Product Description

First volume of a greatest hits package. Possibly the biggest (and first) stadium electro act, Depeche Mode have sold out arenas and topped charts all over the world, and this album is a neat summary of their first three decades together. Includes the tracks 'Personal Jesus', 'Just Can't Get Enough' and 'Enjoy The Silence'.

Track Listing

1. Personal Jesus
2. Just Can't Get Enough
3. Everything Counts
4. Enjoy The Silence
5. Shake The Disease
6. See You
7. It's No Good
8. Strangelove
9. Suffer Well
10. Dream On
11. People Are People
12. Martyr
13. Walking In My Shoes
14. I Feel You
15. Precious
16. Master And Servant
17. New Life
18. Never Let Me Down Again

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1651 in Music
• Released on: 2006-11-13
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
By their very nature, best-of collections lend themselves to nostalgia, and Depeche Mode's instantly identifiable sound and string of pervasive, catchy singles are undoubtedly the soundtrack to many memories--memories served well by this fine collection of beautifully remastered songs. If you've heard any of the band's double-disc rereleases, you'll have an idea of just how good their remastered songs can sound. While there are some obvious omissions ("Somebody," "Policy of Truth"), compiling a career-spanning collection of Depeche Mode's best would be considered a challenge for just about anybody; and as this is Vol. 1, it seems obvious that there's more to come. There are a couple odd choices in the mix ("See You," "New Life") and the obligatory new track ("Martyr"), but the non-chronological mix makes these classics sound fresh and better than ever. --Alan Wiley

Customer Reviews

lacking in artistic integrity, reason, this album has no reason to exist...
why? Yet another compilation album. Make no mistake, the compilation album is dying. Anyone with iTunes can make their own compilation in 5 minutes, and they are inevitably better than things like this - I certainly have.

It's a cheap, tacky cash-in. And it's not as if there haven't been a few of those already : 1985's "Singles", 1998's "Singles 86>98", 2004's "The Remixes 81-04", a lacklustre and boring reissue programme of every studio album they've recorded, 50 live albums ... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

If you don't have anything by Depeche Mode, and don't care if the songs are in any chronological order, sure, you can buy this : it has less than half of their hit singles in random order, which present a bizarre uneven listening experience. New track "Martyr" is excellent and as good as anything the band have done in years, but leaves a sour taste in the mouth of anyone whose already bought all these songs before. Cheaply recorded and shallow pieces of fluff such as the trite "See You" sit next to the later, and far better, "It's No Good" in a way that feels as if someone just pressed Shuffle on their iPod. There's no sense of artistic or musical progression. Just a random bunch of songs that hardly reflect what any fan would call their best work.

Not much better is the DVD edition, which manages to present the video for "I Feel You" on DVD for the fourth time, whilst ensuring that 14 other videos of theirs manage to still sit on rotting videotapes in an office in London. Way to go Mute! Well done! At least the videos are present in some near-chronological order, and expand the collection up to a total of 25 songs and a half-arsed movie that spans 30 years in 30 minutes. But it's a frustratingly incomplete, and callous, way to treat a band's legacy.

And since Depeche Mode have already sold 72,000,000 records - more than the number of people who live in Great Britain - it's not as if they need the money to retire on. So what's the motive? Greed? A last gasp attempt to clear the decks and line their pockets?

Unless you're a completist or a casual fan who likes some of their songs and can't be bothered to buy the albums, don't touch this with a bargepole. It's musically brilliant - but artistically worthless.

Best treated as a fine collection of their music
This 'best of' is probably aimed at the casual fan, as diehard's will not only own all of their albums, but also the two very comprehensive hit packages: '1981/1985' and '1986/1998'. However, this may not even be enough to cater for the casual fan as there are too many big hit singles missing, which is understandable given that this is a one cd 'best of' consisting of only 18 tracks that has to cover 1981 to the present day.

This little gem is best treated as a fine collection of their music, rather than a definitive 'best of'. The joy of this cd, is that you get a lot of variety by having a great cross section of hit singles spanning their entire career, including: 'Just Can't Get Enough', 'Everything Counts', 'Enjoy The Silence', 'Precious' etc. If nothing else, this makes a great guilty pleasure purchase.

Worth a listen DM fans
Overall, a good mix of Mode's work over the years; from the bouncy 'Just can't get enough' of the early 80's through to the recent 'Precious', for me the best work from Dave and the boys for some years now. I was a little disappointed to see the omission of 'Stripped', but there you go - perhaps that's saved for volume 2, and let's hope that's not too long in the offing.