Shot in an around Paris, the music video for Depeche Mode’s Strangelove was considered to be so controversial that MTV refuses to broadcast the original version. The band offered up a re-edited version, in which some of the shots of the two models were replaced with shots of the band.
Director Anton Corbijn needs no introduction. Along with being a renowned photographer who has been responsible for countless album covers and music videos, Corbijn has also directed films like The American, Control, and A Most Wanted Man.
Or, at least, I think I can relate. I’m not really sure what the song is about. I’m just reacting to the drowning imagery. It’s easy to feel like you’re drowning under the weight of everything that you need to get done. Being basically out of commission all last week left me running so far behind that I don’t feel like I’m ever going to caught up.
Though this video was directed by Anton Corbijn, it owes an obvious debt to Ingmar Bergman. Death never tires of playing chess, I guess. Does Death play checkers?
The video for this fan favorite was shot around what was then West Berlin. (This was before the wall came down.) Clive Richardson had also directed the video for Just Can’t Get Enough and the band turned to him, after previously working with Julian Temple, because they felt that Richardson could visually toughen up their image and help the band move away from the more self-consciously artsy style that Julian Temple had attempted to go with. The end result was a video that quickly went into regular rotation on MTV and a song that proved to be one of Depeche Mode’s most enduring hits.
But Not Tonight is a good example of the type of music video that used to dominate MTV, the movie soundtrack video. Depeche Mode recorded But Not Tonight for the film Modern Girls. The video cuts between scenes of the band performing and scenes taken from the movie, which is why Virginia Madsen, Daphne Zuniga, and Clayton Rohner are so prominently featured. The video did well on MTV, which didn’t translate into the movie becoming a hit.
While the movie was directed by Jerry Kramer, the video was directed by Tamra Davis. Davis was a prolific video director before moving into feature film and television directing.
Just Can’t Get Enough is about as upbeat of a song as you are ever going to get from Depeche Mode. That has a lot to do with the fact that it was written by Vince Clarke, who was a founding member of the band and who was considered to be the band’s leader until he left in November of 1981. While Clarke went on to become best known as a member of Erasure, Depeche Mode went in a harder, less pop-orientated direction, with Martin Gore eventually taking over Clarke’s role as the band’s main songwriter.
Just Can’t Get Enough was the third single from Depeche Mood’s debut album, Speak & Spell. The song was written as the punk scene was winding down and London club kids were looking for new music that wasn’t quite as aggressive and self-destructive. Just Can’t Get Enough was the first Depeche Mode song to become a top ten hit in the UK.
The video, which was directed by Clive Richardson, was the band’s first and it remains the only Depeche Mode video to feature Vince Clarke. The outdoor scenes were filmed at the Southbank Centre in London. Though the video did occasionally air on MTV, it wasn’t placed in the station’s regular rotation. In fact, MTV didn’t really embrace Depeche Mode’s videos until the release of Personal Jesus in 1989.
As the old saying goes, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
The video for Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence is simplicity in itself. Dave Gahan plays a king who searches the world, deck chair in hand, for a little silence. His quest takes him to the Scottish Highlands, the beaches of Portugal, and even the Swiss Alps.
This video was directed by Anton Corbijn, who has directed many videos for both Depeche Mode and U2 but who is probably destined to be forever remembered for directing the video for Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box. Corbijn has also directed a handful of films, including the Ian Curtis biopic, Control, and Life, which was about the friendship between James Dean and Life photographer Dennis Stock.
As for Enjoy the Silence, it was Depeche Mode’s highest charting song in the U.S. It was also later covered by the former First Lady of France, Carla Bruni.
Synthpop, industrial metal, and industrial rock are all the same music to me. The songs are made up of repetitious elements which are sung over. What makes them sound so different is the same reason one type of food tastes so different than that same food that is made a little differently. Take this song for instance compared to Rio by Duran Duran. That song uses the synthesizer as its’ ingredient. It gives it a very smooth and stylish sound that slips down the throat like cough syrup. In this music video, within the first second we see that Depeche Mode used other things like industrial sounds such as a cannon shooting off, hitting metal, and of course the synthesizer still. The repetition is as present as it was in Rio, but since the sources of that repetition have changed, the song comes across as something different when all that’s changed are the ingredients that satisfies the needs of the recipe. The lyrics of the song also take it from something that is pure fun to something that has meaning, but without much punch. It still goes down easy, but it’s a serious pill you are easily swallowing this time.
The video is a rather simple combination of war imagery with the group. The video alternates between fractured and un-fractured images in color and solid black and white. I’m not sure why they didn’t go for the obvious here. I would have had an arc in the video that moved from fractured images of the band in color to them in solid black and white that is paired with the stock footage. It would have helped to drive home that as the song is sung, the message goes from confusion to the issue being very simple, solid, and black and white. Still, it has that kind of effect anyways. In fact, you could argue that by never having such an arc, it makes sure that there isn’t a resolution to the problem despite lyrics like “people are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully.”
The song itself is one I pull out anytime something tragic has happened because of hate. It’s simple too: “I’m relying on your common decency. So far it hasn’t surfaced, but I’m sure it exists. It just takes awhile to travel from your head to your fist.” Sad but true.
Through the Shattered Lens 