Product Description

Depeche Mode's American career took the British synthpop band from hipster curios to cult artists to teenage heroes to,with 1989's VIOLATOR, genuine alternative-rock superstardom. It's a majestic album that reflects the buildup of angst over a decade of playing; it stays true to the outfit's basicform while exploring new aural worlds.
The album contains three massive MTV hits, the unusually guitar-oriented "Personal Jesus", the more typical but still obtuse "Enjoy the Silence", and the off-kilter and emphatic "Policy of Truth". Martin Gore's songs explore his usual themes of sex ("Blue Dress"), redemption ("Clean"), and desperation ("Waiting for the Night"), but the arrangements are more detailed and lushthan on the band's spartan early albums; it's a new style that suits Dave Gahan's deepening voice well. VIOLATOR's commercial success may have brought turmoil to Depeche Mode's career and lives, but it remains one of the band's finest and (unlikely enough) truest albums. With VIOLATOR, the band pulls off the not unremarkable feat of becoming a household name without losing much of its soul.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. World In My Eyes
2. Sweetest Perfection
3. Personal Jesus
4. Halo
5. Waiting For The Night
6. Enjoy The Silence
7. Policy Of Truth
8. Blue Dress
9. Clean

Disc 2:

1. World In My Eyes (DVD)
2. Sweetest Perfection (DVD)
3. Personal Jesus (DVD)
4. Halo (DVD)
5. Waiting For The Night (DVD)
6. Enjoy The Silence (DVD)
7. Policy Of Truth (DVD)
8. Blue Dress (DVD)
9. Clean (DVD)
10. Dangerous (DVD)
11. Memphisto (DVD)
12. Sibeling (DVD)
13. Kaleid (DVD)
14. Happiest Girl (Jack Mix) (DVD)
15. Sea Of Sin (Tonal Mix) (DVD)
16. Depeche Mode 89-91 (If you wanna use guitars, use guitars) (DVD)
17. 30 minute short film: New interviews with band members past and present (DVD)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61584 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-03
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Hybrid SACD, SACD, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .37 pounds

From Amazon.com
Violator is Depeche Mode's most mainstream, chart-climbing album. Although it contains only nine tracks, half of them are tailor-made for the dance floor. This album was conceived when club DJs were gaining recognition alongside original composers. Heavily influenced by techno-pop, the singles "Policy of Truth," "Enjoy the Silence," and "World in My Eyes" prove that DM did their homework. A particular highlight on this fantastic album is the bluesy guitar line Martin Gore lays down on top of the synth-dominated grooves on "Personal Jesus." --Beth Bessmer

Customer Reviews

Any band namechecked by LFO is good enough for me
I have never written a review for Amazon before, but felt that I had to after reading the last missive by someone who clearly has no idea what they are talking about. The misguided goon was obviously expecting some kind of proto-Ministry type dirge with lyrics about drug abuse set to industrial clanking. The poor lamb probably does not have an ear for anything of a pure electronic persuasion. Best stick with Slipnot, eh?

Violator was released in 1990 when house and techno were in Acsendence. Depeche Mode had been making consistant dark electro since 83's 'Construction Time Again' ( I'll concede that 'Speak and Spell' and 'A Broken Frame' are a bit thin and a little too poppy), but Violator was when they hit paydirt after not being taken seriously by the rock press for most of the prvious decade. US techno producers such as Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and the UK's own Mark Bell from LFO had all been listening intently to the Mode's music for much of the eighties and had the savvy to realise that this was a group who belonged to the great linage of electronics groups going back to Kraftwerk and continuing with Caberet Voltaire etc. The singles from this album are great pop music but beneath that lies some of the most intricate production, engineering and drum programming heard, and still sounds fresh sixteen years later. The fact that this group have influenced everyone from Bomb the Bass to Nine Inch Nails demonstrates that they were no 'bland eighties synth act'. A friend and myself were listening to 'Some Great Reward' recently and were marvelling at the drum patterns, how fresh they sounded. Violator still sounds vital, as it shows an exciting time in music when a seemingly 'mainstream' act could bear a huge influence on the dance underground. If you are not familar with Depeche Mode's music prior to the 'tonight Matthew I'm going to be Perry Farrell' years, then please ingnore the witless nonsense written below, do yourself a favour and spend some cash on a little bit of electro history. Cheers.

1990's masterpiece and the Mode's peak...
Following the success of the film and soundtrack to '101', the Mode set about its follow-up after some brief side projects (Martin Gore's covers-e.p., Wilder's Recoil project)- the 1989 single 'Personal Jesus' (later covered by Johnny Cash and Marilyn Manson - not at the same time sadly!)being the initial release and a pervy-pop song that blended the devotional and the dirty in a manner as great as Madonna's 'Like a Prayer.'

'Violator' (a deliberately Spinal Tap style title!) was the conclusion of the Mode's European outlook, the contribution of Francois Kevorkian aligned it to the electronic past of Kraftwerk and Moroder. 'World in My Eyes' (the fourth single released) opens the LP, a minimal electronic pop song that is Andy Fletcher's favourite Mode track. 'Sweetest Perfection' is the first of Martin Gore's lead vocals, blending bluesy guitar with electronics - setting the tone for 'Personal Jesus' and live favourite 'Halo' - the latter is one of Gore's greatest pop-songs and should have been a single (especially with the hilarious promo they shot found on 'Strange Too').

Following these highs we shift into the epic electronic ballad 'Waiting for the Night' which finds Gahan alone in an artificial universe until Gore supplies some harmonies: pure machine-soul. The sequencing on 'Black Celebration' and 'Music for the Masses' is advanced on here - the latter four tracks are generally linked together by smaller pieces of music - we move from 'Waiting for the Night' to Top 5 hit 'Enjoy the Silence' - a key song in the Mode's back catalogue and single of the year at the Brits the following year (not that they bothered to turn up!). '...Silence' is followed by 'Policy of Truth' (the third single)- an anthemic track later covered by some grunge band I've forgotten the name of!

The album concludes on a darker note, Gore's second lead vocal 'Blue Dress' drifts between a sensitive 'Somebody'-style ballad and something more sinister. The model for later Gore-fronted tracks such as 'Home', 'Comatose', 'Damaged People' and 'Macro.' Finally there is 'Clean', which opens with electronics that recall Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Yellow Magic Orchestra before shifting into a downbeat anthem in which Gahan unconvincingly sings "I'm the cleanest I've been..." - kind of at odds with his infamous addictions and issues that followed...

As with the 'Speak & Spell' and 'Music for the Masses' reissues, this is a twin disc set with the album on DVD/A in 5.1 and stereo (my original copy of 'Violator' on CD sounds terrible on my mp3 player...a more than welcome reissue).There is another audio feature (the Mode and co exploiting the possibilities of this new format wonderfully) like the other two reissues and several bonus tracks. These are basically b-sides of the singles - 'Dangerous' is a fair enough pop-song that was the flipside of 'Personal Jesus', while instrumentals 'Memphisto' and 'Sibeling' were on 'Enjoy the Silence.' Another instrumental 'Kaleid' ('Policy of Truth') was used as the intro to the 'World Violation' tour and the final two songs ('Happiest Girl' and 'Sea of Sin') featured on the 'World in My Eyes' single from Autumn 1990. All nice additions, but 'Kaleid' apart nothing as great as the album proper...(& tracks most Mode fans are likely to posess on several formats already!)

'Violator' was the Mode's peak I feel - follow-up 'Songs of Faith & Devotion' had a flawed production (sort of grungey-'Achtung Baby!') and the two albums that followed were patchy ('Playing the Angel' is more succesful). 'Violator' was the pinnacle of the Mode's achievment, building on the fine 'Construction Time Again'/'Some Great Reward' and fellow masterpieces 'Black Celebration' and 'Music for the Masses.' What's great here is that the Mode stayed true to themselves and released an LP that was naturally them - no trying to be Alice in Chains or Nirvana here! It's also a great collection of pop-songs that show how great the pop-song was before the return to the 50s style of recent years (though of course Girls Aloud and Sugababes have Mode-elements in their music thanks to Richard X!). 'Violator' is the best Mode album and one of the classic albums of the early 1990s alongside 'Chill Out', 'Heaven or Las Vegas', 'Fear of a Black Planet', 'Loveless', 'Behaviour', 'Blue Lines' & 'Selected Ambient Works I.' What more can I say?

DVD DTS 5.1 24/96 Great
Don't buy this remaster unless you just want to update your collection, or if you have a good multi-channel sound system.

Since the US version does not come out for a while I took a risk on the UK PAL version, and I was lucky enough to have the DVD play on my player. The DTS 5.1 mix is obviously where they spent their time. You can tell the sound engineers took a lot of time cleaning up every track and spreading out all the audio to the 5 channels.

It sounds like a completely different album, almost like they re-recorded some of it because it is so clear.

If you hear the DTS tracks and then listen to the CD it is night and day. The clarity and mixing is great.

If you are buying this for the CD, I would say I can barely tell the difference aside from less noise and more clarity, and its slight.

I am so impressed with the DVD DTS tracks I will be buying more.

Songs of Faith and Ultra, would be amazing in this format.