Number one for seven weeks from 11th July 1981
The camera on Top Of The Pops focuses on Simon Bates. He appears to be about to go into some kind of public announcement for the benefit of families at home, standing on command. Bates as a broadcaster never seemed to know how to express excitement for music, news or ideas, instead clinging purely to a Reithian idea of mature gravitas. His Bisto brown voice, perfect for piracy warnings on VHS rental tapes, also loaned their authority to subjects as diverse as teenage lost love and the unexpected death of partners on his “Our Tunes” segment, or occasionally irritated disappointment about an irresponsible act (such as the KLF trying to “ruin it for everyone else” at the Brit Awards).
In this case, he tells us that he’s going to introduce us to a new group. The last single of theirs, “Dreaming Of Me”, didn’t do “all that it might” (he sounds slightly pained as he says this) but this time it’s going to be different. That feels like a threat more than a promise, as if he’s almost daring us not to buy the record. It’s strange he should care so much – whatever else you want to say about Bates, he rarely threw his lot behind new bands.
It’s stranger still that the band he should pick would be Depeche Mode. On the surface, they were an unpromising long-term proposition. Despite press acclaim and a rapidly growing fanbase, Mode seemed inherently flawed, hemmed in by their limitations. While other synth-pop bands like Soft Cell, The Human League and Ultravox had major label budgets and carefully controlled imagery, Depeche were cash-strapped teenagers from Basildon on an indie label. They looked like New Romantics, but they weren’t carefully coiffured like Steve Strange or threateningly feminine like Phil Oakey, appearing more like hyperactive fashion students grabbing the first clothes they could afford off the sales rails. On their debut “Top Of The Pops” performance, you get the sense that they’re all trying to suppress grins (Vince Clarke is noticeably failing at points) and there’s a twitchy, antsy energy to them. Gary Numan performing “Are Friends Electric” this isn’t.
Their sound, too, lacked the gloss or technological sophistication of “Tainted Love” or “Don’t You Want Me”. Those songs showed that synthesisers could be used to portray heartbreak and complicated emotions in an eerie, detached and timelessly relatable way – anyone who is in the early throes of a painful break-up can probably relate more to the ominous digital backing of “Tainted Love” than the organic earnestness of one of Abba’s finest ballads (which tend to be the kind of resigned thing you turn to when the dust has almost settled). At this stage in their careers, however, Depeche Mode’s A-sides bubbled, bounced, pinged and ponged for all they were worth, with drum machines punching and snapping in a staccato way in the background.
“Dreaming Of Me” even featured oscillation in its instrumental break, recalling the Theremin experiments of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Joe Meek in previous decades. While it didn’t sound dated in 1981 to my ears, listening back to it now, recontextualising it against the moment it came out, it feels sonically a year or two behind its time, like a bunch of teens with Electronics magazine subscriptions mending and making do.
Sometimes, though, weaknesses can turn into strengths and limitations, self-imposed or otherwise, can create a sound which becomes a group’s early signature. Depeche Mode were lovable in those days precisely because they were new town dabblers. When Daniel Miller started the Mute label, he created a fictional group called The Silicon Teens to fulfil his as-yet unrealised fantasy of an adolescent pop group playing with affordable modern technology. The idea of kids using keyboards to express themselves fascinated him, but scanning the gig circuit and the demo tape pile for candidates, he found only mature(ish) twenty-somethings ready to fill that role. When Depeche Mode emerged, however, the Silicon Teens concept was retired and he threw himself wholesale into his new, real-life flesh and blood project.
The idea obviously didn’t just appeal to Miller. A bunch of kids lugging synths around on public transport to every promotional appointment was marketable and exciting to a novelty-chasing media as well - the future, after all, was about technology being accessible for us all - and the group had in Vince Clarke a great songwriter, and in Miller an astute producer. Clarke could pen memorable futuristic anthems, while Miller, almost operating in a Joe Meek role to begin with, knew how to make their bugs seem like features and their low budget sound appear punchy and current.
“New Life” is an extremely good example of this. The synths slide in angelically during the intro, only to duet with some dinstinctly Binitone ping-pong sounds. This repeats itself, building up tension, until there’s a low descending synth bass pattern and those “drums” kick in, as metronomically as ever. While they sound undeniably cheap, the reverb packed on to them gives them a pulsing, addictive kick – the first time I heard “New Life” on a Sony Walkman in 1984, it slapped against my ears far harder than many other more current sounds.
The song itself is, like the group at this point, a twitchy and excitable thing, never quite resting and getting busier as it goes past each chorus. By the time the vocal harmonies emerge two-thirds of the way in, the synths are twittering, constructing busier and flowerier doodles, sounding like an overgrown garden of electronic sounds. Most of the action creeps up on you unexpectedly and it’s a brilliantly sophisticated record for all its limitations. Already there’s slightly more going on here than many of their contemporaries were managing on double the budget.
Lyrically, it’s more questionable. Clarke appears to be trying to tap into the mysterious, film noir elements of the New Romantic scene, akin to Visage’s “Fade To Grey”. “I stand still, stepping on the shady streets” it begins promisingly (that use of alliteration to open the song is a fabulous pop move) setting us up for a story which never quite emerges. “Your features fuse and your shadow’s red/ Like a film I’ve seen now show me”? “The stranger in the door is the same as before/ so the question answers nowhere”? These lines feel like bogus riddles with potentially no meaning behind them, words wired together like fairy lights to sound bright but faintly dystopian.
I rarely lean on SongMeanings or other similar websites to try and identify song meanings, but one user called serkeloth makes a very interesting point about this - “Some time ago I read an article about ‘Operation: New Life’, which was a military operation in 1975 dedicated to transitioning large groups of Vietnam war refugees to western countries. I wouldn't expect this kind of reference from Vince's early lyrics, but suddenly the story of a stranger transitioned to another place where the features fuse and his shadow's red seems kinda fitting”.
Like serkeloth, I suspect this is all just a huge coincidence, but it’s a compelling one nonetheless. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter what “New Life” is about, anymore than it really matters what “Fade To Grey” or “Vienna” are about. All these songs were released in an era where, like psychedelia in the sixties, bands could get away with throwing the listener cryptic clues in lieu of coherent lyricism, provided the atmosphere allowed for it. In its own jittery way, “New Life” does allow for Clarke’s strange wordplay, though post-Depeche he appeared more keen on writing much more straightforward songs about human relationships (whether societal or romantic).
Some people reading this blog may not care about Depeche Mode, and may see “New Life” as fluff which doesn’t deserve the scrutiny it’s being given here, but I’d genuinely ask them to reconsider. Besides being superb pop, “New Life” is also indie as hell – it happened without the permission of the dominant music business at the time, was released by a man operating a label out of his house, and promoted by a teenage group without easy access to their own set of wheels. It’s the kind of innovation and talent the indie labels were made to nurture, and if it happened to be brilliant pop music as well, so much the better.
Obviously Simon Bates was right. This won’t be the last we hear of Depeche Mode.
This was the first hit single on Mute, which was formed by Daniel Miller in 1978 to release his single “TVOD/ Warm Leatherette” under the name The Normal. He then signed techno performance artist Fad Gadget and invented the Silicon Teens, who issued a single apiece on the label in 1979, before gradually building a roster of acts in the eighties.
Alongside Factory, Rough Trade and 4AD, Mute became one of the dominant indies of the eighties, having a clout which was often more impressive than the rest of the traditional music business’s boutique imprints.
In 2002 the label joined forces with EMI and its indie years sadly ended.
The Associates come straight in at number 12 on the week “New Life” reaches the top spot with “Q Quarters”, an uncomfortable listen which occasionally sounds like a sharp, piercing 1981 update of Roxy Music’s earliest sound. Unlike Depeche Mode, they would need to step away from an indie label to begin to make serious progress.
Punk hangers-on Chrongen also entered at 17 with the “Puppets of War” EP, which behaves as if the last four years haven’t happened with its Wiry snappiness.
Fellow (but more challenging) punks Crass also hang around the charts for a few weeks with “Nagasaki Nightmare”, while Hawkwind make a surprising appearance in the 25th July charts with an indie reissue of “Motorhead”.
There’s a whiff of what might have happened had Depeche Mode never existed as Flux Of Pink Indians sit at number 2 for four weeks with “Neu Smell”, a curious and presumably unintended tribal punk counterpoint to “New Life”.
Sometimes, though, weaknesses can turn into strengths and limitations, self-imposed or otherwise, can create a sound which becomes a group’s early signature. Depeche Mode were lovable in those days precisely because they were new town dabblers. When Daniel Miller started the Mute label, he created a fictional group called The Silicon Teens to fulfil his as-yet unrealised fantasy of an adolescent pop group playing with affordable modern technology. The idea of kids using keyboards to express themselves fascinated him, but scanning the gig circuit and the demo tape pile for candidates, he found only mature(ish) twenty-somethings ready to fill that role. When Depeche Mode emerged, however, the Silicon Teens concept was retired and he threw himself wholesale into his new, real-life flesh and blood project.
The idea obviously didn’t just appeal to Miller. A bunch of kids lugging synths around on public transport to every promotional appointment was marketable and exciting to a novelty-chasing media as well - the future, after all, was about technology being accessible for us all - and the group had in Vince Clarke a great songwriter, and in Miller an astute producer. Clarke could pen memorable futuristic anthems, while Miller, almost operating in a Joe Meek role to begin with, knew how to make their bugs seem like features and their low budget sound appear punchy and current.
“New Life” is an extremely good example of this. The synths slide in angelically during the intro, only to duet with some dinstinctly Binitone ping-pong sounds. This repeats itself, building up tension, until there’s a low descending synth bass pattern and those “drums” kick in, as metronomically as ever. While they sound undeniably cheap, the reverb packed on to them gives them a pulsing, addictive kick – the first time I heard “New Life” on a Sony Walkman in 1984, it slapped against my ears far harder than many other more current sounds.
The song itself is, like the group at this point, a twitchy and excitable thing, never quite resting and getting busier as it goes past each chorus. By the time the vocal harmonies emerge two-thirds of the way in, the synths are twittering, constructing busier and flowerier doodles, sounding like an overgrown garden of electronic sounds. Most of the action creeps up on you unexpectedly and it’s a brilliantly sophisticated record for all its limitations. Already there’s slightly more going on here than many of their contemporaries were managing on double the budget.
Lyrically, it’s more questionable. Clarke appears to be trying to tap into the mysterious, film noir elements of the New Romantic scene, akin to Visage’s “Fade To Grey”. “I stand still, stepping on the shady streets” it begins promisingly (that use of alliteration to open the song is a fabulous pop move) setting us up for a story which never quite emerges. “Your features fuse and your shadow’s red/ Like a film I’ve seen now show me”? “The stranger in the door is the same as before/ so the question answers nowhere”? These lines feel like bogus riddles with potentially no meaning behind them, words wired together like fairy lights to sound bright but faintly dystopian.
I rarely lean on SongMeanings or other similar websites to try and identify song meanings, but one user called serkeloth makes a very interesting point about this - “Some time ago I read an article about ‘Operation: New Life’, which was a military operation in 1975 dedicated to transitioning large groups of Vietnam war refugees to western countries. I wouldn't expect this kind of reference from Vince's early lyrics, but suddenly the story of a stranger transitioned to another place where the features fuse and his shadow's red seems kinda fitting”.
Like serkeloth, I suspect this is all just a huge coincidence, but it’s a compelling one nonetheless. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter what “New Life” is about, anymore than it really matters what “Fade To Grey” or “Vienna” are about. All these songs were released in an era where, like psychedelia in the sixties, bands could get away with throwing the listener cryptic clues in lieu of coherent lyricism, provided the atmosphere allowed for it. In its own jittery way, “New Life” does allow for Clarke’s strange wordplay, though post-Depeche he appeared more keen on writing much more straightforward songs about human relationships (whether societal or romantic).
Some people reading this blog may not care about Depeche Mode, and may see “New Life” as fluff which doesn’t deserve the scrutiny it’s being given here, but I’d genuinely ask them to reconsider. Besides being superb pop, “New Life” is also indie as hell – it happened without the permission of the dominant music business at the time, was released by a man operating a label out of his house, and promoted by a teenage group without easy access to their own set of wheels. It’s the kind of innovation and talent the indie labels were made to nurture, and if it happened to be brilliant pop music as well, so much the better.
Obviously Simon Bates was right. This won’t be the last we hear of Depeche Mode.
Trivia
This was the first hit single on Mute, which was formed by Daniel Miller in 1978 to release his single “TVOD/ Warm Leatherette” under the name The Normal. He then signed techno performance artist Fad Gadget and invented the Silicon Teens, who issued a single apiece on the label in 1979, before gradually building a roster of acts in the eighties.
Alongside Factory, Rough Trade and 4AD, Mute became one of the dominant indies of the eighties, having a clout which was often more impressive than the rest of the traditional music business’s boutique imprints.
In 2002 the label joined forces with EMI and its indie years sadly ended.
Away From the Number One Spot
The Associates come straight in at number 12 on the week “New Life” reaches the top spot with “Q Quarters”, an uncomfortable listen which occasionally sounds like a sharp, piercing 1981 update of Roxy Music’s earliest sound. Unlike Depeche Mode, they would need to step away from an indie label to begin to make serious progress.
Punk hangers-on Chrongen also entered at 17 with the “Puppets of War” EP, which behaves as if the last four years haven’t happened with its Wiry snappiness.
Fellow (but more challenging) punks Crass also hang around the charts for a few weeks with “Nagasaki Nightmare”, while Hawkwind make a surprising appearance in the 25th July charts with an indie reissue of “Motorhead”.
There’s a whiff of what might have happened had Depeche Mode never existed as Flux Of Pink Indians sit at number 2 for four weeks with “Neu Smell”, a curious and presumably unintended tribal punk counterpoint to “New Life”.
The indie charts for these weeks can be found over on the UKMix Forum.
Number Ones In "The Real World"
The Specials - "Ghost Town" (2 Tone)
Shakin' Stevens - "Green Door" (Epic)
They were the only band I recall on TotP who had their tape deck on stage with them, despite their use being quite common (for backing parts, drums etc.) I think during those early years of new wave electronica. I don’t know whether that was a deliberate part of that DIY aesthetic Miller was aspiring to, or not?
ReplyDeleteI believe that the reel-to-reel which appeared on stage with them mostly contained the drum patterns, and they put it up on the stage at live shows to prove they weren't hiding anything - of course, that wouldn't be necessary for a mimed appearance on Top of the Pops, but I suppose it had worked its way into the group as the fifth member at that point.
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