Love, Listen, Loathe 03.24.10: Depeche Mode, the Cure & the Smiths

Posted by Chris Crowing on 03.24.2010

A change of tone for the 3Ls as Chris Crowing casts his eye over three of the most decidedly un-metal, yet beloved acts to emerge from the 80s...



Before we get into the column, I'd like to say that at around 2015 hours (GMT) tonight, my band will take the stage for our first ever show. I'm VERY nervous, but also very excited. I try to keep the self promotion to a minimum, but hits and sheer numbers of friends help you to get gigs, so please check us out on MySpace or Facebook and you can hear some of the new songs we recorded earlier this month…

This week we have another selection where I can't honestly say who will end up loved, or loathed before I dive into the column. Yet again, all three artists are legends and all have been influential to me, so I can't overstate enough that whoever ends up as Loathed this week, it's only by process of elimination. Furthermore, being only 28 years old I cannot say I was a conscious music fan at the time of these bands' first rush to stardom, being more interested in things like Thundercats and potato guns. That said, I've discovered each one in my musical explorings and loved them all…

I'd also say this is not a trio I would have come up with by myself, as each band occupies a very different musical niche, only really being linked by sharing a timeframe and a certain indie/alternative aesthetic that precluded any of them becoming truly a mainstream act, despite their evident success. That said, Spaghett's recommendation struck a chord with me – not least because I genuinely have no idea which act I will end up preferring – and so here we go…

Week Two: Depeche Mode, the Cure and the Smiths suggested by Spaghett

Depeche Mode

I first heard Depeche Mode playing their (at the time) new single "Barrel of a Gun" on TV which would have made me 15 at the time, right at the start of the period where I started looking for more from music than the chart-dance and almost-ubiquitous indie which populated the British charts at the time. While the song made an impression, it was a fleeting one and it would be a few years of self-imposed guitar-bigotry before I again went looking for bands with a more electronic bent.

To explain, when I got into heavy metal, it was almost as a reaction against processed pop and electronic dance music, so with all the self righteous passion of a misinformed teenager I loudly declaimed anything that wasn't made with ‘real' instruments (i.e. guitars) to be fake and not musically worthy. This is of course utter bullshit, and what's worse it was hypocritical at the time, because I loved U2's Pop album, as well as ‘tronic using heavier acts like and Pitchshifter. Eventually after waking up from this ridiculous and hypocritical frame of mind and/by getting into acts like Nine Inch Nails and VAST I remembered that song I'd like many years before and went looking for this group called Depeche Mode, amongst others…



Of course, any investigation into this most storied and (in certain circles) beloved of acts soon throws up songs I'd been dimly aware of for many years through their general presence in the background radiation which constitutes popular music of a certain stature. Songs like "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence" virtually leaped out at me but being the old school album-consuming monster that I am, they led me to Violator which has since become one of my favourite records.



I'm clearly not alone in loving this album, which seems to have become one of those records which has been grossly over-plundered for cover versions (given the bands were talking about this week, I think this might be a bit of a theme) with Johnny Cash, Jerry Williams, G&G, and Marilyn Manson covering "Personal Jesus" and Breaking Benjamin, Keane, Tori Amos, Lacuna Coil, Nada Surf, Entwine, Failure, It Dies Today, Evergreen Terrace, Tanghetto, The Academy Is..., Cobra Starship, Anberlin, HIM, Matthew Good, Bell X1, Apoptygma Berzerk and No Use for a Name covering "Enjoy the Silence" – almost all to less than mediocre results.


It's a slightly pernickety personal belief that you should almost never do a ‘straight' cover and especially not of a particularly popular or celebrated song, it almost never comes across as a valid ‘reimagining' and to me, is often indicative of a lack of creativity, originality and depth of knowledge. The large number of bands who seem to want to cover Depeche Mode to try and piggy-back on that band's groundbreaking and somewhat edgy reputation is actually quite sad.

Note: There is a difference between your singer-songwriter at an open-mike night covering such a song and an established act doing the same. The first is brave yet foolhardy while the second is cynical and contemptible.

All that said, there is at least one cover of a Depeche Mode song which I love, and it's Rammstein's super-seedy version of this…



... for all that the original is far superior, that Rammstein are breaking the 'sraight' covber rule I mentioned above. I just like Rammstein, and I'll be a hypocrite in my own column if I want to and pass it off as being oh so post-modern and self-aware.

Over the years I've tracked down and enjoyed all of Depeche Mode's albums, rating Black Celebration and Ultra as my joint second favourites behind Violator. To Depeche Mode's eternal credit they have maintained a high level of quality over their thirty year career, through members leaving, having ‘personal problems' and a whole host of scenes coming and going. I guess the shifting tides of fashion shouldn't be a problem for a band with a name that translates roughly as ‘quickly fashion' but it's also to their credit that they've never tampered with their musical ideal overmuch, and their recent albums still sound much like the band who first brought out Speak & Spell all those years ago.

While their more recent records lack some of the edge of their earlier one's (nobody care's that you're gay anymore) they are still awesome pieces of work, with last year's Sounds of the Universe being one of my top ten (or so) records from the year despite being a drop in quality from the almost perfect Playing the Angel. The likes of Lady Gaga can make pretentions of being the new wave of interesting and edgy electronica, but when the veterans are still punting out songs of this quality, you've got a ways to go yet…



the Cure

I make NO apology that the first time I really listened to the Cure was through their participation on the soundtrack to the Crow and that song "Burn" was one of my most-listened for many years, indeed along with Nine Inch Nails version of "Dead Souls" it as responsible for me wearing out my original cassette version of that OST. (Hands up all readers who remember starting their musical lives listening to cassettes, rather than CDs or MP3s?)



Of course, it didn't take long once I started looking for new music to start finding breathless adjectives regarding this legendary act, and reading up on music history books I soon got a sense that at least some people regard the Cure to be the true soul of that meta-scene which was termed New Wave, while the likes of U2 actually hovered up more of the mainstream success. However the Cure are one of those acts who tend to defy easy genre pigeon-holing, and as such have accrued more such labels than it's possible to take seriously – for example rateyourmusic.com has them listed as being Post-Punk, Gothic Rock, Alternative Rock, New Wave, Synth Pop, Pop/Rock, Pop, Psychedelic Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, and Acoustic Rock which is silly, right?

Nevertheless, one of their first and most enduringly popular songs is a massive personal favourite, with a stripped down version being a part of my own acoustic canon for some years now… (Not that I'd play it if I was actually famous, because that would be hypocritical.)



I remember that my interest in the Cure was partially fired up by a recommendation from my English teacher of the time who mentioned that her daughter used to date Robert Smith back in the eighties and ‘it's the kind of thing you might like…' She was right…

The thing is, I've always read about the Cure as if they were one of those bands who seem to be massively popular yet also quirky as hell and musically worthy (for whatever that means) but looking into their profile, record sales and general output over the swing of their career, it's pretty clear that this impression is just NOT true.

While their relatively earlier albums are critically acclaimed, the band had to wait until "the Lovecats" for their first top ten hit, and the swing between post-punk quirkiness and deceptively hooky pop would be a characteristic of their career. In fact, for much of the Cure's better know work, you'd wonder why they are stylistically termed as being gothic, as despite the black clothes, interesting hair and badly applied make up, much of the music is incredibly jaunty and catchy.



Of course the reputation is earned with those records which didn't find a home in the mainstream consciousness with Pornography standing head and shoulders above (or should that be with slouched shoulders, below) the cream of the dark, ‘gothic' albums which populated the charts at the time.

I've always been attracted to bands who can meld hooks with darkness, a seeming normality with a truly fragile or fractured aesthetic who can stand on the line between pop and alternative and resist the call from ‘purists' on either side to make a choice.. The Cure stand high in my estimation as a band of tremendous legacy, who outgrew the scenes they came from, the movement they helped to start and even managed to survive their own internal squabbles (with Robert Smith as the only ever-present member) and the potential dilution, dissolution and diminishment that comes with time to produce worthy records right up until recent years.

Furthermore, songs from their ‘other' best album Disintegration have been co-opted by the modern media as advertising tools, and who would ever have thought that the dark and jagged songs of the face-painted Clown Prince of post-punk would be used to sell HP Printers? For sheer influence in terms of imagery, atmosphere and longevity of career the Cure re rightly acclaimed legends before you even take the quality of the music into account…



the Smiths

I think I have my ex-girlfriend to thank for my appreciation of the Smiths, as like Depeche Mode, they suffered from my ‘bigoted teenage metal-head' preconceptions that such wishy-washy, dated indie wouldn't have anything to offer me. However, the ex in question was on of those pseudo-intellectual Belle & Sebastian loving types who loved to seem arty and erudite and was always looking for bands to love which would somehow help this never-ending search for validation and kudos. She also told me that metal was for children, deeply unfashionable and I should grow out of it. Don't worry, she's dead now…

In any case, I had the entire Smiths catalogue played at me, on repeat for a year or so and despite the obvious negative connotations, there is more than a little goodness to be found in there.

The first point of awesome is the ubiquitously acclaimed "How Soon Is Now?" which stands tall beside songs like "Black" by Pearl Jam as one of the most honest and lacerating songs I've ever heard. Of course, that's only because I've been the lonely love-starved little teenager goes experienced "so you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home, and you cry and you want to die, I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does, see I've already waited too long, and all my hope is gone…'



Nice dancing Moz. Yes, I was a completely pathetic case as a teenager, which is probably why I ended up with such a soul-sucking bitch of a girlfriend. Anyways, bygones, lessons learned and all that…

Oh, and the cover of this which made up the title sequence to Charmed is ATROCIOUS.

While the popular preconception of the Smiths is of miserable pseudo-intellectual crap, written by and loved by insecure, yet massively arrogant types who like to think themselves better than everyone else (I'll come back to this later) there is some great humour and some damned catchy tunes going on.

I challenge ANYONE to listen to "this Charming Man", "You Handsome Devil" or "Girlfriend in a Coma" and not smile quite a lot, or perhaps even fall prey to insidious toe-tapping syndrome. Indeed the musical ability on display in the Smiths is well worth credit, and Johnny Marr truly deserves his legendary status – although I'd like him better if he could ‘remember' how he achieved the distorted howl at the start of "How Soon is Now?" – however it's more for solid song-writing than awe-inspiring genius. The rhythm section of the Smiths is much overlooked, but the driving bass and restrained yet powerful drums drive the songs along admirably, no matter how highbrow and camp Morrissey got out front…



You almost have to critique Morrissey separately from the rest of the band. His fans would say that his lyrics are deeply emotive allegorical and metaphorical genius, performed with grace, humour and an eye for political and social comment. His detractors would say his songs are pretentious nonsense performed by a smart-arse with an inflated sense of his own importance.

Personally, I veer wildly between the two estimations, and assertions like "Meat is Murder" bug the hell out of, but then again I find incredible humour and occasionally a deep seated affinity with some of his/their songs, none more than this…



The Smiths are fun, but not life-changing or particularly illuminating (for me at least, I appreciate that others may well have been moved deeply by their work) and I guess that the brevity of their career (compared to the other bands on show this week) will probably count against them – but then again, having such an abiding legacy developed in such a (relatively) shirt space of time is surely something which is to be complemented, no?

The Reckoning

It's been another close week, and I have to say these are all acts that I came to appreciate long after their apex of their careers and with a whole host of preconceptions, both negative and positive. With bands that are SO legendary and beloved, yet have only a secondary influence on myself, it's hard to draw lines between them on anything other than pedantic, aesthetic lines. As such, the dividing line between Love and Loathe this week is particularly fine…

So, I LOVE DEPECHE MODE because I listen to them the most. I'm not saying for a second that they are better in any way than the other bands, but they get the most play in my headphones. For this week, that is reason enough…

I LISTEN to THE CURE because they are legends and because I can listen to them when I'm in a poppy mood and not jeopardise my alternative kudos, and ALSO when I'm in a black mood that requires a different outlet than the darkest of metal.

and I LOATHE THE SMITHS because they remind me of my ex, they are less important and less influential than the other two acts and because I think it would be funny to see Morrissey cry.

Running Rankings

Please remember that each act finds its berth on the week it competed in, and these designations are not all-encompassing. Basically, I do NOT necessarily prefer the band I loved in week one to the band I loathed in week four – it's the luck of the draw…

LOVE: Foo Fighters, Megadeth, Limp Bizkit, Muse, Alice in Chains, Pantera,
LISTEN: Nirvana, Slayer, Creed, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Down,
LOATHE: Them Crooked Vultures, Anthrax, Kid Rock, Coldplay, Soundgarden, Damageplan



Some very positive comments this past week, with some heartfelt appreciation for Pantera from MBD who contributed this small essay.

Great fucking column! Any column dedicated to Pantera,and Phil Anselmo the best frontman of all time is worth a read. Now many people will disagree with those two opinions, but as Phil once said "Fuck the world." Personally Far Beyond Driven is my favorite album while New Level off of Vulgar Display of Poweer is my favorite song. I like that you gave The Great Southern Trendkill its due. No album, and I mean no album has lyrics as evil as that one. I dare anybody to find one. Reinventing the Steel was more like a best of as far as the sound goes, but I see it as fitting end to a great band. Had they not broken up, the band would've never sold out to the trends, which is something they were built on. Unlike everybody's favorite "Metal" band Metallica, Pantera never submitted to the trends to make more money. They stayed true until the end. Unfortunately I think Phil gets way too much of the blame in the band's breakup. I'm sure there was alot more going on behind the scenes with all of their addictions, not just Anselmo's. And to anybody that blames Phil for Dimebag's death, please do some research. Months before Phil's comments were made about Darrell deserving a beating, Nathan Gale rushed the stage but was caught by security guards.That paranoid psychotic already had it in his brain that he was going to kill Dimebag and potentially Vinnie.

Great column Chris, it was a fitting tribute to the true Kings of Metal. Kepp up the good work.

As you'd expect, I simply can't agree with the slur against Metallica – indeed I think Pantera NEEDED to evolve a bit (and there is a big difference between evolving and selling out) and the fact that Reinventing the Steel, New Found Power AND Bustle in Your Hedgerow weren't up the standards we'd expect from the protagonists pretty much shows that. How should they have evolved – I don't know, but the one negative thing I would say about Pantera is that towards the end there were serious signs that they wouldn't be able to evolve and would soon have been trading on excellence over a decade old….

…OK, I'll admit that Metallica set containing only songs from Sat.Anger and Death Magnetic would be pretty crap, so before I paint myself into more of a corner…

… I couldn't agree more about the hate that gets directed at Anselmo. His band fell apart, he was in pain, he felt attacked, got angry and said some nasty things. We've ALL said that somebody (especially former band-mates, because these things NEVER end with good grace) deserve a good beating, and in the years since Phil has apologised profusely and offered a great deal of eloquent explanation. He wants to grow up, get over it and move on – it's a shame that Vinnie and Rita (and folks like Zakk Wylde) can't do the same thing, because this enduring bitch-fest is NOT the way that Dime would want to be remembered.

BLACK had more niceness…



AWESOME column! You really nailed it this week. Pantera is one of my top favorite bands all time and there is not a day that goes by that I dont miss them. I really cant wait to see what you have in store for us with this column in the weeks to come. Possibly a TOOL, PERFECT CIRCLE, and PUSCIFER debate???

Glad you liked it. You want Tool, APC, Puscifer? Done. We'll have that next week.

Pagan696 also had nice things to say…

great LLL!

will def check out next weeks article.
cure v dp is always fun :)

btw: rage against the machine > one day as a lion (or other zac solo) > audioslave
audioslave was a waste of talent if there ever was

Hmm – the concept of a RATM / One Day as a Lion / Audioslave triad is interesting – I quite like Audioslave, but they did fall short of possibly unrealistic expectations. Perhaps it's fairer to do the Nightwatchman and save Audioslave for a ‘supergroups' column instead…

My most devoted commenter Jcon also brings the love…

Thanks for the compliment Chris. As a guy who enjoys writing and loves music it's very appreciated. Another great comlumn and definitely agree with your choices. Anselmo is an extremely underrated vocalist and deserves so much more recongition for his talents. Anyone who can hit the notes on "Message In Blood" and "Medicine Man" and then be able to show so much intensity on The Great Southern Trendkill title track (for example) is a vocal god. And it's kind of embarrasing to hear these other less creative bands (like BFMV) try to cover Pantera. Machine Head did do a pretty good job covering "Fucking Hostile".

For that other grunge 3, I'd be interested in seeing Melvins or Screaming Trees as possible options for that grunge list. And actually, I'd be really interested to read a Tool, APC, Puscifer set that the guy above me mentioned. Plus, anything that could bring in Temple of the Dog or Audioslave (or Alice Mudgarden, Right Turn is such an amazing song) would be graet too.

Kerrang! and Metal Hammer magazine has a habit of organising these tribute records to seminal acts with Pantera in general and Metallica's Master of Puppets being the two most memorable efforts. Machine Head perform well on both ("Battery" and "Fucking Hostile" if I remember correctly) but there are some ATROCIOUS attempts. The absolute worst was either Bullet for My Valentine's attempt at "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" – sucking all the atmosphere out of a song which they play technically well, or Five Finger Death Punches truly abysmal attempt at "A New Level." You'd think a band who are currently getting by on being a groove/nu-metal revival act would actually understand how the GROOVE of the song is what matters.

If nothing else, these ‘tributes' show us that genuine passion and a good singer is required more than merely competent technique to produce memorable heavy metal.

I think my next grunge column will be a ways in the future, if only because I've given a fair bit of attention to alternative and metal so far and I reckon I shoul vary things out a bit – but never fear, I will come back to it. Oh, and as I said above, APC, Puscifer and Tool are getting hit up next week, before I go on a Pop meander…

Newcomer Guest#3838 has an interesting suggestion…

It would be cool to have some combination of America, Asia, Boston, Chicago, or Kansas. A geographical edition of the 3l's.

That's not a bad idea… Bands like Japan, Boards of Canada and Alabama Thunder Pussy could come into play. It's certainly a different way of selecting the triads…

Last of all the dude (or should that be el duderino?) had this to say…

Pan-fuckin'-tera! Is there any real question! The CFH boys are the metal standard, aside form Metallica. That is no small feat. Now, Down is a GREAT band and NOLA is still an album I love but Pantera can't be compared to anyone. They are like Metallica, NIN, Tool, Zeppelin in that they have their complete own sound. They were a staple of my diet when I was a teenager and I still love their albums. They are in fact one of the reasons I really can't stand 98% of the metal out today. Because to go from Pantera to the new stuff, there is a drop off. They made the standard and it is VERY high. I expect A LOT from the newer metal bands because of them. Sadly, I have been disappointed a lot. Anyway, no contest Pantera CBH!!!!!!!! God bless the Cowboys From Hell!

I agree wholeheartedly. While it's important for music to evolve, and you have to admit that many metal bands are nowadays technically more impressive (as a whole band, not to say that there are even a half dozen guys who could out-shred Dime) than the average of ten-to-fifteen years ago, they almost all lack passion, invention and that indefinable x factor which makes for great alternative music.

There seems to be a fashion for razor sharp distortion and an over-processed sound, which in my eyes simply doesn't compare to the warm, vital sound which Pantera had or Metallica's triple-tracked guitars to give Hetfield's rhythm lines the most weight. The thing MOST lacking in modern metal is good singers, as there seem to be so many people trying to do growly/cookie monster vocals that REALLY shouldn't. Matt Heafy, Matt Tuck and EVERY other metal-core singer – I'm looking at you!

Phil Anselmo was one of THE metal singers of the 90s (alongside Burton C Bell and one or two others in my eyes,) partially because he convinced when he went for anger and also because he could pull it back to some damned fine ‘normal' singing ("Hollow", "This Love", "Suicide Note Pt1", "Cemetery Gates.") What has the 00s offered of the same calibre – Howard Jones/Jesse Leach from Killswitch Engage and Corey Taylor of Stone Sour/Slipknot are two of the standouts who manage to straddle this line – but they're NOT Phil or Burtonn, are they?

I would blame the fact that metal in general got too big and too commercial when nu-metal went mainstream – while I'm still a huge nu-metal fan, (as my apparent love for Limp Bizkit shows) it dragged other genres of metal into the limelight of audiences who don't understand them, and also established a now pretty entrenched ‘teen angst' formula for unoriginal lyricists the world over.

This has led to a commercially successful scene, driven by the industry's desire for marketable and merchandise-able acts, and as such populated by bands who learnt metal by rote through mainstream media and are only too willing to conform, while deluding themselves that they are being extreme…

There is much good playing going on at the moment, but invention and true passion (as opposed to forced, formulaic EMOting) have been pushed to the fringes because metal got too big, too fast…

I've gone off on a rant, but I agree wholeheartedly with your dudeness, God bless Pantera and every band who show us what it means to ROCK.

I'm really glad last week got such a good reception, I'm expecting a little more division this week, but here's hoping you enjoyed it and you'll be back for next week's issue featuring A Perfect Circle, Puscifer and Tool.

Slainte,
Chris Crowing

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