No, I'm not blogging about love; my title is from Depeche Mode's classic Strangelove. And when I say classic I mean classic if you were a true 1980's New Waver/punk rock kid.
I was just playing on the web site Project Playlist and reliving the golden musical years as I see them (and most likely how Toni sees them too!) Ahhh, Depeche Mode was fantabulous in those years. David's deep voice and Martin's gentle voice weaving a tapestry of morose melodies that saw me through all of my teenage years.
I first heard A Question of Lust as I sat on a plane taking off from Gatwick Airport in London. It was August of 1986 and I was with Elizabeth (best cousin ever), Marianne (also a cousin) and my grandfather, Neil. He took his girls to England that summer and it was the best week of my life up to that point. Depeche Mode became my symbolic soundtrack of that trip as their music poured through the headset on the plane. I raced to Echelon Mall right after we got home to purchase the "Black Celebration" album (yes, ALBUM) and listened to it nonstop.
I saw them in concert multiple time throughout high school and college, clothed in dramatic black dresses and combat boots with heaps of black eyeliner smeared across my lids. Oh, I was a punk rock site to behold in those days, complete with the required melancholy disposition.
Their current music is also wonderful...seriously check out Precious and Nothing's Impossible from "Playing The Angel." However, as wonderful as it is, it is not the same, for I am not the same. As I have grown, so too has my Depeche Mode soundtrack. The bubbly, synthesized rhythms and sonorous angst of their old music is out of fashion and long-gone much like my dramatic black dresses.
But that doesn't mean I cannot remember them fondly as I sit with an invention we couldn't begin to conceive of in those days (a laptop and the Internet) and erase time through the unique gift of music and memory.
So, here's the video for Strangelove. The song still rocks my punk rock heart. I just didn't remember the men being prettier and more effeminate than the women. Who knew?
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2 comments:
Man, do I get it!!!!
Just today, we were driving to ASU so Scot could pick up a textbook when "Personal Jesus" came on the radio. I turned it up real loud and started zoning out to it. The kids started hitting each other, pinching each other, etc., and Scot abruptly turned off the radio. I was like "hey! why did you do that!" and he called Depeche Mode "noise". It's just synthesizers and noise, was how he put it. Humphh... I was liking it. But he has never gotten them, or Duran Duran. Dated, yes. But always in style for me.
i just happened to come across your blog from a google alert and it is interesting how similar we are, right down to a brother 10 years younger and our astrological signs.
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