Depeche Mode rebuilt their sound with the industrial rhythms of this socially conscious stepping stone. With the departure of founding member and principal songwriter Vince Clark after their debut 'Speak and Spell', the band had settled into a holding pattern with 'A Broken Frame' and began to feel typecast as bubblegum synth band and wanted to break out of that mold with their new album. 'Construction Time Again' was recorded at John Foxx's newly built London studio The Garden and as well as at Hansa Mischraum Studios in West Berlin. Martin Gore looks back: "The city was still surrounded by the wall. But you know why we chose to record in cities like...West Berlin? Because these were exotic cities to us. I still remember how we’d hang around in London and ask ourselves where to record the next album. Somebody would say 'Berlin' and we all immediately liked the idea. We liked Berlin because cool bands like Einstürzende Neubauten lived there. Not least Gareth Jones used to live in Berlin—he was our producer. He’d say, 'What about the Hansa studio at the Berlin wall?' And we all just agreed. We found it exciting. We actually wanted to undergo an adventure and Berlin just promised that to us. So there we went and we did indeed record 'Construction Time Again' at Hansa studios. It was a pretty awesome time. So why not record the next and the following album there as well? During that time we decided to always fathom a period of recording in any given city as an adventure trip."
The sessions featured Dave Gahan on lead vocals and sampling; Martin Gore on keyboards, guitar, sampling, backing vocals, recorder on "Shame", melodica on "Everything Counts", and lead vocals on "Pipeline"; Alan Wilder on keyboards, sampling, piano on "Love, in Itself", programming, and backing vocals; and Andy Fletcher on sampling and backing vocals; with production by Daniel Miller and Depeche Mode. Tonmeister Gareth Jones started as the engineer for the record; and, by the time it was completed, made the transition to production: "We felt that a lot of what we were doing was defining new sonic territories. Even on 'Construction Time', one of the things I brought to the table was to put the synthesizers through guitar amps. That wasn't being done very much back then — as far as we were concerned, we were the first people to do it — and that was part of the gradual darkening of the Depeche Mode sound. The band members wanted to experiment and they wanted to grow, and they were fed up with their synth-pop image. They didn't feel it did justice to what they wanted to express. They clearly wanted to go a long way, and at that time they were starting out on the journey...I felt I'd made a massive contribution to the sound of that album. With Depeche, the studio was very much an instrument, too, and since that's what I played I felt entitled to ask if I could produce as well. Luckily for me, they said yes. The guy who'd founded Mute Records, Daniel Miller, was also the de facto manager — the band didn't have management at that time — and so he was the boss. He was fascinated by synthesizers and electronic music, and much of what he did musically was based on synthesizer sounds. Once those sounds came out of the synths I'd take over and build acoustic spaces around them, and at the same time we'd all work on the arrangements. Still, looking back, I'd say I was a very junior co-producer. Daniel did a lot of hands-on crafting of those sounds, as did Martin Gore and Alan Wilder, who was also a major production figure within the band. Alan was extremely involved in the crafting of the studio product; a full-on, very musical guy, very interested in beats programming, and very interested in every aspect of the studio, be it compression or equalization or reverb or delays or anything. So, there was a trio of us all the time in the studio, with Alan representing the band, Daniel overseeing everything while crafting many of the sounds, and me taking care of the engineering side. I had no responsibility for schedule or budget, and I was only starting to really understand how pop songs worked. I was on a big learning curve. In fact, I think we were all on a learning curve — that's one of the things that was so exciting. Sonically, I was contributing to the record big-time, and that's why I asked to be on the production team. I was just a young engineer, also with a long way to go, who knew I could add greatly to the production side of things, too, and the band and the record label obviously felt the same way because they took me on board."
'Construction Time Again' marked a change in the band's sound and image, with a more industrial musical approach combining with a leftist political perspective. Wilder would wax: “The general tendency of the album is very socialised and The Worker sums it up – it’s the obvious image to get across socialism. It’s like, the first thing you think seeing the cover is that the hammer is smashing down the mountain, but not to destroy. Because he’s a worker, it’s to rebuild it, it’s positive. That was the overall idea of the album, to be positive – that’s why it’s construction time, not destruction time...When we decided on the theme for the album, the first word that came up was caring, and that’s the main idea behind it. We’re not out and out, you know… but we are socialist and we are caring.”
Gahan considered: “With the hammer on this one we wanted to symbolise the force of a worker. It’s a very powerful force, it needed a very powerful image, whereas I think the sickle was a little bit more subtle...We do feel for those things and it’s a bit more important to sing about something of substance than sing about nonsense. If you’re in a band in our position, you’re in a very strong position to write about those things, so why not do it? Obviously, for a lot of bands that aren’t so successful, it seems an obvious thing to do. Whereas a band in our position could quite easily sing about nonsense – I think a lot of people just expected us to sing about nonsense...A lot of people had no idea that we was capable of writing something like 'Construction Time'. We’d been portrayed for ages in one way. Like, we did every interview going and just sorta said exactly the same thing. 'Yeah, we started in so and so…' y’know. But then we suddenly realised – what are we doing? If we want to carry on, we’ve got to do something a little more lasting. I think Martin and Alan have both got a lot more substance in their writing…When I hear tracks from ['Speak and Spell'], I get embarrassed. Though at the time we thought it was great. Then on the second album, it was very hard in the studio, people were letting us drift, there was a lack of enthusiasm… but then with 'Construction Time' it was very up in the studio, everyone was really working to make it happen.”
'Construction Time Again' went to two hundred and one in the US, thirty-four in the Netherlands, twenty-one in Switzerland, sixteen in France, seven in Germany, and number six in the UK.
http://www.depechemode.com/
"Everything Counts" went to number fifty in the Netherlands, twenty-four in Italy, twenty-three in Germany, eighteen in Sweden, seventeen on the US dance chart, fifteen in Ireland, eight in Switzerland, and number six in the UK. Gahan says: “Some people have thought it was about different things, like eating too much, or it was just about the music business but really though it’s about multinational corporations, y’know, that they’ve got too much power. But it was a conscious move to come across fuller and more definite and not just floating through. People used to think before: 'Depeche Mode? Oh yeah, they’re that band that just sorta float by.' 'Everything Counts' was a definite move to make something stronger, more lasting."
Gore adds: “I think that was partly going to Thailand as well – that’s where the oriental flavour comes in, like Korea ‘n’ all that. But you go over there and all the hotels are full of, like, businessmen and basically they tend to treat people as though they’re nothing. All they’re interested in is their business – that’s what I really hate about big business, people just don’t seem to matter. Just money. You see all the women over there ‘n’ they’re all prostitutes – that’s the only way they can make any money. ’Course, the businessmen love it.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t-gK-9EIq4
The handshake
Seals the contract
From the contract
There's no turning back
The turning point
Of a career
In Korea, being insincere
The holiday
Was fun packed
The contract
Still intact
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves
After all
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves
After all
It's a competitive world
Everything counts in large amounts
The graph
On the wall
Tells the story
Of it all
Picture it now
See just how
The lies and deceit
Gained a little more power
Confidence
Taken in
By a sun tan
And a grin
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves
After all
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves
After all
It's a competitive world
Everything counts in large amounts
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
Everything counts in large amounts
The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
Everything counts in large amounts
"Love, in Itself" found its way to twenty-eight in Germany, twenty-seven in Ireland, twenty-one in the UK and number one in the Netherlands.
'Construction Time Again'
full album:
All songs written and composed by Martin L. Gore, except where noted.
Side one
1. "Love, in Itself" 4:29
2. "More Than a Party" 4:45
3. "Pipeline" 5:54
4. "Everything Counts" 4:20
Side two
5. "Two Minute Warning" Alan Wilder 4:13
6. "Shame" 3:51
7. "The Landscape Is Changing" Wilder 4:49
8. "Told You So" 4:26
9. "And Then..." 5:39
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