Black Celebration (180-Gram)

Rating

Album: Black Celebration (180-Gram)
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Black Celebration	More Info...
2)	Fly On the Windscreen (Final)	More Info...
3)	A Question of Lust (Minimal)	More Info...
4)	Sometimes	More Info...
5)	It Doesn't Matter Two	More Info...
6)	A Question of Time	More Info...
7)	Stripped	More Info...
8)	Here Is the House	More Info...
9)	World Full of Nothing	More Info...
10)	Dressed in Black	More Info...

Album: Black Celebration (180-Gram)
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Black Celebration	More Info...
2)	Fly On the Windscreen (Final)	More Info...
3)	A Question of Lust (Minimal)	More Info...
4)	Sometimes	More Info...
5)	It Doesn't Matter Two	More Info...
6)	A Question of Time	More Info...
7)	Stripped	More Info...
8)	Here Is the House	More Info...
9)	World Full of Nothing	More Info...
10)	Dressed in Black	More Info...

Performer Notes

Depeche Mode: Martin Gore (vocals, guitar, synthesizer, keyboards); David Gahan (vocals); Alan Wilder, Andrew Fletcher (synthesizer, keyboards, background vocals).
Recorded at Westside, London, England and Hansa, Berlin, Germany.
BLACK CELEBRATION, Depeche Mode's fifth album not counting compilations, reflects a band coming into its own, exploring new sounds yet staying true to the electronic New Wave that catapulted the foursome to icon status. The production and arrangements move further into the atmospheric, somewhat industrial realm first tentatively explored on the preceding SOME GREAT REWARD, with more impressive results. "Fly On the Windscreen," a song previewed in a much different arrangement on the singles compilation CATCHING UP WITH DEPECHE MODE, sounds more convincing in this form, and it's one of the band's best-ever efforts.
As a whole, BLACK CELEBRATION is a landmark Goth-pop album. Martin Gore's lyrics are less strident and more personal--even the politicized "New Dress" is couched in humanistic detail instead of slogans--and his mostly minor-key melodies have a certain dark majesty. David Gahan's unearthly vocals lend borderline-orperatic songs like "A Question of Lust" and the title track a Weill-esque sinister undertone. In the middle of it all lies "Stripped," a haunting pop track straddling the line of love and control, an apt harbinger for what was to come, both from the band itself and from goth-industrial in general.

Professional Reviews

Rolling Stone (p.66) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n instant classic for the band's fans..."

Q (7/95, p.139) - 3 Stars - Good - "...show[s] how distant from their chart peers Depeche Mode were becoming."

NME (Magazine) (7/1/95, p.50) - 7 (out of 10) - "...Mephisto...advised Depeche Mode to make BLACK CELEBRATION, and what they created was an eerie thing somewhere between the pop songs of A BROKEN FRAME and the full-on goth pop of VIOLATOR..."