coming from? All right, then there's also the piano sound that happens in the chorus. And in that same moment, there's an ostinato. And then after playing them separately, I'll play them together. When I have to play this, this is the little harp glissando, which is also coming out of the sampler. I'll play that same thing, then I'll bring in the piano. I've kind of lost. I like those low pianos, though. I lost the, like, one. I have to, like, bring the drums in. The little ostinato. Because the chords are changing, but that's just staying the same, so it's an ostinato. Here's the bass and drums. You can hear the context of all of that craziness. And that's where the oh, oh, oh comes in, and we've got to talk about the oh, oh, oh hook. Let's talk about this. Okay, so here is one of. Another hook. Oh, my God, there's so many hooks. Again, there's probably ten different hooks. It's one of those songs that every fourth bar, there's, like, a new cool thing that you're excited. Oh, oh, oh. Ha, ha. Right? So was that one of them saying oh, and then sort of recording that, and then playing it through the synth? That is absolutely what's happening. Yeah. That's Martin Gore. What happened was they sampled Martin going, oh, oh, oh, with his throat, apparently. I couldn't quite figure out what that story meant. They said going unk, unk, unk with his throat, the way the story goes. I don't know if that means he was going oh, oh, oh, like hitting it. That's weird. I'm not really sure what it was, but then they added the bell. They added sort of a bell sound and a timpani to deepen it, so that in the mix, it sounds like this. Yeah. And then they pitched it down just a tone, just a single tone, two semitones. And as Martin says, I felt a little bit of a burk doing that. I've never heard the word burk before in my life. A burk? What is a burk? B-E-R-K. I don't know. We talk about how the British have these funny words that didn't quite make the jump over the ocean, but Martin felt like a burk. You know, this is dance music. This is dance music. And what's interesting is I went looking to see if Depeche Mode had ever played the Hacienda Club. Okay. Because to me, like, to me, Hacienda, yes, which factors into Blue Monday. And to me, that's always like the place that they play dance music for the Brits, you know, for the Mancunians, granted, but for British people. And I couldn't find one sighting of Depeche Mode ever playing the Hacienda Club. You can find so many, but their music sounds like it would have been very Hacienda friendly. Maybe they blew up too big and they never felt like they needed to. They could make the trip up to Manchester. But it's weird that you don't have any that I could find. I couldn't find any Depeche Mode at the Hacienda Club stories. I feel like the Hacienda was more of a dance club, like, first and foremost. Maybe that's why. But isn't this dance? I mean, to me, this music would have, it feels like dance music to me. Right, right. But I also think at the time that if you're. And they were doing so many remixes. So it seems like at some point during the Hacienda's lifespan, which I think starts in 82, and they close in 97, that part I know. It seems like they would have had a Depeche Mode appearance or it would have been a part of the music, the legacy. They might have just been too big. I mean, at this point, they're probably wanting to play in live venues. They're playing 20,000. Yeah, they're playing to tens of thousands, if not more. After this song, definitely. That's for sure. So here's another verse melody. I'll play it for you isolated, then I'll add the context. Yet another series of hooks. This is, there's too many hooks in this song. Too many hooks. I love that little bend right there. By the way, if you just had. It sounds sarcastic. I always think bends are sarcastic. Depends, but I know exactly what you mean. By the way, if you just took that little section of the song and put it in a movie, that's definitely the part where like, it's like an 80s montage where like the character's getting his stuff together. He's like doing his homework now and training for the big game. Let me give you a little context for that. Here it is with the ostinatos. So much going on, right? And bring in the bass. Until that bass change. It's so busy in there. It sounds like it could be any other song from the 1980s. Like that bass change makes a big difference there. Yeah, right. That gives you the harmony. You kind of know where you are harmonically. I'm consumed with images of real genius right now. I've never seen that movie. You've never seen Real Genius? I've always wanted to. It was always at the VHS store. We just never got it. We were working on a weapon? Is that a quote from a movie I haven't seen? Yes, exactly. Lost on me. That's Val Kilmer, right? It's Val Kilmer. And I think one of his greatest roles and one of the best movies in the 80s. So there's one more really fun sound. And this is another example of how they would just sample anything and see what happened. So again, according to Gareth Jones, what you're about to hear is a combination of this airline stewardess safety speech recorded on a Walkman. So it's very low. It's very rough. And it is buried underneath a choir sound. But it is in here. It's in there? It is in here. And I will play it for you right now. I mean. Wait, there's a person talking about that? There is a very deeply buried in the loop. I personally, when I was making notes for this, I had to call this part the brain happy part. Because this part makes my brain happy. There's just something about it that's. It's so satisfying. And the important thing about that too is that at the time, I was mentioning before that there's this evolution happening between songwriting and then production. Yeah. This is a moment where people realized, wait, what they tried to do was recreate the sound of this lo-fi demo that Martin had recorded. They couldn't do it. And they had this aha insight like, wait a second, we don't have to redo the demo anymore. We can just use this sound in our sampler. This is a real big epiphany for this moment, that you can just take any sound, including this thing that you think you need to recreate, and reuse it thanks to the sampler. Now we got to talk about our singer, because that is the human part of Depeche Mode that we love so much. This is Dave singing on this, correct? Dave sings and Martin sings too, but at different times. And I will play them going back and forth in just a moment. Starting with the chorus. Here is Dave. Here is Dave. People are people, so why should it be? You and I should get along so awfully. Oh, oh, oh. I'm pretty sure that's Martin with the harmony. And is that Martin doing the lows on the people are people? Because there's obviously, or is that Dave? I'm pretty sure that's Dave doing the octave, but I think it's Martin doing the kind of answer harmony. Oh yeah, I was going to say, I'm pretty sure. Not knowing necessarily what Martin's voice is. sounds like admittedly like is he the higher voice yeah well here's martin's voice isolated because he does the setup to the chorus at the end of the pre and it sounds like this it's actually really cool i know that he didn't know that he was half black at the time but it's really cool to hear him sing that part which is i don't understand what makes a man hate another man yeah so that's that's that's fun that's the little post-chorus bit i like that and then they do that's their both of their voices harmonizing i hear or is that dave just doubled up let's listen again i definitely hear martin and i i think i hear dave too but let's listen again the second time around it has a little effect on it martin has definitely more of kind of an emotional kind of vulnerability to his voice dave is very like yes deep baritone and strong but martin's a little bit more kind of a tenor he's a little bit more so i hear martin for sure and i think dave's also in there yeah that's really cool it's cool that they have the different vocal qualities and that's why in the band martin sings one or two songs every album and little pieces of some other songs as well it's sort of the vulnerable things as a contrast to the strong dave song i'm telling you strong it's funny to me because there's a job there's a whole type of singer in this period i you know ian curtis enjoyed a vision yeah uh dave and depeche mode they they don't sing with a lot of emotion but like they they sort of sing to you in this strong way you know like i'm a confident 19 year old i'm 19 i know everything that i need to know uh but that's a type of singer interpol had that first couple of albums you know like thanks yeah yeah that that that's a type yeah i'm realizing yeah i agree there's one more thing it's the harmony at the very end in that teutonic section i was mentioning before i love it and they're sort of bringing in i love all your ideas listen we talked about it on the weekend episode i was gonna say the same thing when you introduce all these elements and then you get to the end it's like hamilton honestly like it's it's such a your ear can handle what sounds like yes you can't start with that no you can't start there but when you're getting to the end of the act yeah you know in a musical or you're getting to the end of a song yeah you can bring in all the elements i yeah sounds cliche to say yeah but i freaking love it i freaking love it too well listen some great reward the album that this song is on deserves its praise it's certified platinum and people are people peaked at number 13 on the billboard hot 100 they crossed the pond they crossed the pond they did it they got to my ears they got to louisa smith and then from louisa smith at kirsten stromberg's birthday party they got to my ears i love that here's an interesting fact remember how i mentioned in the intro that it hit number one in west germany yeah check this out it was the first time a depeche mode song topped any nation's like singles chart and it was also used as the theme to west germany's tv coverage of the 84 olympics so there you go interesting the german connection is so interesting to me and martin moves there eventually yeah a lot about germany and berlin and this band that just goes so well together they they kind of fit yeah they kind of they kind of fit as we wrap up this episode what can we say about people are people in terms of what it did for depeche mode uh it broke depeche mode in america and it set the stage for the next phase of their career which was when they went global and when they went next level megastar everywhere but we'll get into that a little bit later won't that's right absolutely we're gonna put a pin in this conversation until the next episode as always you can find us on instagram and tiktok you can find me on instagram and tiktok and you can find me on instagram and on instagram at diallo dia llo and on tiktok at diallo riddle and you can find me on instagram at luxury l u x x u r y and on tiktok at l u x x u r y x x you can also watch full episodes of one song on youtube right now just search one song podcast and we'd love it if you'd like and subscribe and if you made it this far i think it means you like the podcast so please don't forget to give us five stars leave a review and share it with someone you think would like it it really helps keep the show going luxury help us in this thing i'm producer dj songwriter and musicologist luxury and i'm actor writer director and sometimes dj diallo riddle and this is one song we'll see you next time finding a doctor is hard enough finding the right doctor even harder someone who takes your insurance has an available appointment when you need one and feels like someone you can actually open up to that's where zoc.com is located comes in download the zoc doc app to search and compare doctors by specialty insurance and availability read real patient reviews find the right fit for you and book instantly because getting seen by the right doctor matters zoc doc ready to be seen download the zoc doc app today