A Broken Frame

''A Broken Frame'' is the second studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 27 September 1982 by Mute Records. The album was written entirely by Martin Gore and was recorded as a trio after the departure of Vince Clarke, who had left and formed Yazoo with singer Alison Moyet. Alan Wilder, initially hired as a tour musician, does not appear on ''A Broken Frame'', but was officially acknowledged as a band member the month after the album's release.

The album reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart and was promoted by the singles " See You", " The Meaning of Love" and " Leave in Silence", all three of which reached the top 20 of the UK singles charts.

Background

Depeche Mode had released their first album '' Speak & Spell'' in October 1981 and after the subsequent tour was completed in early December, founding member Vince Clarke left the band. That same month, the remaining members of Depeche Mode, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Dave Gahan, went back to Blackwing Studios to record a new song, as they felt the pressure to continue the band after a string of successful singles, despite having lost its main songwriter. In addition, all three had quit their jobs or schooling, and none of them wanted to return to their old lives. Rather than write a new song immediately, they re-arranged and recorded a song Gore had written as a teenager called " See You". Released on 29 January 1982 in the UK, "See You" went on to reach number 6 on the UK charts. To support the song, Depeche Mode embarked on the See You Tour, with shows in the UK, Europe and the US from January to May 1982.

Although the band was initially hesitant to replace Clarke, their heavy tour commitments forced them to relent to pressure from their producer Daniel Miller, and to find a musician to play the tour, the band put an advertisement in the music magazine ''Melody Maker'' stating "Synth / Vocals needed for electronic pop group with UK & International commitments – must be under 21." Despite being 22 years old, musician Alan Wilder was hired as a result. Gahan recalled later that "we auditioned otential replacementsat Blackwing, and all these strange and wonderful characters showed up. And they were all dressed up to the nines, but couldn't play. And Alan came along and could play anything." Initially hired as a touring musician and paid a weekly wage, Wilder's first show with Depeche Mode was a warm-up gig at Croc's in Rayleigh, England, on 20 January 1982. Within a month, the band, without Wilder, returned to Blackwing Studios to record another song Gore had written when he was younger, " The Meaning of Love". Released on 26 April 1982, it reached number 12 on the UK charts.

Recording

In July 1982, the trio went into the studio to begin work on more songs for their second album, ''A Broken Frame''. The first new song written for the album was "Leave in Silence". Due to the mix of newly-written and re-arranged older songs like the first two singles, the sound of the album was described as "varied", with some "sugary pop songs" like "A Photograph of You" and some more "mature" recordings, like "The Sun & the Rainfall". Miller later recalled that "most of" the songs on ''A Broken Frame'' were older songs that Gore had written when he was younger. Blackwing Studios had upgraded their recording booth to a 16-track desk, which allowed the songs of ''A Broken Frame'' to be recorded more traditionally than the "live" technique used for ''Speak & Spell''. During the recording sessions, the band tried to incorporate sampled sounds into their music for the first time: for the sound of boots marching in "Shouldn't Have Done That", they recruited the band Blancmange, who were recording at the same studio, to march in front of microphones. Depeche Mode would continue sampling "found" sounds on their subsequent albums as well. Miller recalled that the process of production was quite different from the previous album, stating:

It was almost like a blank sheet of paper, the songs were recorded in a different way because Vince had a very specific idea of what the song was going to end up sounding like, and Martin didn't really have that. It was more like, 'Here's the words, here's the melody. Let's figure it out.'

Miller also believed that "some of the more experimental elements of the band came out in ''A Broken Frame'', which I enjoyed. They were making pop records, but they, especially Martin, were into experimental music and that started to feed into tracks like 'Monument'."

Miller also said that the instrumental track "Nothing to Fear" gained its title from Gore, who was "reading some weird book during the making of the record, a book of prophecies or something and he looked up his birthdate and it said, 'Nothing to fear.' So that actually ended up being a track title, and it made him very optimistic about the future." Miller also believes that the album "was a transitional record and while it's not their best record, it's hugely important in terms of how it was made and how it gave everybody confidence. It's when people really started believing in the future of the band."

Release and promotion

"Leave in Silence" was released as the third single from the album on 16 August 1982 in the UK and reached number 20 on the UK charts. ''A Broken Frame'' was released on 27 September 1982 by Mute Records in the UK (catalogue number STUMM9), and Sire Records in the US. The US release of the album included the "Longer" (12") version of "Leave in Silence" as well as the track "Further Excerpts From: My Secret Garden", which was not included on the original UK release.

The band supported the album with the A Broken Frame Tour, which ran from October 1982 through May 1983 with shows in the UK, Europe, the US and Asia. Although the album didn't sell as well as its predecessor, the supporting tour, especially in the UK, was strongly attended. It was during the UK leg of the tour, in October 1982, that Wilder was officially inducted into the band.

In mid-November, while still on tour but on a break between the UK and European legs, the band including Wilder went back to the studio to record a new song, " Get the Balance Right!". The song was released as a non-album single in January 1983, before the US and Asian legs of the tour. "Get the Balance Right!" reached number 13 on the UK charts.

A video recording of the show on 25 October 1982 at the Hammersmith Odeon was made by Mute Records with the intention of making a live release, but by the time the tour was complete, the band felt they had "outgrown" the songs, and the release was scrapped. Some of the live audio recordings from the show were released as b-sides to their 1983 singles: "Get the Balance Right!", " Everything Counts" and " Love, in Itself".

Remixes

Starting with their second single, " New Life", Depeche Mode had released remixes of their songs with each single. With the release of "Get the Balance Right!", the band started to take these remixes seriously, with Wilder calling it "the beginning of when everybody realized you had to make a 12-inch mix to help sell your single". For the "Balance" 12-inch remix, Wilder remembered "chopping up the tape. Just literally running off parses from the track. From the mixing board, on the tape, then chopping the tape up. I remember spending hours and hours chopping up tapes to put them together." A white label promotional copy of "Get the Balance Right!" found its way to influential Detroid DJ Derrick May, who put the song on rotation and helped Depeche Mode begin to get a foothold in the underground club scene in the US.

Album art

Like on the previous album, the band had agreed to not put themselves the front cover, as they and Mute both believed that they were "serious artists whose good artwork reflected their music." A picture of Fletcher alone did appear on the back of the original pressing of the album, a picture which was changed between early pressings for no disclosed reason. The image used as the cover for the album was taken by Brian Griffin, who had previously taken the cover photograph for ''Speak & Spell'' and contemporary press photos for the band. Griffin cited as inspirations the socialist realism of Soviet Russia, especially the work of Kazimir Malevich, and German Romanticism. Griffin has displayed on his website a gallery of alternative images from the same shoot. In 1990, ''Life'' magazine included the picture in their list of "World's Best Photographs 1980–1990".

Critical reception and legacy

''Smash Hits'' wrote that ''A Broken Frame'', in contrast to the group's early post-Clarke singles showed "a lack of purpose", "makes a virtue of their tinkly-bonk whimsy". In contrast, ''Melody Maker'' wrote that, although "ambitious and bold", "''A Broken Frame'' – as its name suggests – marks the end of a beautiful dream", a comment on the departure of main songwriter Clarke. Reviewer Steve Sutherland considered the songs "daft aspirations to art", the album's musical and thematic "larcenies" sounding like "puerile infatuations papering over anonymity". At the same time, Sutherland acknowledged that the group's increasing complexity "sounds less the result of exterior persuasion than an understandable, natural development", although he finally concluded that Depeche Mode remain (in contrast to Clarke's new group Yazoo) "essentially vacuous".

The comments of ''Noise!'' magazine's "DH" (most likely ''Noise!'' contributor Dave Henderson) were more favourable. "DH" said that the album "falls together well and shows we can expect a lot more from the clean cut quartet", adding " times it reaches high points far exceeding their first album."

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Ned Raggett described ''A Broken Frame'' as "a notably more ambitious effort than the pure pop/disco of the band's debut", with much of the album "forsaking earlier sprightliness... for more melancholy reflections about love gone wrong". He added: "More complex arrangements and juxtaposed sounds, such as the sparkle of breaking glass in ' Leave in Silence', help give this underrated album even more of an intriguing, unexpected edge."

In 1990, while promoting their album '' Violator'', songwriter Martin Gore lamented parts of the album, saying, "I regret all that sickly boy-next-door stuff of the early days... musically ''A Broken Frame'' was a mish-mash".

Track listing

* Some original US CD copies of the album tacked the intro of "The Sun & the Rainfall" onto the end of "Shouldn't Have Done That", making the duration of "The Sun & the Rainfall" 4:54.
* Dave Gahan sings lead vocals on all songs except "Shouldn't Have Done That" which is a duet with Gore. "Nothing to Fear" and "Further Excerpts From: My Secret Garden" are instrumental.

2006 Collectors Edition (CD + DVD)

* Disc one is a hybrid SACD/CD with a multi-channel SACD layer. The track listing is identical to the 1982 UK release, except "Satellite" which is 4:43 long and contains a slight edit, or error, at the beginning of the track.
* Disc two is a DVD which includes ''A Broken Frame'' in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo plus bonus material.

Additional material
# "Depeche Mode: 1982 (The Beginning of Their So-Called Dark Phase)" (27-minute video)

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''A Broken Frame''.

Depeche Mode

* David Gahan
* Martin Gore
* Andrew Fletcher

Technical

* Daniel Miller – production
* Depeche Mode – production
* John Fryer – engineering
* Eric Radcliffe – engineering

Artwork

* Brian Griffin – photography
* Martyn Atkins – design
* Ching Ching Lee – calligraphy

Charts

Certifications

Marsheaux cover version

In 2015, Greek synth-pop duo Marsheaux released a complete cover version of ''A Broken Frame'' on Undo Records. ''Release Magazine'' wrote that this version was not "anything essential" but well done. ''The Electricity Club'' found influences of And One in the cover of "The Sun & the Rainfall" and concluded that Marsheaux had "used unconventional sounds and vocals to make this record their own". Reviews from Germany noted that Marsheaux had elaborated on the assets and downsides of the original release. According to ''Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung'', the kitschy sides of the early Depeche Mode album were deliberately uncovered in tracks like "The Meaning of Love", while the ''Sonic Seducer'' lauded Marsheaux's darker and slower interpretation of this song.

References

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Further reading

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External links

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Album information from the official Depeche Mode website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Broken Frame, A
1982 albums
Albums produced by Daniel Miller (music producer)
Depeche Mode albums
Mute Records albums