Depeche Mode

Előszó

DEPECHE MODE; THE BEGIHHING AND THE END.
Strangely enough, I don't know where to begin. I know just where to end, and if I manage to begin then you'll soon see that I'm telling the truth, but the funny thing is I don't know where on earth to begin. (One of the choices that I face is: do I begin from the heart, or is it all in the mind?) I know exactly where to eradthis loving essay on the music making beat cunning time travelling sound taming word perfect 4 friends who think up out of nowhere noise and feeling that goes with a multiple combination of rhythms that goes with lyrics that say things about sanity, sin, fascination, the mind and the body in a way that is both V2 hearted and HIGHIY energetic but where do I begin?
I'm going to end it, and I know this much is true, so that the essay stops as beautifully and as completely as any one of the songs that these 4 friends have made up out of their lives, so that the silence, the space, the emptiness that follows feels as satisfying and as supernatural as it always seems to after you've listened to any one of the songs that these 4 friends dream up. That's all I have to do, repesent the ways that these 4 friends appeared to have evolved as entertainers, say the right things in just the right way at just the right time, define how all at once these 4 friends are subdued and conspicuous, straight and insane, dark and thoughtful, light and fantastic. That's all I have to do. Tell the quiet truth as it appears to me everytime I see, hear and think how these 4 friends appear to be. All I have to do is tell a short story of radical strangeness and commercial success, all I have to do is explain how these 4 friends travelled through the pop song from immaturity to maturity, how they managed to sort themselves out and set themselves up as subtle entertainers with a weird wit and an integrity beyond corruption, and perhaps mention why they all have short hair cuts. All I have to do is begin.
Before I begin, and you know that I'll have to sooner or later, perhaps I should say some things about any one of the songs that these 4 friends make up for themselves and anyone else who has the intelligence to be interested. A song about the dishevelment of the mind, or tenderness, produced by these 4 friends after a lifetime of preparation might be said to come into being, to live, because of a stranger than fact superimposition of virtue and resolution, silliness and loneliness, desperation and accident. This song, a world of illusion, a magic spell, could then be interpreted in a 101 ways. There are those who might see this song as some kind of mirror of their daily lives, a welcome, next to mystical intrusion into the imagination. I've always felt that there are those who develop a sort of fetish for the way any one of these songs forms a mysterious circuit between a person and a computer, and become addicted to the untypical special effects and defiant dream-sounds. Some people might simply feel that a song dreamt up by these 4 friends is attractive because it is fresh and eccentric and assembled with the essence of care. Many people probably like these songs without paying much attention to the whys and whats and the language and the antic exactitude and the sudden sweet directness and the swoops and starts of rhythm Vissza

Fülszöveg

To those who associate Anton Corbijn with intense, somewhat serious art, it may be surprising that he likes a drink, tells extremely bad !okes and was even seen dancing around in a very silly manner in celebration of a rare Dutch goal in the recent World Cup Finals - well, it's all true and it's as much for these reasons as for his undoubted passion for anything photographic that we have consistently and happily worked with him for the last four or five years. He is someone who through his films and photography has not only given us a visual direction but has constantly challenged many pre-concehred ideas about what Depeche Mode is.
The photographs in this book cover the last two years and have involved many hours of hard work in different locations around the world often in sub-zero temperatures, sometimes in baking-hot deserts. They are Anton's personal choices and were not intended for media use.
It is as much his book as it it ours. It is also something that we, as a group feel is long overdue. We hope you agree that the wait was worth it.
Alan Wilder Vissza