DEPECHE MODE - THE SINGLES 1981 TO 2021 PART 7: GET THE BALANCE RIGHT!

 

On 31st January 1983, Depeche Mode released a new single. That single, Get The Balance Right!, was landmark in many ways. Firstly, it was the first release with Alan Wilder as an official member of the band. The band's then fanclub, the Depeche Mode Information Service, announced Alan's arrival in the October 1982 newsletter:

Picture courtesy of DM Live Wiki

Secondly, it marked Alan's first songwriting credit with the band with the B-Side The Great Outdoors! a song he track he co-wrote with Martin. Thirdly, the band released their first ever Limited Edition and fourthly, finally and less relevantly, Get The Balance Right! contains the line that this blog was named after. The logo I use is what you might call influenced by the sleeve design too.

Let us then, almost entirely predictably, take a look at Get The Balance Right! As I will inevitably forget to add the exclamation mark on every occasion I type the song's name, from this point, let's forget about the exclamation mark.

ALMOST PREDICTABLE...ALMOST - GET THE BALANCE RIGHT

The Single

Get The Balance Right was recorded in Blackwing Studios in 1982. Alan recalls that the band deliberately produced a "dance 12" " that was "very much geared towards the clubs."  The dancefloor smash envisaged is obviously more apparent on the towering beast that is the Combination Mix, more of which in a bit. The 7" version of the song is certainly danceable enough if that is a phrase, and it's propelled along on a glorious, thudding bassline. If Leave In Silence hinted at a new direction for Depeche Mode, then Get The Balance Right confirmed that shift. The song is not without its poppy side of course, but its harder sound and general sense of dark urgency clearly stand it apart from the first couple of singles from A Broken Frame. Martin's lyrics are more inward looking than his previous efforts, sounding a bit like a man struggling to grasp fame and the demands it has on him. He was obviously busy as his diary was full until "Next Thursday."  It's a fascinating song really and its release as a one off single makes sense as it wouldn't have fitted on A Broken Frame and isn't quite in keeping with Construction Time Again. The fact it was recorded after A Broken Frame would of course have stopped it from fitting on the album too.

Oddly of course, Get The Balance Right features on the Construction Time Again 12" Boxset and on the reissue CD/DVD from a few years ago. Shake The Disease and It's Called A Heart feature on the Black Celebration reissue CD/DVD but sadly, and wrongly, didn't appear in the Black Celebration 12" boxset. Sorry for the non-sequitur, but that point is always worth making. I'll be making it again in a few blogs time.

The single was released on 31st January 1983 and entered the charts at number 32 on 12 February. The band's appearance on Top Of The Pops on 10th February helped push the single up to 22 on the 19th of February

Poor Alan - already relegated to drums. The single remained at 22 for a further week before climbing to its chart high of 13 on 5th March. From there it went to 15, 26, 40 before finally taking a joyride to its house in the countryside via a final stop at number 62.

The reviews of the song were the usual mix of the positive and insulting. Smash Hits loved it, saying it was "fascinating enough structurally to keep it around (the charts)longer than most. " Sounds liked it too, saying it was "the sort of thing they do better than anyone else." Time Out however were not big fans of the song, reviewer John Gill saying "I have often wondered why God bothered with Depeche Mode."  A man with too much time on his hands clearly.

The band haven't played the song live that much, perhaps reflecting its status as an in-between albums single. It has been played live a total of 62 times, first being heard on 23 December 1982 at the Brixton Ace on the A Broken Frame tour. It appeared 48 times on the Construction Time Again tour, last being played on 2nd June 1984 in Ludwigshafen. 

As I mentioned above, the B-side is a Martin and Alan co-written instrumental called The Great Outdoors! Another exclamation mark. The song was written in the studio and "all done very quickly" according to Alan and that is evident when you hear the song. It starts off well enough, in a similar early electronic experimentalism way to Oberkorn (It's A Small Town) but it goes a bit odd 1 minute 38 seconds in when it becomes the soundtrack to a dodgy cartoon in which a gnome is having a series of jaunty dreams. Or something. Anyway, that carries on for 3 minutes or so before more dark electronic swooshes return us to something a bit more like it. The song has never been played live. I know - surprising right?

The Video

Once again, we have a video that doesn't match the marvellousness of the song. We start off with the band dressed as scientists, watching small child play with a crane before Alan wanders in and starts miming the song. The child rightly tries to hide in his bed screaming "For f**cks sake, can SOMEONE tell the Director that this is Alan Wilder and NOT Dave Gahan. Dave is the f**king singer, not f**king Alan. Alan is the new boy. He plays f**king keyboards. SOMEONE CALL MY AGENT." 

Alan tells the story slightly differently saying that the Director Kevin Hewitt thought he was actually the singer and the band were too shy to tell him he was wrong. They very much got the balance between shyness and being stroppy wrong there. Ho ho.

Fletch appears as a scientist again and then Martin pops up with a bowler hat and waistcoat. The lack of any sense is added to by Dave appearing as a magician. He twiddles his hankies (NOT a euphemism) before the scene changes and we see all four DM lads attempting to coax us into a fairground. All very odd. Quite rightly, the child stays where he is and instead the Depeche boys, now in suits, play space invaders while four milkmen stand behind each of them waiting to play on the machines.

I can't believe I wrote that sentence.

Curiously, the milkmen push Depeche out of the way and steal money that seems to have come from the machines. They didn't work like that of course, but we are all in Keith Hewitt's world now. Scientist DM return, counting the money the milkmen are giving them before we suddenly see Alan on a fairground ride with the ever present milkmen hanging around. By this point, even Keith Hewitt must have been confused. 

We then have fortune tellers, more fairground rides, more milkmen and more gibberish. It's all rubbish but at least it's not....come on everyone... Hole To Feed.

The Formats

As was usual for the time, we had a 7" release in the UK (BONG2). As you can see above, it features 27 men holding hammers. 26 point one way and the last faces the other way. He's red too.

The rear is quite clever (above). Everything is back to front including, slightly curiously, the B-side name.

The UK 12" (12BONG2 - above) is a great thing as it features the Combination Mix of Get The Balance Right. You all know this mix by now - it's 7 minutes 57 seconds of booming dancefloor friendly Depeche Mode and it is a striking example of why they were pioneers in the world of remixing. What a remix. Incredibly, DJ's like Derrick May were apparently influenced by it with the clubs in Detroit taking to the track. I don't imagine that's what Alan had in mind when he said they were creating a dancefloor track.

There are two tracks on the B-side. As well as The Great Outdoors! we also have the first ever officially released Depeche Mode live track. Keeping with the every song must have an exclamation mark feel, a a rather lovely live version of Tora! Tora! Tora! recorded at Hammersmith Odeon on 25th October 1982 appears.

That one live track was a taster for what appeared on the band's first ever limited edition release which came out in late February and was announced in the March 1983 edition of the Depeche Mode Information Service newsletter. This is where multi formats began and this is where many collectors started their life long obsession. This release (L12BONG) is a beauty and a worthy holder of the band's first L12 title. The initial releases were numbered and came in a textured sleeve like the one above with gold foil on the sleeve giving it a very fancy look indeed. The labels are beautiful too. On the A-Side, we have the single version of Get The Balance Right.

The B-side (above) features four live tracks from the Hammersmith Odeon show - My Secret Garden (with a snippet of the Oberkorn intro), See You, Satellite and Tora! Tora! Tora!. They are great live versions that give a great snapshot of Depeche Mode at that point. The live versions have a few interesting variations on the studio versions and the screaming crowd is something to behold. Overall it is a really nice release and a great start to the onslaught of limited editions that we'd see from now on.

As with all the pre 1991 singles, a CD single (CDBONG2) arrived in the UK in 1991.

There are three German coloured vinyl releases to collect here alongside the normal, dead boring black vinyl. Firstly, the red vinyl 7" with the A-Side above

The B-Side and back of the sleeve can be seen above.

The standard UK 12" was available on gorgeous red vinyl in Germany. It had the added bonus of being a Super Sound Single. No, I've no idea either.

The B-Side was also Super Sound which is nice.

The coloured vinyl version of the limited edition 12" is a stunning thing. Just look at that. Every single thing about it is glorious and it cannot be criticised in any way ever by anyone. 

The B-side is equally majestic. As you may have gathered, it's one of my favourite coloured vinyl releases. For those who think that the musical content is the interesting thing here, the tracklist is the same as the UK limited edition 12".

The Intercord blue stripe CD features the 7" tracks, Tora! Tora! Tora! live and the Combination Mix. There is another CD too.

When I first got into Depeche Mode, as my Violator obsession grew, I started buying anything with Depeche Mode on it. This was one of the first CDs I got and I was obsessed with it. I played it over and over and could and in fact still can say "Good evening everybody" at the same time Dave does when he walks on stage as My Secret Garden starts. As well as the 7" version of Get The Balance Right and the four live tracks, it also features the Combination Mix albeit named as Original 12" Mix.

There is also a German cassette single. Meanwhile in France...

The 12" cover was redesigned with all three tracks featuring on the front including the track length of the Combination Mix but, curiously, not the other two tracks.

The reverse of the sleeve lists all three tracks but not the Combination Mix track length.

The French limited edition 12" features 6 tracks. The A-side (above) features the 7" mix and Original 12" Mix (a.k.a Combination Mix).

The B-side features the four live tracks. As you can perhaps see, there is a picture of a cassette in the top right corner. This release also appeared on cassette in France, a hard to find release missing from my collection.

Oddly there isn't a French CD single of the 12". Instead there are a few variations of the German live tracks CD. The one above is the numbered version featuring the same 6 tracks as the French limited edition 12". There are two other variations too.

In other countries, the blue limited edition 12" appeared in Australia and Spain. Canada had a 12" which I have for some reason (we all know the reason):

It's a four track "speically priced maxi single" (see side of sleeve above) that is identical to the US 12" bar one key aspect:

As you can see above there is a small maple leaf in the top right of the rear sleeve. 

With Get The Balance Right performing well enough in the charts, Depeche Mode regained some momentum. They would soon be back at work, this time adding Gareth Jones to their team and we'd soon see the benefits of that.

Metal bashing, sampling, Martin starting to be all Martin and Berlin were all on the way. With their next single, Depeche Mode would not only once again conquer the UK Top Ten but they would also turn into a very different band indeed, one that was ready to start taking the world by storm over the net few years.

Depeche Mode conquering the world? No-one could say that was predictable.

ARBITRARY DEPECHE MODE THINGS NO. 1 - THE TOP TEN 1980'S REMIXES

In an obvious attempt to pander to my core audience, welcome to the first in a series of no-one's yet quite sure how many pieces of what I'm calling Arbitrary Depeche Mode Things. Not the snappiest title I admit, but we're between albums, I've said all I can say about their discography (I still don't apologise for the Exciter post) and I need to write about what I actually know. So here we go: welcome to Arbitrary Depeche Mode Things No. 1 - The Top Ten 1980's Remixes

(all remixes chosen by me only. You may not agree. Knowing DM fans, you won't agree, I'll be horribly wrong and you'll run screaming to play The Things You Said on repeat to get over the shock but do bear in mind that this is all for fun. Sort of like Set Me Free (Remotivate Me) but good. Anyway, onwards...)

10. OBERKORN (IT'S A SMALL TOWN) - DEVELOPMENT MIX (1982)

Oberkorn is quite literally a small town, situated in South-West Luxembourg and with a population of only around 5,000 people. Depeche Mode's tourbus drove through there in the very early days and Martin was, presumably, so taken with it that he wrote a song all about it. It's the b-side to the horrific 1982 single The Meaning Of Love and is, unlike it's quite implausibly bad parent tune, an instrumental filled to the brim with dark synth sounds and haunting gothic melodies. The Construction Time Again foreshadowing Development Mix is a 7 minute 37 second imperious beast of experimental electronics that showed that Depeche Mode were far more than the pop tarts The Meaning Of Love showed them to be. Haunting, brooding and just bloody fantastic, Oberkorn (It's A Small Town) (Development Mix) is a hidden treasure in the early DM catalogue

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9. ROUTE 66 - BEATMASTERS MIX (1988)

The first time I properly noticed Depeche Mode was when I repeatedly watched the 101 video at a mate's house. Yes the main tunes were all magic and utterly transfixing, but the cover of Route 66, used as repeat motif throughout the film (hmmm...really?) stood out. An English electronic band covering a song about a big road in America sung by the wee guy that wears make up? Yes, yes indeed. As the imperious World Violation tour was copied by U2's Zoo TV tour, Depeche beat the Dubliners to the whole Rattle & Hum  thing by providing their own take on American music but, because they are Depeche Mode, they did it in a cool way, not a crap way. Route 66 was of course the b-side to the similarly car themed Behind The Wheel and 80's remix crowd The Beatmasters provide a sample filled but, frankly marvellous remix which deservedly makes this seemingly random top 10.




8. MASTER & SERVANT - SLAVERY WHIP MIX (1984)

Perhaps calling this remix the Slavery Whip Mix extended the whole chains, whips and general pervy but not actually that pervy thing too far, but that's easily forgiveable when you have a remix as good as this. As with most of the mixes here, the band did this and they take the 4 minute pop song and effortlessly turn it into a nine and half minute beast of a track. Drums smash, basslines go mental, whips crack and Depeche Mode go from pop to industrial in one fell swoop. It's a thumping belter of a track and what it lacks in subtlety is more than made up in its utterly unquestionable genius. PLUS - there's the odd acapella/double bass bit at the end which is just weird. It's a lot like life indeed.



7. JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH - SCHIZO MIX (1981)

Ah Just Can't Get Enough. The track everyone knows, the track many people think is the only thing Depeche ever did and the track you can no longer play in Glasgow without angering 50% of the people in the vicinity. The single is a landmark piece of prime, pristine, perfect synthpop, but the 12" mix, the Schizo Mix, is the real gem. Transformed from the simple single, this mix breathes new life (I didn't mean that) into the song, turning it into a brooding Kraftwerkian masterpiece that mixes experimentalism with early synthpop in a way that remains magical.



6. EVERYTHING COUNTS - IN LARGER AMOUNTS (1983)

Firstly, let's acknowledge the simple genius of the remix title. You all know the chorus ("Everything counts in large amounts") so it makes more sense than anything else has ever made to call this 12" version In Larger Amounts. It's genius. The mix itself is ridiculously good: the original song's noises get room to breathe, exposing every clunk, thump, metal scrape and odd flute thing (I still forget the name) for the marvels they are. Add to that extra electronics, sampled vocals that found their way into the live version ("The graph...The graph...The graph...The handshake) and you have something very special indeed. If Depeche Mode had stopped remixing their own tracks after this, they'd have been justified in doing so - it's perfect.




5. GET THE BALANCE RIGHT - COMBINATION MIX (1983)

Beyond acknowledging that Taylor Swift's 1989 is an unimpeachable pop classic, I have little interest in what clutters up the charts these days. I do know, however that someone sang relatively recently about something being all about "that bass." Whilst her musical adventures are misguided, she was right in that sense and this remix (don't worry, this is getting to the point) IS all about the bass. Bassline anyway. The band take a relatively ordinary and Martin Gore despised song and transform it into a club masterpiece that bewitched the likes of Derrick May and Juan Atkins and directly influenced their own highly influential music, remarkably enough. This remix gives the original song a power it simply doesn't ordinarily have. Superb.

(NB - Check out the lyrics. You may find the inspiration for this blog's name)



4. SHAKE THE DISEASE - REMIXED EXTENDED VERSION (1985)

It's a universally accepted truth that Shake The Disease is one of the greatest songs ever penned by anyone. This, surprisingly enough, remixed and extended version of the track takes you on an 8 minute 46 second journey that breaks your heart, rebuilds it, smacks some metal off a fence and then breaks your heart again. Titanic, metallic majesty.




3. PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE - DIFFERENT MIX (1984)

Frankly, all that you need to know about this remix is that it sounds like a factory waking up with a hangover before it spends a day crushing metal

And that is a very, very good thing.



2. STRIPPED - HIGHLAND MIX (1986)

Stripped is a Depeche song that most people would agree is a classic, and it marks the band's transformation from pop mixed with experimental elements to the full on gloomy synth powered beast that would conquer the world. The whole Black Celebration period is exquisite and, as I've rather pretentiously said before, that album is effectively the manifesto for Depeche Mode fans. Stripped was the album's lead single and it's a perfect introduction to that album. This remix takes the track in a slightly different direction, stretching it and allowing its various parts to shine whilst adding a bagpipe like synth sound (hence the title) to kick it all off. Moodier and perhaps less immediate than the 7" version, the Highland Mix is however an absolute triumph filled with power and gothic angst. It's just what a 12" mix should be and still sounds brilliant.



1. NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN - SPLIT MIX (1987)

There can only be one winner here and the Split Mix of Never Let Me Down Again is it. A song that was already, and still is, among the best and most powerful in Depeche's catalogue is turned into an even more powerful beast. 9 minutes 31 seconds long, it starts with that orchestral sample part which instantly makes every hair on your and anyone else's body within a 10 mile radius stand on end. From then on, you are in heaven as the song you know smashes you around the head before being taken onto several greater levels as it builds to a shuddering climax. It's absolutely mindblowing and if you ever find yourself stuck on a desert island with the choice of only one Depeche Mode remix make it this. The second you start playing it the desert island will be scared into sailing itself towards land again. Powerful, mesmerising and irrefutably majestic, THIS is the best Depeche Mode remix of the 1980's




Thanks for bearing with me. If you disagree, why not tell me how wrong I am on the blog's Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/almostpredictablealmost ) or on Twitter (@almostprdalost)

DEPECHE MODE - GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT - CONSTRUCTION TIME AGAIN & 1983

DEPECHE MODE - GETTING THE RIGHT BALANCE - CONSTRUCTION TIME AGAIN AND 1983

1983 is the start of the classic Depeche Mode era. Over the next ten years they would transform themselves from a poppy act with a fairly limited appeal to the world's first stadium filling electronic group influencing everyone from Derrick May to Trent Reznor on the way. The era I'm about to look at showed that Depeche were much more than simply a Basildon synthpop band who liked acting like clowns on Noel Edmonds' Swap Shop

4 months after A Broken Frame was released a brand new Depeche Mode single landed in the shops. Lyrically dodgy with a terrifyingly bad video (below) Get The Balance Right was released on 31 January 1983 

backed on 7 " (7BONG2 - below left) with the new instrumental The Great Outdoors. The Great Outdoors is notable only for the fact that it is a joint effort of Martin Gore and then new boy Alan Wilder. Alan was now a fully fledged band member with this single being his debut. Quite why the band chose to mark it by releasing one of their most baffling instrumentals is beyond me but it was a nice welcome for him I suppose. Get The Balance Right is a great song however despite some of its words. The bass line alone is worth checking this song out and indeed this tune along with its 12" remix is said to have been highly influential in Detroit techno circles. Baffling but true. The 12" (12BONG2) (right)

had three tracks - Get The Balance Right (Combination Mix), The Great Outdoors and a live version of Tora! Tora! Tora! from the Hammersmith Odeon on the Broken Frame tour. The Combination mix really is fantastic. It was 

the best Depeche remix to date and really took the song to a new place. The live Tora! Tora! Tora! is pretty much what you'd expect. No doubt sensing that there were people like me in the world the band released their first Limited Edition numbered 12" (left) (L12BONG2) in support of the single. It features the 7" version of Get The Balance Right plus 4 live tracks again from the Hammersmith Show - My Secret Garden (with an excellent intro using Oberkorn (It's a Small Town)), See You, Satellite and Tora! Tora! Tora! As it turned out this was the first of 3 such limited edition 12" singles in 1983 all with live tracks. Together they form a good record of Depeche live at the time and are worth a listen. The packaging is rather cool too. The German editions came in a red 7", a red vinyl version of the standard 12" (nice) and a marvelous blue vinyl limited 12". There are also German cd singles of the 12" and the limited 12" which adds the Combination mix to the tracklist albeit confusingly called Original 12" mix. So there you go.

My Get The Balance Right collection

Get The Balance Right was good but what followed on 11 July was not only their best single to date but also a landmark tune for all Depeche Mode fans - Everything Counts. Yes it has the slightly odd line about Korea and yes the video shows them tooling about miming on xylophones BUT you cannot ignore the genius of this song. The record buying public clearly agreed with me as the sing reached number 6 in the charts. As with the forthcoming album, the track 

was mainly recorded in London but mixed in Berlin's legendary Hansa studios, where the band made full use of the 64 track recording facility. The band's experimentation in this period is what makes it so fascinating. Martin was being influenced by bands such as Einsturzende Neubauten and was intent on mixing their industrial sounds with Depeche's pop ones. This really was quite a statement by the band given their pop status. Again, I'm biased but they were years ahead of their time here. Everything Counts has a much harder sound than anything that went before it (yes, even A Photograph of You) but it still retains its pop hooks. The 7" (7BONG3) was backed with Work Hard (right) which whilst by no means a classic is a decent enough song with a fair bit of metal bashing. The 12" (below) (12BONG3) came with two tracks - the East End mix of Work Hard

and the frankly top notch mix of the A side Everything Counts (In Larger Amounts).

 This remix really is great and its name is fantastic. As with Get The Balance Right a limited edition numbered 12" (right) (L12BONG3) was released featuring the 7" version of Everything Counts and live versions of New Life, Boys Say Go, Nothing To Fear and The Meaning of Love. Again, the packaging is great here - I love the logos the band used in the period such as the hand on the Everything Counts singles. Overall, the artwork was improving significantly on the band's earlier releases. I've not really mentioned the artwork in previous articles as the pictures really do speak for themselves the brillant A Broken Frame cover excepted. Whilst the 1983 era is no Violator era Corbijn genius (which I will drool on endlessly about in the future) the artwork for the singles and album have a consistency and a theme which was both a first and very important for the band. Finally German editions come in a red vinyl 7", and clear vinyl versions of both the standard and limited edition 12" singles. Finally there were two cd singles - one of the 12" and one of the limited edition again adding the 12" remix. The video is the first one the band say they were truly happy with. See below for the evidence.

My Everything Counts collection

Everything Counts was the first single released from the band's new album Construction Time Again (below) which came out on 22 August 1983 and, like Everything Counts, reached number 6 in the UK charts

 The album orginally came out on cassette (CSTUMM13) and LP (STUMM13) and came with 9 tracks - Love In Itself, More Than A Party, Pipeline, Everything Counts, Two Minute Warning, Shame, The Landscape Is Changing, Told You So and And Then... . It also has a brief reprise of Everything Counts right at the end. The difference between this album and A Broken Frame is remarkable. The songs are much more mature and complex, the sounds are generally harder and louder and the whole tone has a political edge to it which was something never previously associated with Depeche. Sampling is everwhere on the album from guitars on Love In Itself to the odd flute thing (can't recall the name) on Everything Counts, the train on More Than A Party and to the standout track - all the metal an East London scrapyard could provide on Pipeline. I love Pipeline - the lyrics, the metal noises, just the whole feel of it. That the band did this only months after The Meaning of bloody Love is genuinely astounding. Some people dont like Pipeline and that's fine but to not like it is to simply not get Construction Time Again era Depeche Mode. They were pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable for a straightforward pop band so far away from the accepted norms that they deserve all the praise in the world in my opinion. The album is also notable for the inclusion of two Alan Wilder songs - the nuclear bomb fearing Two Minute Warning and the first ever Green song (possibly!) The Landscape is Changing. Construction Time Again is the band's first proper album for me - if you don't have it get it. Simple as that.

The second and final single from the album was Love In Itself which came out on 19 September 1983 reaching a disappointing 21 in the UK.

The 7" (right) (7BONG4) contained the slightl

y remixed Love In Itself (2) and was backed with another Alan Wilder track, the excellent Fools. The 12" (12BONG4 - left) had three songs all with reasonably literal remix titles - Love In Itself (3), Fools (Bigger) and Love In Itself (4). Remix 3 is a fine example of the extended 12" craze of that period, as is the Bigger version of Fools. Remix 4 is interesting as it's a sort of acoustic band version of the song featuring Martin on guitar, Alan on piano, Dave on vocals and Fletch presumably on raising his arms and clapping. Finally the limited edition 12" formed the last in the series of three li

ve track 12" singles (L12BONG4 - right) and came with the 7" version and live versions of Just Can't Get Enough, A Photograph of You, Shout and Photographic again all from the Hammersmith Odeon gig. It maybe wanst the most obvious choice of second single from the album and it certainly hasn't aged as well as Everything Counts but Love In Itself is an ok tune. German editions come in a red vinyl 7", a grey vinyl standard 12",  a yellow vinyl version of the limited 12" and the two cd single approach as per the last two singles.

My Love In Itself collection

The band didn't hang about after Love In Itself as they headed back to Hansa this time to record a whole new album. That will be the topic of the next blog next time...