Depeche Mode: the podcast - Ranking the Best B-Sides - Depeche Mode: The Podcast w/ Jon Justice

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, this is Maut and Gold from Depeche Mode. Ahi,
this is digone from Depeche Mode and you all listening
to my word bron Welcome to another Depeche Mode the podcast.
Recording this on May twenty second, we are mere weeks

(00:26):
away from the premiere of the Depeche Mode film m
at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. I
know many of you your weekly listeners devots to the show.
We'll be heading to New York City to check out
that premiere and I'm really looking forward to hearing your
responses and talking with specifically a friend of the show

(00:49):
from the Depeche Mode Global fan group, Rob Rahm. I
know that he will be heading there next month. So
no new news to share this week on the podcast. However,
as I've been teasing over the course of the past
few weeks, this week we're gonna talk all about the
B sides and which ones you enjoy the most. So

(01:12):
I titled this ranking the B Sides, and I'm not
really going to do that myself. I'm gonna share with
you some thoughts this week. But what I found was
an article from far Out Magazine, a UK publication, and
they write quite often about Depeche Mode, and so a
lot of the content that I have on the show
comes from Far Out Magazine. Now, last week they had

(01:35):
done an article wherein the author went and decided to
go and rank his own B sides his favorite B sides.
So I'm gonna run through this article, share my thoughts,
and then I'll give you some further thoughts on the
B sides. I've compiled a list here. I did strip
out all of the instrumentals for the sake of this

(01:56):
week's podcast. These are all only vocal B sides that
we are talking about this week, And of course I'd
love to hear from you as always, Talk show nerd
at a gmail dot com, or if you're enjoying this
up on YouTube, leave a comment there. So let's get
into this list the top ten in their opinion, Depeche

(02:18):
Mode B sides coming in at number ten. Ice Machine.
Far Out Magazine writes an unusually chilly cut cut from
the future erasure songwriter the B side to their first
single of nineteen eighty one's Dreaming of Me. Ice Ice

(02:40):
Machine soldiers into stirringly glacial stings of evocative drama, exploring
faded memories and their mysterious presence in the dark room
and the shouts of the Boys in the Factory, the
band's Essex hometown. Post industrial malays hovers all around this

(03:03):
wearily rumative synthpop traversal. Wow, that was quite the word
salad there. Listen. This is a really interesting track because
it harkens to Depeche Mode that we grow to love
in the albums that would follow. And yet you're looking

(03:24):
at a track here that came from Vince Clark, and
so that's a bit of a shock. I mean, the
shouts of the boys in the Factory is a line
in and of itself that could have been lifted from
you know, something in placed on construction time again for example.
So I think a lot of this without knowing the
background of how this particular B side was constructed, I

(03:46):
think could speak to, you know, the band's involvement, Martin's
involvement as well, in a song that again evokes what
eventually would become of Depeche Mode, even though it's written
by a founding member that left the BA shortly after
its release, coming in at number nine fools. Following Wilder's

(04:08):
recruitment in eighty two, his classically trained expertise brought a
sophisticated heft to their subsequent arrangements, opening the door to
intrepid sonics of nineteen eighty three's Construction Time Again, recorded
at John Fox's The Garden Studios, the band's eager embrace
of the emerging sampler technology made possible with the sineclavier,

(04:33):
I yielded the flip to Love in Itself, one of
a handful of tracks Wilder gifted the group a buoyant
yet bristling with an abrasive snap. Fools, infectious hooks, ring
in your ears far longer than its a side and
listen A Fools has a tract that, much like a

(04:54):
few of these on here, including the next one on
the list, is a track from that era that actually
find my self visiting, especially when putting together playlists, more
often than a lot of the other tracks that you
would find on Construction Time Again. And I think it
speaks too as we go through the list of the
other songs here and the completed list of the vocal

(05:14):
b sides, the strength of depeche Mode overall and the
subjectivity for us as fans, and why I get excited
about the possibility of the quality of those four unreleased
Momento Mory tracks that we should get sometime between now
and November, coming in at number eight in Your Memory

(05:35):
Total classic right Like, I don't even need to say
anything after that. This song is just fantastic and should
have been included on an album. One of the most
chaotic exercises in their entire output, Alan Wilder was let
loose on samplers. With extra help from his em you emulator,
eh Mu emulator and the sonic wielding of a metal

(05:58):
pipe for its beefy, recussive thunder was born, a classic
B side, offering a deeply quieting counter to People Are
People's glossy thump in Your Memories. Only flaw is the
nagging feeling that there should have been more Wilder songs
following his brief but fruitful songwriting spell, coming in at

(06:21):
number seven. And this one goes out too. As I
mentioned Rob Rahm Fly on the Windscreen. By nineteen eighty five,
Gore was seriously coming into his own and the moody,
leather clad spectacle that came to define the band had
been cemented in preparation for their nineteen eighty six gloom

(06:43):
pop offering black celebration. Whoever idea, whoever's idea it was,
The band went with releasing the Bang Average It's Called
a Heart for their eighty five singles compilation, a cut
so behind their creative ambitions that Alder looks positively fed
up in its cornfield music video, A mordant Skulker detailing

(07:08):
Gore's existential musings of love and death, recorded at Berlin's
legendary Hansa Studios, Fly on the Windscreens. The eerie grooves
were the real taster for what was to come, A
soudy slice of acidic pop that was so good they
included its final version on the next record, coming in

(07:33):
at number six, Pleasure, Little Treasure. Nineteen eighty seven was
the year they broke into America. Music for the Masses,
and its subsequent tour, captured on Da Pennebaker's film One
A One eagerly landed on the state's country and rock foundations,

(07:53):
setting the stage for guitars that would dominate the nineteen nineties.
They even yielded a tongue in cheak cover of Bobby
Troop's Route sixty six, one of my favorites. The beat
Master mix is just fantastic. Brimming with confidence and explosive zest.
The B side to Never Let Me Down Again was
described by Fletcher as a good old rock and roll song,

(08:17):
and he wasn't wrong. Pleasure Little Treasure is charged with
the whirlwind energy of a band on the road. Who knew,
who know? They finally made it, you know? And Pleasure
Little Treasure is one of those ones that initially when
the album was released, I didn't even consider it to
be a B side. I know that it's been included
on many of the album versions, but this wasn't one

(08:38):
that I ever thought to be a sort of a proper,
a proper B side, coming in at number five dangerous,
which is interesting because the lack of the other B
sides that would come off a violator on this list spoiler,

(09:03):
is somewhat surprising. Don't worry, I'll be talking about See
of Sin and Happiest Girl a little bit later. But
by nineteen ninety even the UK's most committed naysayers couldn't
resist violators effortless alternative pop cool. Let me stop here
really quick. I just want to go back to Pleasure
a Little Treasure really quick. If you have insight on this,

(09:25):
let me know I should have done a little bit
more research, But like I said, that song has been
included on various versions of the album, and they performed
it live, which wasn't typical for them to do that
for a B side, So again I sort of questioned
its B side, no thiss, I kind of put it
in the category of Fly on the wind Screen. I
talked about this with Rob when I was on the
Drink and Chat a couple of weeks back, which the

(09:47):
link is available in the show notes, by the way,
But you know, it's kind of a cheat to say
the Fly on the wind Screen is your favorite B
side even though the version landed on the album and
the B side version is somewhat of a stripped down version.
So sorry, a bit of a deviation. Let's get back
to Dangerous, still standing as their defining moment, their seventh

(10:08):
LP hit, a pitch perfect balance of electronic music and
organic accessibility that found the rock purists swept up in
Depeche Mode's new guitar smattered synth strut, wetting the appetites
with nineteen eighty nine's Monster Personal Jesus, Its Flip Danger,
its flip side. Dangerous exudes no less hooky ingenuity than

(10:33):
any of Violator's nine Masterstroke cuts with frontman Dave Gone
crooning Gore's lyrical trepidations fraught Seduction and with Masterful Ease
again Word Solid Holy Cow, Dave Gone crooning gores lyrical
trepidations of fraught Seduction with Masterful Ease. There, I think

(10:56):
I got that out coming in at number four and one,
that probably would be pretty close to number one on
my top B side list, And I know my buddy
Matt is agreeing with me at this moment. It is
my joy. In one of the greatest creative u turns

(11:17):
in music, Depeche Mode jumped deeper into alternative rock territory,
with Wilder behind the drum kit and the group encountering
the novel experience of jamming in a studio together for
nineteen ninety three's Songs of Faith and Devotion, Messianic Ecclesiastical

(11:38):
and Possessed with Divine bomb. Bast Gon's new wave turned
rock God Transformation found another perfect foil in the Walking
in My Shoes b side stir a string stabs and
reversed drums wrestle in My Joy's Cavernous Soup, along with

(12:00):
Wilder's studious mixing to a craft one of the band's
most stirring pieces. Yeah, listen my Joy. I understand why
they made it a B side. I think I get it.
It clearly comes from the songs of Faith the Devotion era,
but you know, wanting to not bog that album down

(12:21):
with too much and having to pitch off one particular track.
I think there are those that would argue, even though
I love get Right with Me My Joy may have
been a better inclusion, But that song is pretty song,
and I would have argued had I been in the band,
to include it as an album track, coming in at
number three, Surrender, The Depeche Mode story nearly ended before

(12:46):
Ultra's drop in nineteen ninety seven, following the band's near
implosion with Wilder's departure in ninety five and Gon's gnawing
heroin Habit It was a miracle their ninth LP ever
materialized the sound of the party well and truly over.
Ultra wanders in the wake of songs of Faith and Devotion.

(13:08):
Devotion hungover with fragile, brittle electronics and gritty country twang,
illustrating a fatigue that refuses to turn to Defeat, recorded
during the Ultra sessions, but seeing its release as the
B side to the singles eighty six through ninety eight
promo of only When I Lose Myself, Surrender subsumes Gore's

(13:34):
characteristic world of succumbed to temptation, charged with orgon fog
and hazy slide guitar. In fact, Gore later stated in
a two thousand and five interview that it was the
band's most underrated song, to which I would have to agree. Now,
when we get to the top two here, based off

(13:56):
of several tracks that have been left behind and not
included on this list, this is where the list kind
of loses me. While both of these tracks are okay
in my opinion, to put them at number two in
one I found was a bit of a surprise, even
though I do, as I mentioned, quite enjoy the number
two track on the top B sides. According to far

(14:16):
Out Magazine of Free after two thousand and one's experiments
with exciters delicate digital arrangements, five's Playing the Angel brought
back the analog synth and the sound of a band
renewed with fire in their middle aged belly, crunchy fat

(14:38):
and oozing attitude. Their eleventh effort, heralded the back to
basics production collaboration with Ben Hillier easily gripping enough to
have stood confidently on playing the Angel's track list. The
precious B side Free propulsively rushes with tech ravaged p

(15:00):
capturing Gore's massionic or excuse me masochistic lyrical frision between
pain and its decadent wallow as starkly as Master and
Servant twenty one years before, which brings us to number
one on Far Out Magazine's Best to B Sides, and
again a rather surprising choice given the exclusion of so

(15:25):
many other tracks. I mean, I'm looking at the list here.
I'll go through it in a moment. But when you
consider but not tonight again, happiest girls see of Sin
Now this is fun. Love that track as well. De
Land on this one was a head scratcher coming into
number one, though, is All That's Mine. Furthering gores Is

(15:50):
sonic reach towards southern blues and modular electro. Twenty thirteen's
Delta Machine tapped into Violator's guitar strum equallib with the
band's growing rack of synths for an album that flexed,
a band still full of ideas and furtive creative energy,
proving to be their last legitimate B sides. As a

(16:13):
remixes to Took Hold Heaven's flip side All That's Mine
sits as another welcome gone composition from his latter songwriting offerings.
It explores clarity and redemption with its poetic gift as
Gore's late life lyrical musings now. First off, it is

(16:36):
a rather interesting distinction, considering the Delta Machine gave us
the last of our B sides until we eventually get
those four unreleased tracks from a Mento Mori. However, the
band decides to go and label them and present them
once they're given to us in promotion of the Depeche
Mode film. M Be that as it may. While I
enjoyed this track, I certainly would not put it at

(16:58):
number one, and I don't even think it would have
land than on my top ten of Depeche Mode B sides.
As I mentioned before, how to See If Sin, Happiest
Girl and but Not Tonight not get any Love here,
including you Know Better Days in Newborn. Hated the artwork
that went along with a pain that I'm used to.
By the way, of which Newborn and I also believe

(17:18):
Better Days were both the B sides of the Lipstick
Spelling Out a Pain that I'm Used to I just
was not one of Anton Corbin's best works in my opinion.
But let's just run through the list here of all
of the B sides, and we've included some of these here.
But Set Me Free remote of eight Me fantastic track,

(17:39):
All That's Mine. We just mentioned it any second now,
that would probably end up on one of my top
ten lists. Better Days a track that I enjoy, especially
in its briefness or rather relatively short but punching depeche
Mode song that I feel stands up better than some
of it's sister tracks, Soothe My Soul being one of them.

(18:01):
Black Day interesting offering and riff off of Black Celebration
from Black Celebration Breathing in Fumes again similar A commentary
attached to that but not Tonight Classic, even though dismissed
by the band and frustration that they decided to go
with that as the single in the United States, Overstripped,

(18:22):
of which it was its B side, Dangerous mentioned Death's
Door fantastic track. Absolutely loved that one Dirt That's one
that never really sat well with me. I never quite
got into that cover. Flexible again, another track classic depeche Mode,
one that I remember fondly as a track that I

(18:44):
discovered in my young burgeoning fandom of the band Fly
on the Windscreen. We mentioned Fools Free, Happiest Girl, Ice
Machine in your Memory my Joy already mentioned Newborn. It's
funny because a couple of tracks on here. Now this
is fun Specifically, I didn't really key in on it

(19:06):
being a B side until much later in my depeche
Mode fandom, considering the fact that I listened to the
People Are People compilation at a young age thinking it
was a proper Depeche Mode album, having not really having
not dove in yet to the history of the band
to realize that it was an American made compilation of

(19:27):
which now this is fun I thought was just a
regular album track. Oh well, one of the first times
that Dave and Martin truly collaborated in Martin creating the
track and Dave going and putting the lyrics on top
of it. I quite liked that song Pleasure Little Treasure
we mentioned before Route sixty six see of Sin Shout,
another track that I love similar to the commentary to

(19:50):
now This is Fun, Surrender was mentioned, and work Hard
and again another B side that I absolutely adore. So
to get your thoughts. If you want to rank your
B sides, I'm happy to go and share those with
the rest of the listeners to the podcast on Netweek's
next week's episode. In the meantime, let's get to your

(20:12):
emails your listener feedback this week, Andrew Cooper writes this,
when I saw Martin Gore playing pickleball, I wondered whether
he won by three games to zero and then departed
saying I'm only here to beat you three love. I

(20:38):
don't know if I've ever heard like a Depeche Mode
wordplay joke before. That one was pretty good because I'm
only here to beat you three love. Ps. John, feel
free to use this on the next show. Oh I did,
Andrew happily. Let's make it clear beat you three love?

(21:04):
All right. Howard was the one who actually spawned the
inspiration for this week's podcast, and I've been holding onto
his email for quite a long time, he writes. It's
been a while, John, but I'm still enjoying your takes
on Depeche Mode and Star wars. I ran across this
article from just a few days ago when I was
wondering your thoughts on it. It was the far Out

(21:26):
magazine top ten Depeche Mode B sides. For me, I'd
say my top eight are this Now he went and
actually included some of the instrumentals as well, And maybe
it was cheating for me not to do that, but
that's what I did. Agent Orange Root sixty six mem
Fisto Collide, Dangerous Sea of Sin, Christmas Island and but

(21:46):
not Tonight. I love that Christmas Island beat to dig
that track. Hope you and the family are well, and
thank you for sharing your podcast with us very respectfully.
Howard Kempele Junior, thank you as always. Howard is great
to hear from you. Also. Glenn nineteen sixty five rode
in and says, hey, John, it has been so interesting
to hear other devotees dreams set lists. I had no

(22:09):
idea how hard it would be to select to so
few from such an expansive catalog. I have to say
I gave up. I think I read this last week,
but I'm reading it anyways again. My table is covered
with the fifty on the shortlist, looking forward to the
next topic. B side of choice is dangerous hands down.
The B side should have been on violator too. Yeah,
I'm pretty sure I read that last week, but so good,

(22:30):
I read it twice. Listen. That wraps up the show
for this for this week. As always, I thank you
so much for taking time to check out the show
and if you enjoy reading science fiction, if you like
watching science fiction movies. I wrote my science fiction series
Embark with Movies in mind wanting to know what it

(22:53):
was like to create my own space opera, science fiction
adventure like George lucas Din, of which I was a
fan of Star Wars, even a fan before I was
a fan of depeche Mode when I was five years old.
But I also wrote my books, and especially in Bark
Book one, I wrote it as if this was the
book of the movie that I was most excited to

(23:15):
go and see. That wasn't Star Wars. I said it
in the future twenty one seventy two, wherein air and
spaceflight travel has replaced car culture. It wasn't inspired in
part by depeche Mode, because depeche Mode is my life.
Life in the so called space age, the world we
live in in life in general. Depeche Mode does play

(23:38):
a large part of the underlying themes, where in Depeche
Mode's music has a lot to do with life in
and of itself right, the main character is actually a
massive depeche Mode fan at a time in the storytelling
of my books, the music of the eighties through the
two thousands is nostalgic and popular among the characters of
the story. They also feature rep trances to depeche Mode,

(24:01):
both direct and indirect, while telling and exciting science fiction
space opera. Saga After Earth Faces its End follow pilots
tap Keatha and their crew on a journey of survival
across the galaxy as they fight for their future. Far
from early listen it's a fast paced, action packed science

(24:22):
fiction adventure without an agenda. I hope you'll go to
Amazon dot com and purchase Embark Book one today. Seven
books in all in the series, available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, ebook,
and free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited again Amazon

(24:42):
dot com search for John Jo and Justice. Thank you
so much for checking out this week's episode. I'll be
back again next week. And I hope wherever you are
you are happy, You're healthy, you're safe, God bless and
I'll talk to you then back. Hello. This is Martin

(25:13):
Gore from depeche Mode. Hi, this is Dave Gone from
depeche Mode and you are listening to depeche Mode the
podcast My Narite the World

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Depeche Mode: the podcast - Ranking the Best B-Sides

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