Violator (1990)

Violator is the seventh studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 19 March 1990 by Mute Records internationally and by Sire and Reprise Records in the United States. It was produced by the band and Mark Ellis, professionally known as Flood. Tracks for the album were recorded in Milan, Gjerlev, and London, where the album was mixed by François Kevorkian.

Accompanied by the singles "Personal Jesus", "Enjoy the Silence", "Policy of Truth" and "World in My Eyes", the album propelled the band into international stardom. Violator reached number two on the UK Albums Chart and became the band's first album to chart inside the top 10 of the Billboard 200, peaking at number seven. The album was supported by the World Violation Tour.

As of 2006, the album was estimated to have sold over 7.5 million copies worldwide, making it Depeche Mode's best-selling album. Many previous producers, engineers and staff who have worked with Depeche Mode over the years have named Violator as their favorite Depeche Mode record. It has been included on several lists of the greatest albums of the 1990s, and of all time.

Background

Depeche Mode supported their previous album, Music for the Masses (1987), with the Music for the Masses Tour, which ran from late 1987 through mid-1988, and was documented on the live album 101, released in March 1989. Both Music for the Masses and 101 were successful and regarded as instrumental in propelling Depeche Mode into mainstream success in the United States, which up until that point had eluded them.

Music for the Masses had marked a turning point in both the band's sound and visual identity, with band member Alan Wilder's production influencing the music and Anton Corbijn's involvement in most of the accompanying music videos and promotional materials.

During a break after the Music for the Masses Tour had completed, band members Wilder and Martin Gore pursued their own solo projects, with Wilder releasing his Recoil project's album Hydrology (1988), and Gore releasing his debut solo recording, Counterfeit EP (1989).

Recording

Selecting a co-producer

In early 1989, Mute label owner and former co-producer with the band Daniel Miller suggested that the band reach out to Mark Ellis, known as "Flood", to help with their new material's production. Flood had some history with Depeche Mode, having remixed the B-side to their single "Shake the Disease" (1986) and producing Vince Clarke's Erasure band's two recent albums, Wonderland (1986) and The Circus (1987). Said Miller, "Flood is technically very good, very musical, and very open. He's not one of these: 'This is the way it has to be'. It’s more like: 'How can we do it differently?' He was in sync with the band's mentality – and my own." Gore and singer Dave Gahan both agreed that they wanted to work with a producer who would push them to produce their best music. Said Gahan, "We had reached a point [after Music for the Masses] where we couldn't go any further in that direction [of making music]. We knew we had to change our way of working. We had to go away and rethink everything." Said Wilder, "This scruffy, bespectacled, rather unlikely looking bloke rolled up, raided the fridge a couple of times, slouched down on the sofa, pontificated for a bit and thus – a new production team was born."

Pre-production and demos

After agreeing to work with Flood, Wilder met with him in London for some brief pre-production work. Said Wilder, "Usually we begin the making of a record by having extensive pre-production meetings where we decide what the record will actually sound like, then go into a programming studio. This time we decided to keep all pre-production to a minimum." After three weeks in London, the entire band flew to Milan, Italy, for a seven-week session at Logic Studios.

The band had asked Martin Gore, their main songwriter, to bring in simpler, less complete demos to give the band an opportunity to more fully collaborate and work in the studio. Said band member Andy Fletcher, "Over the years Martin's studio at home got progressively better and better so the demos he was producing and giving to us were very good quality. ... We were basically re-recording Martin's demos with better sounds, better production and Dave's [Gahan's] vocals." Gore agreed, saying "Over the last five years I think we'd perfected a formula; my demos, a month in a programming studio, etc. etc. We decided that our first record of the '90s ought to be different."