Word: bande
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...beat and dives right into such glum, semi-introspective lyrics as "I give in to sin because I like to practice what I preach." If you listen to Depeche Mode over and over again without ever listening to the lyrics (I highly recommend this), they sound like the perfect band. But when you take your ears off cruise control, what you're hearing are songs of two varieties: pretentious self-loathing and nasty love stories. Verdict: great sound, questionable lyrics...
...merits of that progression are, of course, questionable. Depeche Mode walks a thin line between being innovative and inane. Sometimes, the synthesized noises sound untempered. Embedded in the songs are sounds of cars screeching, giant coins spinning, undersea environments, etc. The Band can do some very weird things--a listener is led to wonder whether the weirdness is unintentional, or whether Depeche Mode may have a fetish for appearing goofy. Maybe it's a big joke on the listeners. The terrible screeching that opens "I Feel You," the stereophonic mayhem in "Behind the Wheel," and the sounds of the manic...
...Steve Albini has had a significant influence on rock music. He was in a band that influenced a lot of other bands. He produced lots of those bands. If you live in America, you've heard one of these bands. But Albini is a polarizing figure; not all agree that his influence is salutary. Most of this irritation stems from two things: his stringent demands for integrity in music and his own apparent violations of the edicts he lays down. Also, he's probably the most arrogant guy on the planet...
...Stevey started out writing arrogant articles for Chicago zines. (He was also in a New Wave band, but he'd probably prefer that you didn't know that.) As a zine writer, Albini demanded "independence, self-determination, absolute total honesty and common sense" from bands and was always ready to write some off as sellouts. In 1982, he formed Big Black. Big Black is a band you've probably never heard of. Steve likes it this way. After a couple years of touring and a couple albums, Big Black broke up because too maybe people liked them. Meaning about...
...Steve's next band was equally impolitic; he named it Rapeman. Rapeman was quieter than Big Black, but this is relative. It had a human drummer, for one thing. Rapeman had only one album; it was named Two Nuns and a Pack Mule. The best song builds slowly from a single guitar and frequent silences; then it adds a bass line, then some white noise and then Steve's voice. The song is hypnotic, even lovely, but in typical Albini fashion, this song is called "Kim Gordon's Panties" and features classy lyrics like "If I had that to come...