Catching Up With Depeche Mode

As befits a group that experienced near-immediate U.K. success and slower U.S notice, Depeche Mode’s catalog became a bit unruly with singles and EPs experiencing varying levels of exposure in the two countries and leading to a slew of collections that compile their “hits” and highlights in various forms. Catching Up… is much like its British The Singles collection with a few alterations, but is still a wonderful collection of the band’s early to mid-‘80s catalog. Several other tracks can be found on the People Are People collection. Here’s the band’s early years, with Vince Clarke’s early pop writings (“New Life,” “Dreaming of Me,” “Just Can’t Get Enough”) pitted alongside the darker musings of Martin Gore’s sexual (“Master and Servant”) and spiritual sides (“Blasphemous Rumours”) that would lead to the band’s ominous textures and transformation from an upbeat danceclub favorite to bleak overlords of the live rock circuit. So many groups went on to emulate Depeche Mode’s sound that it’s important to keep in mind how much these young men virtually invented their own genre of synth-led dance rock.