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Black Celebration
Black Celebration is the fifth studio album by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 17 March 1986 by Mute Records in the UK and Sire Records in the US. Recorded in London and West Berlin, it was produced by Depeche Mode, Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones. At the prompting of Miller, the band recorded the album using the "live the album" ethos inspired by the film director Werner Herzog, which led to considerable tension between the band and both Miller and Jones, resulting in neither being involved in the production of subsequent Depeche Mode albums.
The album was promoted by the singles "Stripped", "A Question of Lust", and "A Question of Time". In the US, "But Not Tonight" was released as a single instead of "Stripped". In support of the album, Depeche Mode embarked on the five-month-long Black Celebration Tour across Europe, North America, and Japan, which ran from early to mid-1986.
Black Celebration is considered by critics as the start of a four album series of well-regarded Depeche Mode albums, continuing with Music for the Masses (1987), Violator (1990) and Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993). Three years after its release, Spin ranked it as the 15th-greatest album of all time, and the UK's Radio X in 2011 cited it as one of the most influential albums of the 1980s. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor later cited Black Celebration as a source of inspiration for his album debut, Pretty Hate Machine (1989).
After touring through July 1985 in support of their previous album Some Great Reward (1984), Depeche Mode released two compilation albums in late 1985, The Singles 81→85 in the UK in October, and Catching Up with Depeche Mode in the US in November. Both albums included two new tracks which were both issued as singles, "Shake the Disease" (single released April 1985) and "It's Called a Heart" (single released September 1985). On a personal level, singer Dave Gahan married his partner Jo Fox, songwriter Martin Gore was still living in West Berlin with his girlfriend Christina Friedrich, and Andy Fletcher and Alan Wilder had moved in with their girlfriends, Grainne Mullen and Jeri Young, respectively, in London. However, after their exhausting year of touring and recording, the band found themselves at odds when they reunited. Tensions within the band and their producer Daniel Miller had already come up during recording sessions earlier that year for "Shake the Disease". Said Gahan, "If we were ever going to split up the band it was at the end of 1985. We were really in a state of turmoil. Constant arguing. Very intense. We weren't really sure where to go [musically] after Some Great Reward, so we decided to slow things down. But it left us with too much time on our hands. So we spent most of our time arguing. Sometimes, it seems incredible that we came out of that period with the band and our sanity intact." The inter-personal conflict within what was normally a tight-knit group led Gore to hide away with a friend at a farm for a week, with Gore later saying "I freaked out. I had to go away for a few days." Ultimately, the band agreed to reconvene in London in November to try to record their new material.
Depeche Mode entered Westside Studios in London in the first week of November 1985 to start recording their new album. In starting to work on the new album, producer Miller said that he "was a bit frustrated because [he] couldn't get the guys to think about working in different ways," and to that end, Miller asked the band to attend the studio every day to work on the production to "live the album", wanting "a kind of intensity". Miller was inspired by the history of German film director Werner Herzog, saying that Herzog had made historical films "and [the people involved in production of the movies] really lived the films, and it was a very intense way of working." The band agreed to this approach, and Gore moved back to London from West Germany, where he had been living since the Some Great Reward recording sessions of 1983–84.
Typical of Depeche Mode's previous few albums, Gore arrived at the sessions with demos of new songs for the album, and, determined to make their new album "a lot heavier, harder and darker [than their previous album]", brought in demos that were less structured and formal than he had in the past. Miller and the band's label, Mute Records, upon hearing the demos, were concerned about the morbid, slow demos, and worried that they lacked any radio-friendly singles. After a week-long standoff, Miller and the label relented, allowing the band to "make the record you want to make." This stand-off preceded a tense 120 days in the studio, with the band and producers working 14 hours a day to complete the album, with few days off. Adding to the tension was that both Miller and Gareth Jones returned in their production roles from the band's previous album, but alongside them was now Alan Wilder, who had grown into production responsibilities for their music over the past few years. With three co-producers sharing space at the production desk, Miller said "Alan [Wilder] was becoming very adept in that studio-bod role which I'd filled before. That left my own position less defined but I still had a very strong point of view. I think that created a lot of tension." In addition, the entire group worked under tight timelines, intending to finish recording and mixing all their material, as well as completing all artwork for their album and singles, by Christmas 1985, although they missed this deadline and ended up working into the first few months of 1986. Years later, Miller remembered that the Black Celebration sessions "turned in a nightmare ... There was definitely tension in the studio" as a result of the "live the album" ethos of recording. Alan Wilder said that the way the album was made, combined with Miller's brooding and Gore's dark songs, resulted in an "underlying darkness" in the material they created. In an attempt to cope with the stress of the album's production, the band and production crew smoked a lot of marijuana while recording the album, and this instilled a feeling of paranoia in the sessions.
The band continued to use new, bespoke sampled sounds while recording Black Celebration, fed into the Synclavier the band had used on their previous two albums. Andy Fletcher said "we had this theory at the time that every sound must be different and you must never use the same sound twice."
By the end of their recording sessions, the band and producers Jones and Miller had moved back to Hansa Studios in West Berlin, where they had recorded and mixed parts of their previous two albums. In partially explaining the move back to Berlin, singer Dave Gahan said the reason was "the atmosphere. There are no distractions [here at Hansa] like in London. I can't work in England anymore." Despite all the tension, Wilder later said that "the album's claustrophobic feel was probably down to the tension. I think it did add a chemistry to the sound of the record, more than any others we have done. It's one of my favourite records we have ever made."
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Black Celebration
Black Celebration is the fifth studio album by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 17 March 1986 by Mute Records in the UK and Sire Records in the US. Recorded in London and West Berlin, it was produced by Depeche Mode, Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones. At the prompting of Miller, the band recorded the album using the "live the album" ethos inspired by the film director Werner Herzog, which led to considerable tension between the band and both Miller and Jones, resulting in neither being involved in the production of subsequent Depeche Mode albums.
The album was promoted by the singles "Stripped", "A Question of Lust", and "A Question of Time". In the US, "But Not Tonight" was released as a single instead of "Stripped". In support of the album, Depeche Mode embarked on the five-month-long Black Celebration Tour across Europe, North America, and Japan, which ran from early to mid-1986.
Black Celebration is considered by critics as the start of a four album series of well-regarded Depeche Mode albums, continuing with Music for the Masses (1987), Violator (1990) and Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993). Three years after its release, Spin ranked it as the 15th-greatest album of all time, and the UK's Radio X in 2011 cited it as one of the most influential albums of the 1980s. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor later cited Black Celebration as a source of inspiration for his album debut, Pretty Hate Machine (1989).
After touring through July 1985 in support of their previous album Some Great Reward (1984), Depeche Mode released two compilation albums in late 1985, The Singles 81→85 in the UK in October, and Catching Up with Depeche Mode in the US in November. Both albums included two new tracks which were both issued as singles, "Shake the Disease" (single released April 1985) and "It's Called a Heart" (single released September 1985). On a personal level, singer Dave Gahan married his partner Jo Fox, songwriter Martin Gore was still living in West Berlin with his girlfriend Christina Friedrich, and Andy Fletcher and Alan Wilder had moved in with their girlfriends, Grainne Mullen and Jeri Young, respectively, in London. However, after their exhausting year of touring and recording, the band found themselves at odds when they reunited. Tensions within the band and their producer Daniel Miller had already come up during recording sessions earlier that year for "Shake the Disease". Said Gahan, "If we were ever going to split up the band it was at the end of 1985. We were really in a state of turmoil. Constant arguing. Very intense. We weren't really sure where to go [musically] after Some Great Reward, so we decided to slow things down. But it left us with too much time on our hands. So we spent most of our time arguing. Sometimes, it seems incredible that we came out of that period with the band and our sanity intact." The inter-personal conflict within what was normally a tight-knit group led Gore to hide away with a friend at a farm for a week, with Gore later saying "I freaked out. I had to go away for a few days." Ultimately, the band agreed to reconvene in London in November to try to record their new material.
Depeche Mode entered Westside Studios in London in the first week of November 1985 to start recording their new album. In starting to work on the new album, producer Miller said that he "was a bit frustrated because [he] couldn't get the guys to think about working in different ways," and to that end, Miller asked the band to attend the studio every day to work on the production to "live the album", wanting "a kind of intensity". Miller was inspired by the history of German film director Werner Herzog, saying that Herzog had made historical films "and [the people involved in production of the movies] really lived the films, and it was a very intense way of working." The band agreed to this approach, and Gore moved back to London from West Germany, where he had been living since the Some Great Reward recording sessions of 1983–84.
Typical of Depeche Mode's previous few albums, Gore arrived at the sessions with demos of new songs for the album, and, determined to make their new album "a lot heavier, harder and darker [than their previous album]", brought in demos that were less structured and formal than he had in the past. Miller and the band's label, Mute Records, upon hearing the demos, were concerned about the morbid, slow demos, and worried that they lacked any radio-friendly singles. After a week-long standoff, Miller and the label relented, allowing the band to "make the record you want to make." This stand-off preceded a tense 120 days in the studio, with the band and producers working 14 hours a day to complete the album, with few days off. Adding to the tension was that both Miller and Gareth Jones returned in their production roles from the band's previous album, but alongside them was now Alan Wilder, who had grown into production responsibilities for their music over the past few years. With three co-producers sharing space at the production desk, Miller said "Alan [Wilder] was becoming very adept in that studio-bod role which I'd filled before. That left my own position less defined but I still had a very strong point of view. I think that created a lot of tension." In addition, the entire group worked under tight timelines, intending to finish recording and mixing all their material, as well as completing all artwork for their album and singles, by Christmas 1985, although they missed this deadline and ended up working into the first few months of 1986. Years later, Miller remembered that the Black Celebration sessions "turned in a nightmare ... There was definitely tension in the studio" as a result of the "live the album" ethos of recording. Alan Wilder said that the way the album was made, combined with Miller's brooding and Gore's dark songs, resulted in an "underlying darkness" in the material they created. In an attempt to cope with the stress of the album's production, the band and production crew smoked a lot of marijuana while recording the album, and this instilled a feeling of paranoia in the sessions.
The band continued to use new, bespoke sampled sounds while recording Black Celebration, fed into the Synclavier the band had used on their previous two albums. Andy Fletcher said "we had this theory at the time that every sound must be different and you must never use the same sound twice."
By the end of their recording sessions, the band and producers Jones and Miller had moved back to Hansa Studios in West Berlin, where they had recorded and mixed parts of their previous two albums. In partially explaining the move back to Berlin, singer Dave Gahan said the reason was "the atmosphere. There are no distractions [here at Hansa] like in London. I can't work in England anymore." Despite all the tension, Wilder later said that "the album's claustrophobic feel was probably down to the tension. I think it did add a chemistry to the sound of the record, more than any others we have done. It's one of my favourite records we have ever made."