Halo: The Story Behind Depeche Mode's Classic Album Violator

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DEPECHE MODE were right at the centre of it, not steering it, but they were a band that wanted to try and embrace as many things as they could. But the undoubted stand-out on ‘Violator’ was ‘Halo’; using drums sampled from LED ZEPPELIN’s ‘When The Levee Breaks’ but secondhand via a rap record, the distinctive bass squelch and screeching Elgar derived string samples hit home as the song built to its terrific, euphoric climax. Everyone has a favourite album of course, but Violator seems to be generally thought of as a fan favourite. The emotive if strange ‘Blue Dress’ is possibly the most under rated song in the DEPECHE MODE catalogue; the simple guilty pleasure of watching your girlfriend get ready for an evening out was a touching moment. Produced by the band with the influential studio guru Flood and mixed by the legendary François Kevorkian, Violator is viewed as a hugely groundbreaking body of work by countless musicians and DJs, such was its progressive synthesis of electronic, rock, dance and pop music.

The interesting thing about ‘Violator’ is that as Alan has said many times before, it is still incredibly programmed. million copies, ‘Violator’ gave the British band the critical acclaim they finally deserved and spawned classic tracks such as ‘ Personal Jesus’, ‘ Enjoy The Silence’, ‘ Policy Of Truth’, ‘ World In My Eyes’, ‘Halo’ and ‘Waiting For The Night’. People have very sketchy memories and that is not because they are being loyal or they’re nervous about revealing something, it’s because at the end of that day, it is something that happened 25 years ago… a quarter of a century!Last year Kevin very kindly asked me if I would co-author the book and I was delighted to accept his offer. Despite their general apathy towards parts of the media, especially in the UK where the music press had often been far from kind in its coverage of the band, Depeche had a system that was exhausting, yet successful. The primary reason is that most of the DEPECHE MODE biographies that have been published up to now have been on their history as a whole. The adventurous, highly experimental approach that the band took for Violator recording sessions also yielded two of the band’s most recognisable and successful singles in Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence. Despite these things, people were camping out overnight just to get an autograph and thousands, yes thousands, more people joined those campers the next day in the hope of meeting their heroes.

One aspect of this month's blog special that I'm particularly happy to share with you is that it will feature exclusive excerpts from Halo - The Story Behind Depeche Mode's Classic Album Violator, the book I have co-authored with Kevin May which is to released this May.million copies following its release in March 1990, ‘Violator’ gave the cult British band – Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher and Alan Wilder – the critical acclaim they finally deserved.

It started off on a high, following singer Dave Gahan’s solo concerts, and rumours of the band going back to the studio, only to crash down to the deepest of lows when founder member Andrew ‘Fletch’ Fletcher suddenly died of an undiagnosed heart condition aged 60 on the 26th May. Halo’ is about Depeche Mode and their 1990 album ‘Violator’ – a landmark record and is beloved by fans.The seamless second side with its instrumental interludes added tension and experimentation to proceedings while Martin Gore’s lyrics possessed an honesty that while dark and deviant, still retained a naïve innocence that many loners could relate to. If not for this album, probably I wouldn’t dive deep into the in depeche MODE’s music as much as it happened after 1989.