Artist: Depeche Mode
Album title: Some Great Reward
Year: 1984
Album link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5wfikaEZXnQTXWBZ5osw9A
I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, but "Some Great Reward" has been one of my absolute favorite albums for many, many years.
There's a very unique atmosphere to this album. I like the other, similar sounding Depeche Mode albums from this era, but this one just has that certain
something about it that even great albums like "Black Celebration" and "Music for the Masses" don't have. I mean, I love "Black Celebration" almost as much, but in a certain sort of way, it's not even close to digging as deep into my mind.
Listen to a song like "Lie to Me" (link below). I love absolutely every single detail in this track. It's sublime. The mellow melancholy of this track. Those dark bass lines. Those synths... Gorgeous!
Honestly, I might find that a few tracks here are a bit silly, but the album is so amazing for so much of the run time that I can live with songs like "People are People" and "Master and Servant".
I once watched a Depeche Mode documentary where I saw how they experimented with different sounds for this album. It's paid off in spades as there's a lot of interesting sonic textures all over this disc. My favorite track off the album, the closing track "Blasphemous Rumours", has some metallic rattling and distorted gargling voices. I saw in the documentary how Martin Gore dragged a metal rod through a metal window frame to create one of those sounds. The great thing is how the end result is a very catchy and melodic album and not just a collection of noise experiments by any stretch.
A couple of my favorite tracks, "Stories of Old" and "If You Want" are even sort of oddball. I feel like the former of the two is an unsung hero of the Depeche Mode discography. I just love everything about that song.
"Some Great Reward" is a great album with a few minor blemishes. I'd take a flawed diamond any time over a perfectly polished piece of glass, so I'm still going to insist that this album is truly great, despite how I think a couple of the songs are quite less than great.
No other album sounds or feels quite like this. I think that a lot of Depeche Mode albums are really good, but this one is at the very top for sure.
Highlights:
Lie to Me
Stories of Old
If You Want
Blasphemous Rumours
Favorite rating: ***/***