Synopses & Reviews
Nobody who saw Depeche Mode in 1980 could have predicted that those four fresh-faced, synth-pop innocents would transform themselves into stadium-filling rock gods within a few years. Yet Depeche Mode went on to become one of the Top 10 best-selling British acts of all-time, ranked alongside such exalted company as the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. And, after three decades together, the group continues to thrive, both critically and commercially. In Just Can't Get Enough, author Simon Spence charts that transformation, from a tiny nightclub residency in their native Essex to facing tens of thousands in huge stadiums in Europe and America by the mid-80s; a musical journey that took them from early 'ultra-pop' hit singles to the stark Black Celebration album. Hailing from Basildon, an experimental post-war New Town, the all-electronic Depeche Mode were, in the words of singer Dave Gahan, a new sort of band from a new sort of town. And Basildon itself, Spence argues, defined them - its brutal Modernist architecture imposed on a rural landscape dotted with primitive shacks a mirror for the angular sound and dark loneliness of the band's music. Part musical odyssey, part cultural history, Spence draws on dozens of first hand interviews to give us an inside view of one of the most unlikely stories in pop and rock.
Synopsis
In the words of singer Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode were "a new sort of band from a new sort of town" Basildon, a radical post-war experiment in design and living; a city of the future that serves as a mirror for Depeche Mode's stark, electronic ultra-pop.
Drawing on a wealth of new interviews with friends and lovers, club runners and church elders, pluggers and producers, early bandmates and key industry executives--including fellow Basildonian Alison Moyet and industrial pioneer Genesis P. Orridge--author Simon Spence brings a fresh perspective to the lives of Dave, Martin, Vince, and Fletch, the place they grew up in, and their place in the rock'n'roll firmament.
Part musical odyssey, part cultural history, Just Can't Get Enough traces the story of Depeche Mode from front rooms and school halls to London fetish clubs and legendary Berlin studios; from the Basildon Arts Centre to Top Of The Pops; and from their earliest recordings to Black Celebration and the cusp of transatlantic superstardom.