People Are People (album)
People Are People is a Depeche Mode compilation album released in North America by Sire Records on 2 July 1984. Sire sensed it needed a new approach in its release policy since the band's 1983 effort Construction Time Again had failed to chart in the US. Two of the nine tracks were new to the American audience: the latest single "People Are People" and "Now, This Is Fun", the B-side of the non-American 7" "See You", it was the first time that the 7" versions of "Leave in Silence" and "Get the Balance Right!" were released in the United States. The album version of "Love, in Itself" was selected for this compilation, but with a "clean" ending, since on Construction Time Again the track fades into "More Than a Party"; the album was released in July 1984 to little notice. It re-entered the charts and sold better, when the title track became a summer hit in 1985; the album was certified Gold by the RIAA for shipments of half a million copies. Its success led to the release of yet another compilation album in late 1985: Catching Up with Depeche Mode.
The album was released on LP and CD with the band name and album name missing from the album cover. These names were added to the covers for re-releases. A poster for the album appears on the bedroom wall toward the end of John Hughes's Weird Science. Allmusic were mixed in their reception to the album, rating the album two and a half stars out of five. All songs written by Martin Gore, except for ` Work Hard', written by Alan Wilder. All songs sung by David Gahan, except'Pipeline', sung by Martin Gore. Album information from the official Depeche Mode web site
Andy Fletcher (musician)
Andrew John Leonard Fletcher, popularly known as "Fletch", is an English keyboard player and one of the founding members of the electronic band Depeche Mode. In the late 1970s, Fletcher and schoolmate Vince Clarke formed the short-lived band No Romance in China, in which Fletcher played bass guitar. In 1980, Fletcher met Martin Gore at the Van Gogh Pub on Paycocke Road in Basildon. With Clarke, the trio, now all on synthesizer, formed. Clarke served as chief songwriter and provided lead vocals until singer Dave Gahan was recruited into the band that year, after which they adopted the name Depeche Mode at Gahan's suggestion. Clarke left the group shortly after the release of their debut album Speak & Spell, their 1982 follow-up album, A Broken Frame, was recorded as a trio, with Gore taking over primary songwriting duties. Musician & producer Alan Wilder joined the band in late 1982 and the group continued as a quartet until Wilder's departure in 1995. Since the core trio of Gahan and Fletcher have remained active, most with the release of their 2017 album Spirit and ensuing world tour.
Fletcher's role within Depeche Mode has been a topic of speculation. In early incarnations of the band, he played bass; as the band evolved after Vince Clarke's departure in 1981, Fletcher's role changed as each of the band members took to the areas that suited them and benefited the band collectively. In a key scene in D. A. Pennebaker's 1989 documentary film about the band, Fletcher clarifies these roles: "Martin's the songwriter, Alan's the good musician, Dave's the vocalist, I bum around." In his review of 2005's Playing the Angel, long after Wilder's departure from the band, Rolling Stone writer Gavin Edwards riffed upon Fletcher's statement with the opening line: "Depeche Mode's unique division of labor has been long established, with each of the three remaining members having a distinct role: Martin Gore writes the songs, Dave Gahan sings them and Andy Fletcher shows up for photo shoots and cashes the checks." Fletcher is the only member of the band. Fletcher continues to play a critical role within the band.
With the band having not always employed a full-time manager, Fletcher has handled many of the band's business and other non-musical interests over the years. In the EPK for Songs of Faith and Devotion, he discussed being genuinely interested in many of the business aspects of the music industry that other performing musicians shy away from, as such, he took over a lot of the business management aspects of the band. In recent years, this has included acting as the band's "spokesperson", with Fletcher being the one to announce Depeche Mode news, he is said to be the member, "the tiebreaker" and the one that "brings the band together". According to interviews, Fletcher built the compromise between Gahan and Gore that settled their serious dispute following 2001's Exciter album and tour over future songwriting duties within Depeche Mode. In the studio and during live shows, Fletcher does contribute a variety of supporting synthesizer parts, including bass parts, pads and drone sounds, various samples.
However, he is notably the only member of Depeche Mode. Although he can be seen singing in videos of Depeche's past live performances Fletcher's vocals were either mixed low or heard only through his own stage monitors. From the band's 2013/14 Delta Machine Tour to the present, vocal mics are no longer present on his keyboard station. On studio recordings, Fletcher's supporting vocals can be heard in some form or another on the majority of all Depeche Mode albums released since 1981. According to anecdotes from various members of Depeche Mode, an Andy Fletcher "solo album" entitled Toast Hawaii was recorded in Berlin during the Some Great Reward sessions in 1984. According to these anecdotes, all the songs on the "album" are cover songs on which Fletcher sings lead vocals; the "album" features Alan Wilder and/or Martin Gore on piano, with an album cover photo by Wilder. The story goes that Gore & Wilder presented the album to Mute Records' Daniel Miller and pleaded for him to release it. In reality, this "solo album" is certainly an in-joke, although it is not unlikely that during studio "downtime" from serious work, a diversion could have been making humorous recordings.
In 2002, Fletcher launched his own record label, a Mute Records imprint called Toast Hawaii and signed the band CLIEИT. He coordinated the recording of their eponymous 2003 debut and 2004's City and produced "extended remixes" for their subsequent singles "Price of Love," "Rock and Roll Machine," "Here and Now," "In It for the Money," "Radio" and "Pornography". CLIEИT left the label in 2006 and no further activity with the Toast Hawaii label has occurred or been announced to date. To support CLIEИT's live shows, Fletcher began touring as a DJ; when he is on hiatus from Depeche Mode, Fletcher plays occasional festivals and club gigs in Europe, South America and "places where Depeche Mode haven't visited or been able to visit" and is known to include various exclusive Depeche remixes in his sets. A notable DJ set of Fletcher's from 2011 in Warsaw has been bootlegged. In late 2015, Fletcher embarked on a small tour of European clubs. Fletcher is the eldest of four siblings born to John Fletcher.
The family moved to Basildon from Nottingham when Fletcher wa
A Broken Frame
A Broken Frame is the second studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 27 September 1982 by Mute Records. The album was written by Martin Gore and recorded after the departure of Vince Clarke, who had left to form Yazoo with singer Alison Moyet. Alan Wilder was part of a second band tour in the United Kingdom prior to the release of A Broken Frame, but he had not joined yet and does not appear on the album. Writing in Smash Hits, Peter Silverton observed that A Broken Frame, in contrast to the group's early post-Vince singles which he thought showed "a lack of purpose", "makes a virtue of their tinkly-bonk whimsy". In contrast, Melody Maker wrote that, although "ambitious and bold", "A Broken Frame – as its name suggests – marks the end of a beautiful dream", a comment on the departure of main songwriter and electronics genius Vince Clarke. Reviewer Steve Sutherland considered the songs "daft aspirations to art", the album's musical and thematic "larcenies" sounding like "puerile infatuations papering over anonymity".
At the same time, Sutherland acknowledges that the group's increasing complexity "sounds less the result of exterior persuasion than an understandable, natural development", although he concludes that Depeche Mode remain "essentially vacuous". The comments of Noise! magazine's'DH' showed greater prescience.'DH' said that the album "falls together well and shows we can expect a lot more from the clean cut quartet", adding "t times it reaches high points far exceeding their first album."In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Ned Raggett described A Broken Frame as "a notably more ambitious effort than the pure pop/disco of the band's debut" with much of the album "forsaking earlier sprightliness... for more melancholy reflections about love gone wrong". He adds: "More complex arrangements and juxtaposed sounds, such as the sparkle of breaking glass in "Leave in Silence", help give this underrated album more of an intriguing, unexpected edge."In 1990, while promoting their album Violator, songwriter Martin Gore lamented parts of the album, saying, "I regret all that sickly boy-next-door stuff of the early days... musically A Broken Frame was a mish-mash".
Despite being a photograph, the cover artwork is intended to resemble a painting. It depicts a woman cutting grain in an East Anglian field, near Duxford in Cambridgeshire, it was taken by Brian Griffin using a mixture of artificial lighting. Griffin cited as inspirations the socialist realism of Soviet Russia the work of Kazimir Malevich, German Romanticism. Griffin has displayed on his website a gallery of alternative images from the same shoot. Releases of the album on vinyl and compact disc feature different takes of the shot, it was featured on the cover of Life's 1990 edition of "World's Best Photographs 1980–1990". All tracks written by Martin Gore; some original US CD copies of the album tacked the intro of "The Sun & the Rainfall" onto the end of "Shouldn't Have Done That", making the duration of "The Sun & the Rainfall" 4:54. Dave Gahan sings lead vocals on all songs except "Shouldn't Have Done That", a duet with Gore. "Nothing to Fear" and "Further Excerpts From: My Secret Garden" are instrumental.
Disc one is a hybrid SACD/CD with a multi-channel SACD layer. The track listing is identical to the 1982 UK release, except "Satellite", 4:43 long and contains a slight edit, or error, at the beginning of the track. Disc two is a DVD which includes A Broken Frame in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo plus bonus material. Additional material "Depeche Mode 1982" Credits for adapted from the liner notes of A Broken Frame. In 2015, Greek synth-pop duo Marsheaux released a complete cover version of A Broken Frame on Undo Records. While the reviewer for Release Magazine wrote that this version was not "anything essential" but well done, other reviews were more detailed; the Electricity Club found influences of And One in the cover of "The Sun & the Rainfall" and concluded that Marsheaux had "used unconventional sounds and vocals to make this record their own". Reviews from Germany noted that Marsheaux had elaborated on the assets and downsides of the original release. According to Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the kitschy sides of the early Depeche Mode album were deliberately uncovered in tracks like "The Meaning of Love", while the Sonic Seducer lauded Marsheaux's darker and slower interpretation of this song.
Album information from the official Depeche Mode website Official remaster info
Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
Record producer
A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performer's music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has varying roles during the recording process, they may gather musical ideas for the project, collaborate with the artists to select cover tunes or original songs by the artist/group, work with artists and help them to improve their songs, lyrics or arrangements. A producer may also: Select session musicians to play rhythm section accompaniment parts or solos Co-write Propose changes to the song arrangements Coach the singers and musicians in the studioThe producer supervises the entire process from preproduction, through to the sound recording and mixing stages, and, in some cases, all the way to the audio mastering stage; the producer may perform these roles themselves, or help select the engineer, provide suggestions to the engineer. The producer may pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record label's budget.
A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording and production of a band or performer's music. A producer has many roles that may include, but are not limited to, gathering ideas for the project, composing the music for the project, selecting songs or session musicians, proposing changes to the song arrangements, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, supervising the entire process through audio mixing and, in some cases, to the audio mastering stage. Producers often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules and negotiations. Writer Chris Deville explains it, "Sometimes a producer functions like a creative consultant — someone who helps a band achieve a certain aesthetic, or who comes up with the perfect violin part to complement the vocal melody, or who insists that a chorus should be a bridge. Other times a producer will build a complete piece of music from the ground up and present the finished product to a vocalist, like Metro Boomin supplying Future with readymade beats or Jack Antonoff letting Taylor Swift add lyrics and melody to an otherwise-finished “Out Of The Woods.”The artist of an album may not be a record producer or music producer for his/her album.
While both contribute creatively, the official credit of "record producer" may depend on the record contract. Christina Aguilera, for example, did not receive record producer credits until many albums into her career. In the 2010s, the producer role is sometimes divided among up to three different individuals: executive producer, vocal producer and music producer. An executive producer oversees project finances, a vocal producers oversees the vocal production, a music producer oversees the creative process of recording and mixings; the music producer is often a competent arranger, musician or songwriter who can bring fresh ideas to a project. As well as making any songwriting and arrangement adjustments, the producer selects and/or collaborates with the mixing engineer, who takes the raw recorded tracks and edits and modifies them with hardware and software tools to create a stereo or surround sound "mix" of all the individual voices sounds and instruments, in turn given further adjustment by a mastering engineer for the various distribution media.
The producer oversees the recording engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as "the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record", like a director would a movie. Indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation is music director; the music producer's job is to create and mold a piece of music. The scope of responsibility may be one or two songs or an artist's entire album – in which case the producer will develop an overall vision for the album and how the various songs may interrelate. At the beginning of record industry, the producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live; the immediate predecessors to record producers were the artists and repertoire executives of the late 1920s and 1930s who oversaw the "pop" product and led session orchestras. That was the case of Ben Selvin at Columbia Records, Nathaniel Shilkret at Victor Records and Bob Haring at Brunswick Records.
By the end of the 1930s, the first professional recording studios not owned by the major companies were established separating the roles of A&R man and producer, although it wouldn't be until the late 1940s when the term "producer" became used in the industry. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1960s due to technology; the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously. All of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio where the performance was recorded. With multitrack recording, the "bed tracks" (rhythm section accompaniment parts such as the bassline and rhythm guitar could be recorded first, the vocals and solos could be added using as many "takes" as necessary, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. A pop band could record their backing tracks one week, a horn section could be brought in a week to add horn shots and punches, a string section could be brought in a week after that.
Multitrack recording had another pro
Mute Records
Mute Records Ltd. is a British independent record label owned and founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller. It has featured several prominent musical acts on its roster, such as Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget, Grinderman, Inspiral Carpets, New Order, Nitzer Ebb, Yeasayer, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, M83. During 1978, Daniel Miller began recording music using synthesisers under the name The Normal, he recorded the tracks "T. V. O. D." and "Warm Leatherette", distributed them through Rough Trade Shops under the label name Mute Records. The label was formed just to release the one single. "T. V. O. D." / "Warm Leatherette" became. "Warm Leatherette" was covered by Grace Jones and Chicks on Speed as well as Rose McDowell. After meeting Robert Rental, Miller began playing live as Robert Rental & The Normal. In 1979 the band went on tour supporting the punk band Stiff Little Fingers, which had just released an album, being distributed by Rough Trade. In 1980, Miller released the single, "Kebab-Träume", by the German band Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, who had moved to London.
The band's 1980 album, Die Kleinen und die Bösen, was the first album released by the new label. The album had the catalogue prefix "STUMM", a play on the record label's name, meaning "mute" in German; this prefix would continue to be used through most of the label's album catalogue. In 1980, Miller recorded and released the cover single, "Memphis Tennessee", under the name Silicon Teens; the band was Miller’s realisation of a dream Mute Records group, whose main instruments were synthesisers. In mid-1980, Mute Records released the Silicon Teens' album, titled Music For Parties. Around this time the artist Fad Gadget had begun recording new demos, including the track "Back To Nature"; this was released as a single in 1980, followed by the next single "Ricky's Hand" and the album Fireside Favourites recorded at Blackwing Studios. September 1980 saw the release of the double-holed, multi-speed 7" single by Non & Smegma, one of the first experimental noise releases from the label. Boyd Rice went on to release several more recordings with Mute Records.
After touring with Daniel Miller as Robert Rental & The Normal, Robert Rental released his only Mute Records single, "Double Heart", a rare, remaining trace of this late electronic music pioneer. Miller approached Depeche Mode in 1980, after seeing them perform in London, wanting them to record a single for his label. Emerging out of the British electronic pop scene, Depeche Mode asserted themselves as a radio-friendly pop group, had hits with their next three singles, including the UK top ten single, "Just Can't Get Enough", their loyalty to Mute was reciprocated by the label’s rapid expansion to cope with their success. In defiance of the major record labels predictions of failure, Depeche Mode became a successful charting band worldwide; the band's consistency was unbroken by the departure of principal songwriter Vince Clarke. Martin Gore took over the main songwriting role, opening the band up to different influences and sustaining their creativity as a band. Mute continued to support other experimental artists, such as NON, releasing an album of Boyd Rice's pre-NON recordings, titled Boyd Rice.
1982 began with the release of the 12-inch single, "Rise", by Boyd Rice, released under the name NON. Fad Gadget released his third album for the label, titled Under the Flag, influenced by the current Falklands War and the feeling of being British in the most unseemly of times; the album spawned the singles "For Whom the Bells Toll" and "Life on the Line". Mute Record's big commercial success of 1982 was the band Yazoo, the duo of Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet. After leaving Depeche Mode, Clarke had set up a studio in the Blackwing Studios complex, where he recorded the singles "Only You" and "Don’t Go"; that year, Mute licensed the single, "Fred Vom Jupiter", from the German record label Atatak. The track was recorded by Andreas Dorau and the schoolgirl Marinas. From Germany was the single, "Los Ninos Del Parque", by Liaisons Dangereuses released by Mute. Liaisons Dangereuses included Chrislo Hass, in the German band DAF. After returning from a world tour in 1983, Depeche Mode released the industrial-influenced hit single "Everything Counts".
Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, of the band Wire, teamed up with Daniel Miller to form a project known as Duet Emmo, an anagram of Mute and Dome. They released an album and 12-inch single, both titled Or So It Seems. Miller secured the rights to the back catalogue of the experimental bands Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Richard H. KirkDuring 1983, the Australian band The Birthday Party transferred from 4AD to Mute Records; the band broke up after releasing their final 12-inch EP, "Mutiny". Birthday Party's singer, Nick Cave, stayed with Mute and released his debut single as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; the single was a cover of the song, "In the Ghetto", by Mac Davis made famous by Elvis Presley. Yazoo disbanded. Vince Clarke began working at Blackwing Studios under the name The Assembly; the project's first single, "Never Never", was a hit. D. A. F. Split up, in 1983, ex-member Robert Görl released the single "Mit Dir" on Mute, he recorded the album, Night Full of Tension, the following year, including the single "Darling Don’t Leave Me", featuring Annie Lennox.
In 1984, Depeche Mode had one of their biggest hits in the UK with the single "People Are People". Their album that year, Some Great
