Just look at the image above - what an album cover! Initially, of course, it was intended to appear in full twelve-inch square glory on a real album cover, being released in 1982, but successive versions on tape, CD and download have progressively reduced, stretched and digitised its glory. I must admit that I always, without thinking too hard, assumed it was a painting, perhaps by some 16-17th-Century Dutch painter, like Rembrandt or Vermeer; while the colours were too, well, colourful, for most of what I associated with that time, the costume and general epic gloominess of the piece, one peasant hapless in the face of the oncoming thunderstorm, seemed to fit the era and country (does anyone else think that moving from punishing puritanism to pot'n'porn in just a few short centuries seems a lot like cultural overcompensation by the Dutch, as if so embarrassed by their conservative history that they have sprinted to the opposite liberal extreme?). Anyway, it turns out (of course) that it is a photo, and modern, and taken not far off the M11 or somewhere. Doesn't reduce the majesty altogether, but maybe just chews away a tiny bit.
But what about the music it adorns? The album is Depeche Mode's 'A broken frame', which they apparently regard as their worst and tend to generally disown (given their favourite colour scheme over the decades, they may well regard it as the white sheep of their family), but I regard it as my favourite synth-pop album of the early 1980s (and there we lots of them around at the time).
I was 13 when it was released, and didn't but my first LP until around 1985; I think, God help me, that that landmark may have been the Thomson Twins' 'Into the Gap', but I did recover somewhat with my second investment, Alphaville's 'Forever Young', which still sounds very good to my ears (I was relieved recently, after buying it on CD in a fit of nostalgia, to read the Allmusic Guide referring to it as a landmark album of the time, and the title track is surely some sort of sadcore classic).
'A broken frame' wasn't even the first Depeche Mode album I bought, that honour going to 'Some great reward' (which contains the jawdropping 'Somebody', which still sends shivers up and down my spine every time I hear it, particularly the live version on '101'). Conventional wisdom may have put their early phase as their most poppy and light, but I find 'A broken frame' to be as overcast in mood as the sky on its cover, with an overhanging gloom and angst permeating the lyrics and unperpinning the superficially shiny synths, and most songs running over 4 minutes long; in fact, the cover is a very apt metaphor for the album's mood, with a dark pall hanging over a colourful spot, the light retracting in the growing shadow.
The album is a break-up album, and most songs are about missing, losing or leaving someone, with references to 'emotional violence' stabbing though the songs like purified crystalline angst (typical other line: 'Now hear this my friends. I'll never be the same again. Gonna lock myself in a cold black room. Gonna shadow myself in a veil of gloom'). Even 'See you', which sounds at first listen like the happiest poppiest Depeche Mode song, rings with sorrow and pain at missing someone in a way that makes me feel like a crap confused teenager all over again. A really old clip of them doing the song on the legendary music show 'The tube' can be seen below (by God, they look young, and so far from their black and leather era):
The key track is the closing 'The sun and the rainfall ', which is surely, after 'Somebody', their greatest moment; the initial drum machine buildup and climactic vocal interplay are just epic. A (presumably unofficial but interesting) video is at:
It is strange that, despite the fact that my turning 21 coincided with the start of my enduring relationship with music with guitars, I can still go back and listen to a completely synthesised album like this one now and, whether through nostalgia or what, just love the sound. Listening to the album again recently, I have even found myself frequently humming the instrumental 'Nothing to fear', as it worked into my brain and refused to leave.
This is another of those occasional posts where I just rabbit on about albums which have made a significant and lasting impact on me; chronologically speaking, this is a perfect place to start.
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