Monday 30 March 2020

TOO LATE TO CHANGE EVENTS - A @POLLICYOFTRUTH POLLS SPECIAL


When politicians sense trouble or when they prepare for re-election, they are quick to take to the polls. They want to test the public mood and make sure that they adapt their approach to match the demands of a public hungry for progress. Similarly, depending on where you live, every 5 years or so (or every year in the UK since the fixed term Parliament act came in...), you get the chance to vote. You get your say. Democracy is important, never moreso than in these bizarre locked down times, so to ensure that Depeche Mode's Twitter masses got the right to exercise their vote, I engaged top notch polling company Mori to run a series of investigative polls that would allow me to drill deep into the heart of the Depeche Mode fanbase.

They were unavailable however as the numerous emails and subsequent threatening legal letters I received indicated. Cambridge Analytica told me they were too busy fixing the results of the 2020 American election to help, so I turned to the darkest of all polling sources. A source so intrusive that data mining is something he does for fun only, this was the only man who could help me.



Not much is known about Twitter's @PollicyOfTruth. Some say that it is Alan Wilder himself, others that it is a high ranking Sony executive. Some even say that he's a guy from England with poor taste in football teams and a wish that music still sounded like it did in the late 80's to mid 90's. Whoever he is, he asked the questions that needed to be asked, you answered them and here are the results. THIS is what you think of Depeche Mode's Violator era.

POLL 1:


An unsurprising but correct result there.

POLL 2:




A significant win for Pump Mix there, trouncing all other remixes. 

POLL 3:


Interesting, The Quad: Final Mix did get a lot of support after this poll was issued. Whether that was enough to see off the runanway victor Hands & Feet Mix is something we will never know. Unless you want to find that tweet and count the votes of course.

POLL 4:


A tough choice as the poll suggests. Policy Of Truth was an all-round well remixed track. Capitol Mix ended up a runaway winner, however,  I would have thought that it would have been much closer between it and Beat Box but what do I know? After spending this month looking for Violator era pictures and reviews that no-one has ever seen before, I barely know my own name.

POLL 5:



A stunning win for Oil Tank Mix there, taking nearly half of the votes. Quite right too.

POLL 6:



An interesting poll here. Somewhere, some lucky person has the original Violator demos and they will have heard Martin sing each of its 9 songs. All we have are the demos of Clean and Sweetest Perfection from the Sounds Of The Universe deluxe box set (check under your bed - you have it) and, of course, the Harmonium version of Enjoy The Silence. That mix no doubt coloured a few votes, but Enjoy The Silence winning seems like the right result to me. It's hard to imagine Martin singing the others with the booming authority Dave does. 

So there we are. YOU have spoken. If you didn't take the chance to vote, then you have failed in your duty as a Depeche Mode fan. These results will stand for all time and there is nothing I or @PollicyOfTruth can do.

To ensure you excerise your democratic right in future, head to Twitter now and follow @PollicyOfTruth. Only you can determine how future Depeche Mode polls will finish. Meanwhile, I need to go and leave a bag of money and six cans of premium strength lager behind a caravan somewhere at a location I cannot disclose for security reasons. I have paid my price. If only Cambridge Analytica had been free.

2 comments:

  1. I must double check, but I bought a vinyl called "Early Demos" or "When Love is Enough" (depending on the cover/label) few weeks ago. Of course the majority are the ones released with SOTU (so not SO early), but there are a couple from early bootlegs indeed. There's also one from ETS which (and here is where I must double check) is NOT the Harmonium. They always said the Harmonium was SIMILAR to the demo, but not the demo itself.
    You can listen to an excerpt here: https://www.hhv.de/shop/de/artikel/depeche-mode-early-demos-410422
    (this was the shop I brought it from)

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  2. A poll about all the B-sides from these singles would have been interesting too.
    Let say – as the polls seems to have 4 choices only – "Dangerous", "Kaleid", "Happiest Girl" and "Sea Of Sin".
    Not an easy choice indeed !

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