1) Which song would you lose from the album?
2) Which song is the most radical on the album (he's using the vinyls as masters; I'll use the complete CDs with the bonus tracks, i.e. B-sides as the masters myself; although they won't be eligible for answering in #1)
3) Which song have you listened to the most?
4) What is your favorite song on the album at the moment?
5) How would you rate the album overall?
Construction Time Again is a transitional album, although honestly, you could say that about almost all of the Depeche Mode albums; they were rarely content to retread what they had just done. If A Broken Frame was Martin Gore's first effort, and portions of it were him trying to still sound like Vince Clark, intermingled with his own early song-writing sensibilities, Construction Time is him feeling both more confident and experienced at song writing, and yet also veering off into a tangent thematically, talking a lot about a bunch of strange socio-economic and political themes, although doing so in a deliberately vague way. Importantly, it is also the album where Depeche Mode brought sampling and innovative recording to the mainstream; working with Gareth Jones, but not in a musique concrete kind of way; the techniques used by Einsturblahblahblah Neubaten (Collapsing New Buildings. That I can say. Although it tends to get the Fad Gadget song stuck in my head when I do.)
But it never sounded (to me, at least) like Depeche Mode had "arrived" at their classic iteration quite yet. Maybe that's not fair, and maybe it's an artifact of how I came into Depeche Mode a little later in the 80s, and Construction Time Again was back catalog by the time I got it, but maybe it's also because some of their experimentation was a little odd; it was fun to see them experimenting, but some of those experiments were best... not repeated, maybe. I, of course, first heard Depeche Mode when People Are People was popular enough to be on the radio, but it wasn't until Strangelove was on the radio that I really got into them and went and started buying their stuff. Music For the Masses was my first Depeche Mode album (and it was still pretty new at the time in 1988 or so) and to me, the triptych of Some Great Reward, Black Celebration and Music For the Masses was the fully matured Depeche Mode sound. (I'm one of the very few DM fans who actually think Violator was a step-backward into some hoakiness on occasion, and bad production (single versions of many of their tracks were better than the album versions.) To me, Construction Time Again was a weird little detour on their way to Some Great Reward. Although obviously, it has some great tracks, especially the timeless classic Everything Counts.
1) This is actually surprisingly tough. I really don't much like Pipeline, but at the same time, I appreciate the innovation in it. Just based on how much I like it, I think this one needs to go, but in terms of maybe tracks that don't do anything "new" or particularly interesting, but are just solid album tracks, I'd probably have to say Two Minute Warning or More Than a Party more deserves the cut. Can I punt and say Get the Balance Right, which they did cut? I know, I know. I'll go with Pipeline; it would have been just as innovative as a b-side, I suppose.
2) I think either Pipeline or Told You So counts here. Pipeline was probably more innovative in that it didn't even bother having a melody or stuff like that, which wasn't necessarily a great concept of an experiment. Told You So is really frantic and very kind of interesting and unlikely for what ended up being a single release, at least in some regions.
3) Well, clearly Everything Counts is the one I've heard the most. It's the most accessible, and it was released twice (live version in 1988 from 101). They also end pretty much every concert with it. I haven't necessarily tried to hear it the most, but I have regardless.
4) My favorite song, for many years, has been The Landscape Is Changing. The switch into a different instrumental coda has always sounded great to me. But... for many years? Still today? I'm not sure. That's a tough call. And Then... is surprisingly iconic to me too; it's a great track, and the album wouldn't be the same without it being in the place that it is in the album. And at the end of the day, Everything Counts still hasn't gotten tired or stale to me yet, in spite of a bit of cheesiness in the theme. I think when all is said and done, I'll actually pick that one: Everything Counts.
5) I don't know that it's improved on A Broken Frame, in terms of how easy is it to listen to. It's more mature in some ways, and stretches in interesting ways, but in other ways, that didn't necessarily make it any better. So, so far, all three of the first Depeche Mode albums get the same rating, seven out of ten.
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