Synth-pop began 30 years ago as a soundtrack for the cynical.
The Eurythmics divided the world into those who want to abuse and those who want to be abused (“Sweet Dreams”). Soft Cell saluted porn theaters and sexual fetishes (“Seedy Films,” “Sex Dwarf”), while the Pet Shop Boys offered odes to prostitutes and exploitation (“West End Girls,” “Opportunities”).
Similarly, Depeche Mode found its voice in S&M anthems like “Master and Servant” and in tawdry tales like “Blasphemous Rumours.”
Flash-forward to today, and Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox has become a virtual earth mother, the Pet Shop Boys have turned philosophical and even quasi-romantic, and Soft Cell’s Marc Almond sings songs like “Beauty Will Redeem the World.”
Only Depeche Mode continues to makes music with a dark and sinister core.
“We have an invisible line we never want to cross,” says Martin Gore, the group’s main songwriter. “Whenever the music leans too far to pop, we correct it.”
They made sure to hold the line on their latest CD, “Delta Machine,” retaining a musical chiaroscuro.
Gore says it wasn’t always easy to keep the balance of shadows and light. “With a song like ‘Sooth My Soul,’ we went back at it about 20 times because it kept falling on the wrong side of the line,” he says. “I had to rewrite the chorus three times to come up with something we felt was right.”
Clearly, fans liked the result, because the CD opened in the Top 10 in more than 25 countries back in March. In the U.S., the recording began at No. 6 on the Top 200 CD list, going No. 1 on both the U.S. Rock and Alternative Album charts.
Such things have helped make Depeche Mode the sole original Brit synth-pop act that can still headline arenas around the world. They’ll do so again this weekend, at Barclays Center Friday and Jones Beach Theater Sunday. Gore credits the continued concert power to front man Dave Gahan. “He always gets the crowd going,” he says. “He’s a big part of why people keep coming back.”
Certainly he’s the trio’s most outgoing member. Gore tends to hang back, singing just a few numbers per night, while remaining stationed behind a battery of synths. The third member, Andrew Fletcher, once joked that his role in the band is to “bum around.”
The bulk of the group’s music still emanates from Gore. He’s charged with balancing memorable melodies with rich and forbidding atmospheres. On the new CD, much of the sound comes from below. Bass notes rumble, backbeats lumber, synths rattle and vocals bellow. Gore admits such textures matter as much as the tunes.
“Atmosphere is very important,” he says. “We like to keep things moody.”
To help them, Gore used different equipment this time.
“We had new modular systems, along with some of the big moogs we also use from the ’70s,” he says. “They gave us a new palette of sound.”
The result contrasts dramatically with the sound on the group’s first album, 1980’s “Speak & Spell.” That far zippier disc was mainly written by Vince Clarke, who left after just one year to start Yaz, and then Erasure. After that, Gore says, he fell out of touch with Clarke.
Unexpectedly, Clarke contacted his old bandmate about a side project last year. “He sent me an email. I didn’t even know he had my address,” Gore says.
The two wound up making a minimalist techno record together, using the acronym of their two names, VCMG. It fit more snugly into the world of electronic dance music. As huge as that genre has become, none of its acts has as deep a history as Depeche Mode, making them perhaps the top electronic group of all time.
Oddly, the young groups who’ve revived early synth-pop — Ra Ra Riot, Tegan & Sara, and The Shout Out Louds — all tapped the lighter, dinkier side of the style.
“Every retro wave seems to focus on that,” Gore says. “There never seems to be a more industrial comeback — at least in the mainstream. It’s a shame. We like it dark.”
