Depeche Mode – Violator (Buy it now)

Sometimes, when I get into an introspective and sentimental mood, I like to dig through my music collection and find something I haven’t listened to in a long time. Not sure what exactly it was that drew me to Depeche Mode tonight, but I figured what the hell. I’d forgotten how awesome this 1990 album is.

For those who don’t know, Depeche Mode (performing since 1980) is an English electronic group consisting of Dave Gahan on lead vocals, Martin Gore on keyboards guitar and lead songwriter, Andrew Fletcher on keyboards, and (at the time) Alan Wilder on keyboards, who has since left the group.

Their 1990 album Violator is a very solid album, most tracks with a dance rhythm even I can move to.

Album opener World In My Eyes is a ballad-esque number dealing with a desire to share the world with someone, and on a deeper level, to open up and share their innermost self. “Let me show you the world in my eyes.”

Second track Sweetest Perfection, while at the surface seemingly about drugs, is much deeper than that. It’s about a quest, nay, the primal instinct to find happiness, and the inner turmoil that it causes. “I stop and I stare too much, afraid that I care too much, and I hardly dare to touch, for fear that the spell may be broke”

Personal Jesus, perhaps better known as it was covered by Johnny Cash, deals with the idea that everyone needs to be saved sometimes, that everyone needs that someone to talk to, and it’s not necessarily a religious thing. It’s about trying to find a personal savior who can be there for you if you need them.

Hmm. All right, Violator is a fantastic album that, while being the most popular album Depeche Mode has released, still doesn’t get quite the recognition it deserves. And hey, if it can get ME dancing, that’s gotta say soemthing about it.

Mark Knopfler – Get Lucky (Buy it now)

Mark Knopfler, former front man of Dire Straits, has had a fascinating solo career, and wrote the score for a number of movies, including The Princess Bride. Get Lucky is a decent offering, not one of his best works, but it still has some outstanding individual tracks. If you’re looking for a Dire Straits album, this is not it. Still, Knopfler is well versed in more than just the rock he is best known for, and it shows. Now, I’ll be honest. I love his work with Dire Straits. I’ll give any of his work a chance. Get Lucky doesn’t quite do it for me.

Kicking off the album is Border River, which has a very Celtic feel to it, reinforced by references to “Glasgow town”, is a slower tune about having pride of Britain. “‘Sure as the sunrise’, that’s what they say about the Albion”, Albion being apparently the oldest known term for the Isles of Britain.

You Can’t Beat The House, one of the high points of the album, is an excellent blues number, seemingly about hitting rock bottom “Even the piano player, man, he don’t care who he shoots”, seems to be more a metaphor about life in general; it is the lament of a man who has been there, noting the folly of others and wanting to keep others from making the same mistakes he did says “Tell that man somebody, you can’t beat the house.”

For you Dire Straits fans out there, title track Get Lucky is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, at least at the melody level. Lyrically, it’s about the working stiff, worried about rent and bills (The one about happiness and money – tell it to the bread line), who yearns for something better, and the admonition that “you might get lucky now and then, yeah, you win some”

All in all, it’s a decent album. It’s great that Knopfler is doing what he wants, musically, but of his past works, Get Lucky is not his best. It’s mostly going to be of interest to his hardcore fans, and more power to them. Still, some of the tracks are fantastic, and merit at least a listen.