It's Depeche Mode Monday and the 1986 single, "A Question of Lust" has been stuck in my head for the past week. I was only 14 when this song was released and I never once heard it played on the radio. Instead, this is one of the Depeche Mode tunes that I discovered many many years after its release. Despite the title, it's not a song that's about sex. It's about relationships and the mistakes you make in them.
This is also the second song Depeche Mode released where the lead is sung by Martin Gore instead of lead singer, Dave Gahan. I always think Martin's voice sounds like an angel. Check it out for yourself:
I listen to Depeche Mode more than any other artist. I could turn this whole blog into a blog solely about what Depeche Mode records I'm listening to on any given day. Instead, I've decided I'm going to start a weekly feature called "Depeche Mode Monday".
Every Monday I'm going to share the Mode song I've been rocking the most over the past week. To kick things off in grand style, I figured I'd start you all off with 1987's Strangelove. This song is such a Mode classic and, 21 years later, remains in my top five favorite Mode songs. Plus, I wanted to be one of the girls in the video!
Because it's Friday and I feel like dancing...
You know what happens when you go to the local library and there's not much good on the shelves?
You end up picking up books like Phillipa Gregory's "The Boleyn Inheritance".
I thought the "Other Boleyn Girl" was a bit overrated and tawdry. It features a bunch of lying schemers with loose morals and a lack of conscience that are loosely based on the historical figures of Henry VIII, his wives and assorted mistresses. So what made me pick up the sequel? Curiosity, I suppose.
This story is told from the points of view of two of Henry's wives, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard and a despicable lady in waiting, Lady Rochford. Anne of Cleves is the only character I felt even remotely sympathetic for. The other two, not so much.
The book is super soap opera-ish. Lots of scenes of Anne of Cleves being afraid. Katherine Howard having sex with a smelly, 300 pound king, all while longing for Thomas Culpepper. Lots of Lady Rochford making backroom deals with the Duke of Norfolk. Lots of beheadings, or threats of beheadings. It's like a history book for the uneducated, a Da Vinci Code for those who know nothing about the Tudors.
What is really interesting to me is that the Howard family, the real-life scheme-o-matic family that two of Henry's wives, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, came from is still in existence today. The Duke of Norfolk's title still exists. In fact, they're the premier dukedom in the UK.
I guess all that lying and beheading paid off off after all.
Some people call Chip E. one of the godfathers of Chicago house music. But back in high school I didn't know anything about him. I just knew that I really liked to dance to his record, "If You Only Knew".
I used to get so excited when it'd come on one of the WBMX mixes. It was the house music version of a song by the Smiths. A bit dark, lonely and full of unrequited love.
Here's the track with some great footage of Chicago. Watching this makes me a little homesick.
Music for the Masses, Depeche Mode's sixth studio album, might be my favorite Mode album of all time. It's hard to choose one, but MFTM just might get the nod. And besides, I have four copies of it.
It was released in the fall of 1987, one month into my sophomore year of high school. I can remember huddling under my blankets listening to a bootleg Maxell cassette tape recording of it.
Sometimes things happened in my life that made me listen to one particular song more than another. And that winter of 1987, I had "The Things You Said" constantly playing in my dark bedroom at night.
The song begins with Mode's singer/songwriter Martin Gore singing, "I heard it from my friends about the things you said."
And my goodness did the tears run down my cheeks when I'd hear that line. High school girls can be cruel, mean even. One minute they're your friend and the next, they're stabbing you in the back and gossiping about you.
What gets less attention is that high school boys do the same things. That winter, I turned down the advances of a boy. He was a senior and very good looking. I really liked him but he'd made it clear he wanted to sleep with me. And I did not want to sleep with him, even when he'd tell me all the typical things high school boys say to try to get you to feel sorry for them.
And so, to save his reputation, and, I think, to get back at me, he went and told lots of people that he'd slept with me. I was shocked and absolutely outraged. So when Martin sang:
"I get so carried away
You brought me down to earth
I thought we had something special
Now I know what it's worth"
I could feel those words completely.
Looking back, I think I was even more upset that some of the girls who were supposed to be my friends believed him and not me and chose to spread the rumor behind my back.
I never forgot that experience, never forgot what it was like to have someone say something about me that wasn't true.
And today, when I least expected it, that memory comes creeping back into my present, and I remember the song:
Sia is an Australian singer that used to do acid jazz but now does a poppier, Kate Bush style. The regular version of this off of her upcoming record, "Some People Have REAL Problems".
And that album version's cool.
But the Stonebridge remix of "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine" has "Hit dance record of winter, 2007" written all over it. It just gets taken to a much darker place and manages to get you moving as well.
Thankfully, someone put the song up on YouTube. I promise, you're going to start moving in your seat:
Seether is a rock band from South Africa and even though they've been together for a few years, I just heard their single "Fake It" a couple of days ago. It's got a great lyrics like:
"Who’s to know if your soul will fade at all
The one you sold to fool the world
You lost your self-esteem along the way"
Are they sure they don't live in LA now? Those lyrics seem tailor made for this city!
But even more than the song, the "Fake It" video cracks me up, especially the part halfway through where the video director is teaching the model exactly how he wants her to shake her rear into the camera. It just shows how ridiculous rap and r&b videos are these days:
Billy Idol is one of those artists that probably shouldn't still be alive. But, despite ingesting massive amounts of drugs over the years, he is still around and looking as slim as ever. Unbelievably, this poster child for sex, drugs and rock-n-roll's about to be 52 in a couple of weeks.
I loved his whole look when I was a teenager: the classic sneer, the bleached out spiky hair, the leather. If I could have been a female version of this look, I would have in a heartbeat.
The music wasn't half bad either. Who didn't love rocking out to tunes like "White Wedding" and "Dancing With Myself"? I was certainly part of the crowd who loved those tracks. But, my favorite Billy Idol song hands down is "Eyes Without a Face".
My favorite lyrics come from the second verse where a seemingly heartbroken Billy sings:
"I spend so much time
Believing all the lies
To keep the dream alive
Now it makes me sad
It makes me mad at truth
For loving what was you"
For some reason I've been listening to this for the past two days, the haunting synths, the emotion coming through his voice. Yeah, this song stands the test of time. I bet it could be played on radio today and still be a huge hit.
“I want you behind my bedroom doors. Ready or not we’re about to speed up.”
Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious what the song “Speed Up” by Dutch house DJ Funkerman is about.
Sex.
Except that the beat is so great I seriously doubt anyone is having sex while they’re listening to this one. Everyone is probably too busy dancing.
This song is one of the most infectious dance records I’ve heard in awhile. I've been listening it to for a few months now and it just doesn't get old.
I haven’t been out to a club too recently, but every time I hear this track, I wish I was out somewhere dancing. Instead, I find myself running to it and the song works well in that capacity too.