Music For The Masses [digital version]

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (398 ratings)
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Music For The Masses [digital version] album cover
Album Information
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  • Artist: Depeche Mode (See All Albums by Depeche Mode)

  • Date Released: Jun 6, 2006

  • Genre: Rock/Pop, Style: Pop

  • Label: Rhino/Warner Bros.

  • Copyright: 2006 Sire Records. All rights reserved. Manufactured & Marketed by Rhino Entertainment Company, a Warner Music Group Company

Total Tracks: 15   Total Length: 66:05

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philip sherburne

eMusic Contributor

Electronic music columnist for eMusic.com; writer for fishwrap like The Wire, XLR8R, SF Weekly, RES, Nylon, and Wired; columnist for Pitchfork; blogger (www.phi...more »

01.11.10
Depeche Mode's canonical fave
2006 | Label: Rhino/Warner Bros.

Classic. Untouchable. Violator may be the canonical fave, but there's plenty of evidence in favor of Music for the Masses as Depeche Mode's greatest album. Swinging from singalong anthems like "Strangelove" to the meditative "I Want You Now" and the cod-classical studio creation "Pimpf," the record covers more ground than ever before, but it never feels disjointed, its arc smoothed by a swollen cushion of synthesizers and backing vocals. The band's emotional range is wider than ever, from the intimate betrayal of "The Things You Said" to the self-affirming melancholy of "Never Let Me Down Again"; "Strangelove" finds the group continuing to eke an unnatural brilliance out of minor-key progressions, while "Nothing" uses spine-tingling keyboards and vocal harmonies to render nihilistic fantasies in an unusually visceral fashion. And then there's "Behind the Wheel," a luscious, shuddering fusion of Kraftwerk, J.G. Ballard and America's mythical open roads that single-handedly establishes the blueprint for the electroclash and electro-house anthems of two decades hence.

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Great Album

Geo529

My CD version has songs 11-14 as 11. Agent Orange 12. Never Let Me Down Again (Aggro Mix) 13. Spanish Taster 14. Pleasure, Little Treasure

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Perfect DM album

happyreaper

This is their best album. Tracks 13-15 are tacked on from an EP, nice to have but not essential (although Route 66 was a single and charted respectably).

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3 dm

clmsmm

People who think they don't know depeche mode, know this album

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songs 11-15 are extras

Ruralist7

if you want to have just the original album, download tracks 1-10.

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got a lot of play in college and will again

butterflies

i replaced my broken cassette with cd - lost that in a move, so here downloading it. you won't be sorry. it seems like the songs at the end were on a separate EP.

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