Put The Needle On The Record - Week #95

Put The Needle On The Record Week #95 Depeche Mode - Black Celebration

For this weeks feature we go back to March 1986 and the Depeche Mode album "Black Celebration".

"Black Celebration" was Depeche Mode's 5th album and easily their best since "Speak And Spell" up to the point of this albums release, it has some fantastic tracks on it, indeed some of their best ever tracks, such as, "Stripped", "Black Celebration" and "A Question Of Lust", Other highligts are "Here Is The House" and "World Full Of Nothing". What I will say is, the tracks "Dressed In Black" and "New Dress" do not deserve to be alongside the obvious highlights on this album, "But Not Tonight" should certainly have been on the album replacing either of those tracks.

The album was produced by Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones and was hard work to get completed, Daniel Miller was concerned about the Demo's Martin Gore had given him and felt nothing really stood out as a single, after some discussions Daniel Miller relented and let the band record the album and take it in the direction that they wanted to, which resulted in Gore singing lead vocals on 4 songs on the album.

Suprisingly music critics were quite divided about this album, Melody Maker and Sounds hammered the album, however, the NME were more forgiving in their assesment of the album.

4 singles were released off the album, "Stripped", my favourite track off the album (which reached number 15 in the UK Singles chart), "A Question Of Lust", (which reached number 28 in the UK Singles Chart), "A Question Of Time" (which reached number 17 in the UK Singles Chart) and "But Not Tonight", released as a single in America, where it failed to chart.

The album, reached Number 4 in the UK album chart and number 90 in the US Billboard Top 200.

Track Listing

Side 1

Black Celebration
Fly On The Windscreen (Final)
A Question Of Lust
Sometimes
It Doesn't Matter Two

Side 2

A Question Of Time
Stripped
Here Is The House
World Full Of Nothing
Dressed In Black
New Dress

If you have this album in your collection, dig it out and give it a spin!