Music for the Masses (1987)

Music for the Masses is the sixth studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 28 September 1987 by Mute Records in the United Kingdom and Sire Records in the United States. The follow-up to their successful album Black Celebration (1986), it was co-produced by Depeche Mode and David Bascombe. Recorded in Paris and London and mixed in Denmark, it was the first Depeche Mode album to see band member Alan Wilder take control of the production.

The album marked a turning point in the band's sound, blending dark, introspective themes with expansive production. Its release also marked a shift in visual identity, with Anton Corbijn's involvement in music videos and promotional materials helping to redefine the band's aesthetic. Music for the Masses was considered instrumental in helping the band achieve chart success and popularity in the US, which up until then had eluded them. It reached number 10 in the UK, number 35 in the US and number 2 in West Germany. Certified platinum in the US in 1991, it was estimated in 2023 that it had sold over 5.5 million copies globally.

Music for the Masses was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2006) and Slant Magazine's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s. The title and songs inspired the tribute album For the Masses (1998), which itself had chart success in both the US and Germany.

The album spawned four successful singles, "Strangelove", "Never Let Me Down Again", "Behind the Wheel", and "Little 15", all of which charted in the top 10 in charts in various regions around the world. It was supported by the 1987–1988 Music for the Masses Tour, which helped to further launch their fame in the United States when they performed at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California to over 70,000 fans, captured in the live album and video documentary 101 (1989).

Background

Depeche Mode had released their fifth album Black Celebration in early 1986, followed up with a supporting tour which lasted through the middle of that year, and contributed the song "But Not Tonight" to the soundtrack to the film Modern Girls (1986). While the album and tour were the band's most successful to date, they were still considered outsiders to mainstream music.

By the time the group entered the studio in late 1986 to record Music for the Masses, singer Dave Gahan and his wife Jo Fox Gahan were expecting their first child, and songwriter Martin Gore had moved back to London from West Berlin after ending his relationship with his girlfriend of four years, Christina Friedrich.

Recording

Production

Following the end of their Black Celebration Tour, Depeche Mode reconvened in the second half of 1986 to begin production of their new album. During previous recording sessions in 1985 for the single "Shake the Disease" and early 1986 for the album Black Celebration, tensions had grown between Daniel Miller, their long-time producer and label manager, and the band, due to interpersonal conflicts and the claustrophobic nature of the sessions. Citing those tensions and his own increased workload with Mute Records, Miller stepped away from the studio, and as such was not involved in the production of a Depeche Mode album for the first time since the Speak & Spell sessions in 1981. Similarly, Gareth Jones, who had worked with Depeche Mode as a producer on their previous two albums — and another source of tension over the previous two years — was also not involved in production for Music for the Masses. Band member Alan Wilder was effectively the third music producer for Black Celebration, alongside Miller and Jones; his role grew naturally out of his own interests in production and recording, and none of the other members of Depeche Mode had shown any interest in that aspect of creating albums. Despite this, collectively the band elected to find a new outside producer to aid in recording the album, and after talking to a few candidates, they offered the role to David Bascombe, who had previously worked as a recording engineer with Peter Gabriel on his song "Sledgehammer" (1986) and with Tears for Fears on their album Songs from the Big Chair (1985).

Demos

Songwriter Gore had written his demos at his London home on an Akai synthesiser. Bascombe, after accepting the band's offer, met with them at Wilder's home studio around August 1986 to listen to demos that Gore had prepared, which were played through a Yamaha synthesiser, according to an interview with Bascombe in 2020. Band member Andy Fletcher commended the quality of Gore's demos, saying:

"Over the years Martin [Gore]'s studio at home has got progressively better and better so the demos he was producing and giving to us were very good quality. If you listen to a song, say 'Strangelove' which was a very full demo, after about 20 plays the direction in which you're going to go is pretty much fixed. We were basically re-recording Martin's demos with better sound, better production and Dave's vocals."