![]() They were, and are, a gospel-tinged classic rock band that happened to favor au courant arrangements (as the legend goes, the boys switched to synths so as not to disturb neighbors during early rehearsals). Fair enough: much like the Eurythmics, Depeche Mode were never a true electropop outfit. The songs themselves, meanwhile, are two-thirds smoothly crooned ballads over one-third lacquered rock shuffles- all closer to the digi-soul of *Songs of Faith and Devotion than the IDM aspirations of * Exciter. Its presence here nears Bonnie Raitt levels, coating most solos and even providing ambient beds. The most prominently featured instrument on Paper Monsters is, oddly enough, slide guitar. The first thing we learn is that Dave doesn't really like synthesizers all that much. It's just another level of self-mythologizing, sure, but it does yield interesting information- sometimes not in the ways intended. Like many solo outings by career frontmen, Paper Monsters is autotherapeutic: Gahan wants to share something about himself. Why the hell am I making a point of this? Well, it's quite indicative of the album's contents. He also looks like a rather prototypical Jew. He looks like he should at this point: a man with 22 years' celebrity and six minutes of clinical death behind him. Print MediaĬlick on the links below to view the media in more detail.One of the premier prettyboys of the 80s, Gahan looks defiantly middle-aged here- the jowls sag a bit, the corners of the mouth took a mournful turn downward. It was followed up by a 75-date world tour out of which one official concert video was produced called Live Monsters. ![]() The final result was a 10-track album and three single releases. However, sometime after the recording and touring of Exciter in 2002, Dave got in touch with Sigur Ros producer, Ken Thomas, and together with his friend, session musician Knox Chandler, began seriously working on songs for a new album in Electric Lady Studios in New York. At the time, I was quite hurt by that, and it knocked me back a few years, to be honest." That lasted about three days.and then we had this discussion, and everybody came to the conclusion that the song didn't fit with the theme that the album was heading in. For a moment there I felt like it was going to be on Ultra. I played it to Martin, and I could tell he liked it. I played him, during the Ultra sessions, a rough demo I made, which was basically me tapping my foot, and singing. ![]() For example, this is what he said to Daniel Barassi in a radio.wazee interview on February 20, 2003: "I guess the first time I really plucked up enough courage to play something to Martin was a song.called 'Closer'. Dave had indicated as early as 1988 in the interview below that he had always written songs on his own (starting around the 12:01 mark), but just had never had the courage or incentive to put them forth to Depeche Mode.Īfter some time, he had begun to demo his songs to Martin and the rest of Depeche Mode, but was never met with much enthusiasm or the suggestion to include them on Depeche Mode records. This was quite a big deal as even though Dave had been singing with Depeche Mode for over 22 years, all of the lyrics that he sung were written by Martin Gore or other people. Paper Monsters was Dave's breakout album as a solo artist.
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