I don't see who I'm trying to be instead of me

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

23/10/05 : Playing The Angel - Depeche Mode

This is the only Depeche Mode album I own (apart from the best-ofs, which are well worth owning) - the lovely Mrs Reed bought it for me at the time as a spur of the moment purchase.  And I think I somewhat ungraciously listened to it a few times, thought it was OK and then never listened to it again - I seem to recall it lacked an obvious highpoint.

And yeah, it's kinda what you expect but all a bit downplayed with none of the tracks standing out - it all feels pretty quality though (although I didn't like "Lilian"), so I can imagine those who've listened to it countless times are fans because they've studied it in detail and understand every emotional nuance.  But at first listen (again, after many years) it didn't exactly settle in there for me.

We're at #6 in the chart this week with a new entry on the start of a mere four week run which I think is unheard of so far this year - I guess they have a loyal, but not exactly huge fanbase.  The top five this week were the Prodigy best-of (a new entry), Sugababes, the Simply Red best-of (another new entry), Katie Melua and James Blunt and the next highest new entry was Michael Ball (#11).

Wikipedia tells me this is their eleventh album and the first to feature lyrical input from Dave Gahan.  But don't worry because he doesn't stray far from the tent with his input, as "some of the themes that appear quite often are faith, sin, pain, and suffering" - no-one expected that, eh?  The critics were generally pretty positive about it, although the CD version (why did I never know this is referred to as the "Red Book" version?) is apparently poorly mastered when compared with the vinyl version.  It may not have set the charts alight here but it did MASSIVELY in Europe (as is often the way for Depeche Mode) - it was #1 in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland and it got to #7 in the US, selling over 1.5 million copies globally.  Wow!

"Customers also listened to" Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, New Order and Pet Shop Boys - not where I was expecting that list to end up.  I like Depeche Mode in most of their guises throughout the years (44 of them now) but this doesn't feel like a high spot to me - it's all perfectly listenable but there's nothing there to drag me back.

16/10/05 - Uncertain on first listen
30/10/05 - A surprisingly successful album

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