Protest, but with dancing

Depeche Mode was presented in Berlin "Spirit", its first political album

On Friday, March 17, Depeche Mode released a new Spirit album - the first political record in its history. On the same day, the group performed in Berlin at a small (compared to the usual stadiums for Depeche Mode), where it was impossible to buy a ticket. Medusa journalist Pavel Borisov listened carefully to the album, visited his presentations in Berlin and talks about his impressions.

Already in the first song “Spirit”, the leader of depeche mode Dave Gaan reports that the world is rolling to hell, and in the second asks where the revolution is. According to the author of almost all Depeche Mode songs, Martin Gora, he came up with the material for the record in 2015 - but Spirit looks like a reaction to all world shocks at once, from Brexit and to the election of Donald Trump by the president of the United States. And at the same time - as an indictment of those who allowed it.

The album is presented by a long list of slogans from the liberal march; He is straightforward and simple, devoid of allegorical and hidden meanings. Depeche Mode has never been famous for its ornate; The best songs of this group are so popular all over the world in many ways because any person who has at least a little studied English at school will understand them. However, the simplicity of the album “Spirit” (with the level of the level “Your rights violated, your views rejected”) is excessive; Such frontal techniques are good in hardcore, while in the performance of the romantic baritone Gaan sound naively.

Nevertheless, “Spirit” is perhaps the first “Exceter” album DM, which is interesting to listen to the end; If you skip a completely superfluous and pale “Eternal” performed by Martin Gora. As for the sound, a return to the reference synthesizer sound happened, and this is undoubtedly virtue.

The fact that does not work in the record often looks excellently alive, especially for protest songs. What are the new, angry depeche mode, could be understood directly on the day of the release of the album, not only in the relatively small (capacity of about a thousand people) Berlin club Funkhaus, where they made a presentation for the elect. DM in such modest halls play infrequently: this is a stadium group, in popularity quite comparable with the U2, Muse and other teams that invariably collect tens of thousands of people.

Tickets were not sold to the Berlin performance (they were played at the international competition; several people came from Russia), but it was broadcast on the Internet. Labobe Sony Music organized parties for fans with viewing the concert live in many cities of the world, including Moscow. In general, the preparation was thorough.

The performance, which was expected as intimate, turned out to be the usual Depeche Mode show, and quite short - only 11 songs, a little less than an hour; And only four of them were with a new album. Fresh material turned out to be the main failure of the presentation.

Depeche Mode has always been a good concert group: they have not released breakthrough albums for a long time, the last big hits (Freelove, Dream ON) were released 16 years ago - but the mountains, Gaan and Andy Fletcher invariably arranged outstanding shows for three decades; For this, they forgave them frankly boring albums of recent years. Nevertheless, with the Spirit program there is a serious problem. The album demonstrates the political ambitions that are not characteristic of the group - but what to do with them on the stage, the group is incomprehensible.

In the first song at the performance, Dave Gaan first sings how the world flies into tartarara, and then shows its company dance - turns his back to the hall and sexually moves the backwards. It is as if Bono made erotic movements to the hips during Sunday Bloody Sunday - spectacular, but inappropriate. He performs the song “Wereʼs your revolution” with the same passion as the BDSM gym of “Master and Servant”, although least in this case you are waiting for charged sexuality. The gap between what the mountains wrote and by the fact that Gaan sings is eventually planned to be dramatic.

Gaan has always been like this: he is a sex symbol, who agreed that many love him for his appearance and charisma, and not for an outstanding voice. However, this does not work with songs on the anger of the day. The main protest album in 2017 will certainly appear, only its authors will definitely not be Depeche Mode.

Pavel Borisov, Berlin

Medusa journalist visited the Depeche Mode concert in Berlin at the invitation of Sony Music Entertainment Russia