Editor’s Note: From Albumism’s inception back in 2016, we’ve remained unabashedly and unequivocally passionate about our mission of celebrating the world's love affairs with albums past, present and future.

But while our devotion to the album as an art form has remained steadfast, as evidenced by our deepening repository of individual album tributes and reviews, we’ve admittedly seldom taken the opportunity to explicitly articulate our reverence for the virtues of artists’ complete album repertoires as a whole.

Hence why we’ve decided to showcase what we believe to be the most dynamic discographies of all time in this recurring series. In doing so, we hope to better understand the broader creative context within which our most beloved individual albums exist, while acknowledging the full breadth of their creators’ artistry, career arcs, and overall contributions to the ever-evolving musical landscape.

We hope you enjoy this series and be sure to check here periodically for the latest installments.

DEPECHE MODE

Once on the verge of vapid synthpop territory, Depeche Mode took a deliberate turn for the darker realm. It was there they found their true footing.

Those first unsteady years, it seems, only steeled their resolve. Abandoned by electronic mastermind Vince Clarke after Speak & Spell, Depeche Mode’s promising debut, the remaining trio of Andy Fletcher, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore scrambled to redraw their aesthetic. They spent the next couple years experimenting to varying degrees of success. The emblematic titles of Depeche Mode’s second and third albums, A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again, convey this period of rebuilding, while hinting at the grittier industrial influence that was beginning to blacken a sometimes too-sugary sound.

Most every artist has growing pains or falters at some point. Depeche Mode just managed to iron out their kinks early. Keyboardist Alan Wilder had joined in 1982, returning them to a four-piece after Clarke’s unexpected departure. And by the time they delivered Some Great Reward, their fourth studio affair, one thing was clear: All murkiness in vision had dispelled. The night now burned brightly—and in its moonlight, the four-year-old Depeche Mode shone all the more brilliantly having embraced their darker sound.

Fittingly, Black Celebration, the first album to reflect this refocused aesthetic, was the first one I remember loving. While the band offers plenty of beguiling fare for drives with friends and dance-floor romance, it’s the introspective expositions that utterly consume me. Something of an understated masterpiece, the quartet’s fifth studio effort jettisons all previous protective artifice, finally revealing to the world a powerful vulnerability that hums at the core of Depeche Mode’s alchemical powers.

Indeed, they’d gotten the balance—the cohesive commingling of instrumentation, words and vocals—right. And now that they’d realized their strengths, they caught fire. Scintillating, seductive with the proper layer of polish—sleek but incisive—Depeche Mode’s next four albums continued the trend, each a different decadence testing the sinister side of sophistication.

Although Music for the Masses is quintessential darkwave listening, their ‘90s output also deserves enduring homage. Swaying from sinful impulses to spiritual absolution, Violator, Songs of Faith and Devotion and Ultra are all tantalizingly dramatic and intensely fulfilling. Gahan’s singing on those records still gives me chills—enunciating in a way that bends eternity.

Since then, Depeche Mode have released five more albums, never failing to enchant, with their eleventh studio LP Playing the Angel being my favorite of this more recent lot. It’s hard to believe this substantial band was ever written off as a teeny bopper act. Thankfully, the resourceful Depeche Mode not only managed to defy initial perception, but also take us to a place of cleansing contemplation.

Rayna’s 3 Favorite Depeche Mode Albums of All Time:

1. Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993)
2. Violator (1990)
3. Black Celebration (1986)

VISIT Depeche Mode’s Official Store

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