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Black Celebration

Black Celebration
Studio album by
Depeche Mode
Released17 March 1986 (1986-03-17)
RecordedNovember 1985 – January 1986
Studio
Genre
Length41:01
LabelMute
Producer
Depeche Mode chronology
Catching Up with Depeche Mode
(1985) 		Black Celebration
(1986) 		Greatest Hits
(1987)
Singles from Black Celebration
  1. "Stripped"
    Released: 10 February 1986
  2. "A Question of Lust"
    Released: 14 April 1986
  3. "A Question of Time"
    Released: 11 August 1986
  4. "But Not Tonight"
    Released: 22 October 1986

Black Celebration is the fifth studio album by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 17 March 1986 by Mute Records in the US and Sire Records in the US. The album was promoted by the singles "Stripped", "A Question of Lust", and "A Question of Time". In the US, "But Not Tonight" was released as a single instead of "Stripped". In support of the album, Depeche Mode embarked on the five-month-long Black Celebration Tour across Europe, North America, and Japan, which ran from early to mid-1986.

Black Celebration reached number four on the UK Albums Chart. Three years after its release, Spin ranked it as the 15th-greatest album of all time,[4] and the UK's Radio X in 2011 cited it as one of the most influential albums of the 1980s.[5]

Background

[edit]

After touring through July 1985 in support of their previous album Some Great Reward (1984),[6] Depeche Mode released two non-album singles, "Shake the Disease" and "It's Called a Heart", in April and September 1985, and their US and UK labels released the compilation albums Catching Up with Depeche Mode and The Singles 81→85 in those regions, respectively, at the end of 1985.

Recording

[edit]

Depeche Mode entered Westside Studios in London in early November 1985 to start recording their new material.[7] Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones returned in their production roles from the band's previous album.[7] They all worked under tight timelines, intending to finish recording and mixing all their material, as well as completing all artwork for their album and singles, by Christmas 1985, although they missed this deadline and ended up working into the first few months of 1986.[8] In starting to work on the new album, producer Miller said that he "was a bit frustrated because [he] couldn't get the guys to think about working in different ways," and to that end, Miller asked the band to attend the studio every day to work on the production to "live the album", wanting "a kind of intensity".[9] The band agreed to this approach; Martin Gore moved back to London from West Germany, where he had been living since the Some Great Reward recording sessions of 1983-84.[10]

Typical of Depeche Mode's previous few albums, Gore arrived at the sessions with demos of new songs for the album.[7] Miller and the band's label, Mute records, upon hearing the demos, were concerned about the morbid, slow demos, and worried that they lacked any radio-friendly singles.[7][11] After a week-long standoff, the Miller and the label relented, allowing the band to "make the record you want to make."[7] This stand-off preceded a "tense" 120 days in the studio, with the band and producers working 14 hours a day to complete the album, with few days off.[8] Years later, Miller remembered that the Celebration sessions "turned in a nightmare, a bit. ... There was definitely tension in the studio" as a result of the "live the album" ethos of recording.[8] Alan Wilder said that the way the album was made, combined with Miller's brooding and Gore's dark songs, resulted in an "underlying darkness" in the material they created.[8]

The band was working to combat their perceived bias by music journalists, who, at the time, did not consider electronic music "real" music.[12] Andy Fletcher said that "We had a real mission to prove to people that electronic music was a valid type of music," noting that Depeche Mode often incorporated guitar into their songs, but typically subverted its sound to make it unrecognizable.[8]

One of the first song the band recorded was "Stripped", which, according to Alan Wilder, was one of the few songs that was "easy" to record.[8] As with their previous albums, Depeche Mode incorporated samples into their songs, which the band always created in-house.[8] Gore's demo of "Stripped" incorporated the sound of an idling motorcycle; the album version instead sampled singer Dave Gahan's idling Porsche 911.[8] They also included the sound of a bottle rocket in the song, as they were recording "Stripped" on Guy Fawkes Night, 5 November each year.[8] To get the sound of the fireworks, they launched the rockets horizontally so that several microphones, set up in sequence, could capture the sound of the firework fizzing by.[8]

By 19 November 1985, the band was recording "A Question of Lust", one of four Gore-sung songs on the record, an all-time high for any Depeche Mode album to date.[8] After a single day off for New Year's Day 1986, the band returned to the studio, and on 14 January 1986 they had mixed the album track "World Full of Nothing" as well as recorded and mixed one of the album's B-sides.[8] "Fly on the Windscreen" was deemed to be "too good" to be just a b-side, so it was re-mixed and included on the album.[8][a] Miller said that, for their album Speak & Spell, the band had recorded so many songs that they just picked a few to be the b-sides for their singles.[8] For Black Celebration, they wrote their b-sides separately.[8] Said Jones, "There was never a sense that a b-side was a throwaway."[8] In addition, the band deliberately wanted to move away from just doing "simple extended version[s]" of their singles, instead opting to record the innovative "Black Day" and "Breathing in Fumes", which were based off of album tracks "Black Celebration" and "Stripped", respectively.[8] Because the b-sides were often recorded quickly (sometimes in just one day), Jones called their production "refreshing" after the weight of the other album track's recording sessions.[8] The album continued to be a transition album for Wilder, whose final songwriting credit with the band was the instrumental b-side "Christmas Island"; after Black Celebration Wilder continued to transition to spend more time producing and engineering the band's sound.[13]

Adding to the tension in the studio, Jones and Miller fretted over the album's final mix, taking three weeks to mix the album over and over, before the band finally staged an intervention to force a final mix.[8] The final mix included, according to Jones, "more reverb" and various echo effects to add to the "mystical" quality of the recording.[8][10]

Artwork

[edit]

Martyn Atkyns returned to design the album cover for Black Celebration, as he'd done for all of Depeche Mode's album covers since A Broken Frame (1982).[10] Originally, he had designed a physical miniature building, draped in black banners and inspired by totalitarian imagery, to be photographed for the cover.[8] However, the band was not happy with the original design and so the cover was re-designed to include only a cropped, close-up of the original photograph and they instead emphasized the logos around the image, which the band paid to have embossed on initial pressings of the album.[8] Despite the changes, the album cover still only garnered mixed opinions from the band and label.[8]

In keeping with the "black" theme of the album, Black Celebration's first two singles, "Stripped" and "A Question of Time", both featured black as the dominant color.[10]

Title

[edit]

The title was not a reference to rituals of the Occult, but rather, "Black Celebration" "described the daily boredom of a dreary life without climaxes or hope for improvement."[10]

Release

[edit]

"Stripped" was the first single released from the album, and was released on 10 February 1986.[14] Black Celebration was released a month later on 17 March, 1986 by Mute Records in the UK, Sire Records in the US, and Intercord Records in Germany.[15] In the UK, the LP was given catalogue number STUMM26, and in Germany, INT 146.818.[15] In Sweden, the Scandinavian Music Club included Black Celebration in a box set with the band's previous albums where the band's name was mis-spelled several times as "Best of Depech Mode" (catalogue number 15 6505).[16] A promotional single for "Breathing in Fumes" was released in the UK (catalogue number RR12BONG10) and released exclusively to clubs to play on the dance floor.[17]

A month after the album's release, on 14 April 1986, the album's second single, "A Question of Lust" was released, followed by "A Question of Time" on 11 August.[18] Also in August 1986, Wilder released 1 + 2 under the name Recoil, a collection of sampled Depeche Mode sounds that he originally didn't intend to release until Miller persuaded him to turn the project into an album.[19] Said Wilder, it was "an experiment, an improvisation that I had recorded in my home studio using really simple equipment."[19] In September 1986, the movie Modern Girls was released, which included Depeche Mode's song "But Not Tonight" on its soundtrack.[20]

Black Celebration was remastered and re-released on CD and vinyl in 2007.

Tour

[edit]

The Black Celebration Tour began with a UK leg, starting in Oxford, England in late March 1986 and finishing a month later in London.[21] A European leg continued from April through May, followed by a North American and Japanese leg in June and July that concluded with three shows in Japan.[21] In August, the tour began a second run of European shows, starting in Fréjus, France.[21] The group performed additional dates in France and two shows in Italy before wrapping up the tour in Copenhagen in mid-August 1986.[21] The band typically played larger venues than they had on previous tours, including in front of 20,000 fans in West Berlin.[22]

Book of Love joined the tour as the opening act on 29 April in Hanover, West Germany, and continued for the rest of the first European leg and throughout all tour dates of the North American leg (ending on 15 July).[23]

Critical reception

[edit]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[24]
Mojo[25]
NME7/10[26]
Number One[27]
PopMatters9/10[28]
Record Mirror4/5[29]
Rolling Stone[30]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[31]
Smash Hits8/10[32]
Sounds[33]

Contemporaneous reviews for Black Celebration in the British press were mixed. Panning the album in Melody Maker, Steve Sutherland wrote that Depeche Mode came off as "pussycats desperate to appear perverted as an escape from the superficiality of teen stardom",[34] while in Sounds, Kevin Murphy dismissed its songs as "harmless scenes of banality, with no twists and many happy endings."[33] In a more lenient review for NME, Sean O'Hagan, although finding Gore's lyrics "adolescent" and the record's overall mood "dark yet faintly ridiculous", conceded that "within their own parameters, Depeche Mode create a resonant, if undemonstrative techno-pop tapestry" with "a rich textured sheen that is not without a certain depth." He added, "When the songs address topics other than the composer's state of mind ... Depeche Mode sound like a lot more than just a high tech, low-life melodrama."[35] Writing for Smash Hits, Chris Heath was impressed by the album's "weirder" approach of mixing "dark, mysterious percussive" songs and "sweet, fragile and rather sinister ballads".[32] Betty Page of Record Mirror praised Depeche Mode for their "refusal to follow anything but their own fashion" and "unswerving ability to come up with great, fresh melodies."[29]

Black Celebration has since been reappraised in retrospective reviews. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett considered it a transitional work for Depeche Mode, moving away from their earlier "industrial-pop" sound and towards "a path that in many ways defined their sound to the present: emotionally extreme lyrics matched with amped-up tunes, as much anthemic rock as they are compelling dance, along with stark, low-key ballads."[24] Danny Eccleston from Mojo said that it marked the start of the band's "post-industrial" period with its "richer, velvety soundworld", "insinuating melodies", and "positively Stentorian" vocals by Dave Gahan.[25] Black Celebration was included in Spin's 1989 list of "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time", at number 15.[4]

According to Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield, Black Celebration was an "instant classic for the band's fans" which was "utterly ignored by everybody else" at the time of its release.[30] Depeche Mode's Andy Fletcher later recognised it as a "classic Depeche Mode fan favourite" among the band's albums in the EPK for their 1998 compilation The Singles 86>98, and said he found that "Black Celebration has got a collection of songs on there that's absolutely fantastic."[36] Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails cited Black Celebration, and its subsequent tour, as an influence and said it helped inspire him to write the album Pretty Hate Machine (1989), commenting, "DM was one of our favorite bands and the Black Celebration record took my love for them to a new level."[37] In 2019, Classic Pop Magazine said that with Black Celebration, Depeche Mode created "a tech-noir future dystopia" that "glitters in the gloom".[11]

Track listing

[edit]

All tracks are written by Martin L. Gore, except where noted. All lead vocals by Dave Gahan, except where noted.

Side one
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."Black Celebration" 4:55
2."Fly on the Windscreen – Final" 5:18
3."A Question of Lust"Gore4:20
4."Sometimes"Gore1:53
5."It Doesn't Matter Two"Gore2:50
Side two
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
6."A Question of Time" 4:10
7."Stripped" 4:16
8."Here Is the House"
  • Gahan
  • Gore
4:15
9."World Full of Nothing"Gore2:50
10."Dressed in Black"
  • Gahan
  • Gore
2:32
11."New Dress" 3:42
Total length:41:01
CD bonus tracks
No.TitleWriter(s)Lead vocalsLength
12."Breathing in Fumes"  6:07
13."But Not Tonight" (extended remix)  5:13
14."Black Day"
Gore2:36
Total length:54:57
US LP, CD and cassette bonus track
No.TitleLength
12."But Not Tonight"4:15
Total length:45:16

2007 Collectors Edition (CD + DVD)

[edit]
A short film
No.TitleLength
1."Depeche Mode: 1985–86: (The Songs Aren't Good Enough, There Aren't Any Singles and It'll Never Get Played on the Radio)" (written and produced by Roland Brown; directed by Ross Hallard and Phil Michael Lane)57:40
Black Celebration (DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo)
No.TitleLength
1."Black Celebration"4:55
2."Fly on the Windscreen – Final"5:18
3."A Question of Lust"4:20
4."Sometimes"1:53
5."It Doesn't Matter Two"2:50
6."A Question of Time"4:10
7."Stripped"4:16
8."Here Is the House"4:15
9."World Full of Nothing"2:50
10."Dressed in Black"2:32
11."New Dress"3:42
Live in Birmingham, April 1986 (DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo)
No.TitleLength
12."Black Celebration"6:11
13."A Question of Time"4:37
14."Stripped"6:34
Additional tracks (PCM Stereo)
No.TitleWriter(s)Lead vocalsLength
15."Shake the Disease" 
  • Gahan
  • Gore
4:52
16."Flexible"  3:14
17."It's Called a Heart"  3:51
18."Fly on the Windscreen"  5:07
19."But Not Tonight"  4:19
20."Breathing in Fumes"  6:08
21."Black Day"
  • Gore
  • Wilder
  • Miller
Gore2:39
22."Christmas Island"
  • Gore
  • Wilder
instrumental4:52

Personnel

[edit]

Depeche Mode

[edit]

Technical

[edit]
  • Depeche Mode – production
  • Gareth Jones – production
  • Daniel Miller – production
  • Richard Sullivan – engineering assistance
  • Peter Schmidt – engineering assistance
  • Tim Young – mastering
  • Dave Allen – recording on "Fly on the Windscreen – Final"
  • Phil Tennant – recording assistance on "Fly on the Windscreen – Final"

Artwork

[edit]
  • Martyn Atkins – design
  • David A. Jones – design
  • Mark Higenbottam – design
  • Brian Griffin – photography
  • Stuart Graham – photography assistance

Charts

[edit]

Certifications

[edit]
Certifications for Black Celebration
Region Certification Certified units/sales
France (SNEP)[59] Gold 100,000*
Germany (BVMI)[60] Platinum 500,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[61] Silver 60,000^
United States (RIAA)[62] Gold 500,000^

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ "Fly on the Windscreen" was the b-side to Depeche Mode's previous single, "It's Called a Heart" (1985)

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Zaleski, Annie (26 February 2015). "Where to start with '80s U.K. synth-pop". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 24 January 2019. A late-night record alternating between brittle ballads and industrial-sounding synth-pop—a poignant tug of war between man and machine.
  2. ^ Vowell, Lee (19 June 2024). "Five albums from the 1980s that have no business being as great as they are". AudioPhix. Retrieved 1 February 2025.
  3. ^ Cinquemani, Sal (29 September 2003). "Review: Depeche Mode, Violator". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  4. ^ a b "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time". Spin. Vol. 5, no. 1. New York. April 1989. pp. 46–48, 50–51. ISSN 0886-3032. Retrieved 15 July 2024.
  5. ^ "Xfm launches '25' series for influential albums". Music-News.com. 31 January 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2025.
  6. ^ "Depeche Mode: The Archives – Some Great Reward Tour". depechemode.com. Retrieved 21 May 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d e Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 131.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Depeche Mode: 1986: The Songs Aren't Good Enough, There Aren't Any Singles and It'll Never Get Played on the Radio (DVD). Mute Records. 2006.
  9. ^ Blanning, Lisa (26 March 2013). "'It's almost too personal': Daniel Miller contemplates the Depeche Mode catalogue". Electronic Beats. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  10. ^ a b c d e Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 138.
  11. ^ a b Lindsay, Matthew (2019). "Classic Album: Black Celebration". Classic Pop Presents. No. 15, Classic Pop Presents Depeche Mode. Bath. pp. 16–17. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  12. ^ Synth Britannia - Depeche Mode - A Documentary Film on YouTube
  13. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 141,148.
  14. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 132.
  15. ^ a b Burmeister & Lange 2017, pp. 138–139.
  16. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 140.
  17. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 133.
  18. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, pp. 141–145.
  19. ^ a b Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 148.
  20. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 149.
  21. ^ a b c d "Depeche Mode: The Archives – Black Celebration Tour". depechemode.com. Retrieved 21 May 2025.
  22. ^ Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 151.
  23. ^ Book of Love (September 1986). "Depeche Mode/Book of Love Itinerary". Love Letter. No. 5. p. 3.
  24. ^ a b Raggett, Ned. "Black Celebration – Depeche Mode". AllMusic. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
  25. ^ a b Eccleston, Danny (April 2023). "A Question of Time". Mojo. No. 353. London. p. 72. ISSN 1351-0193.
  26. ^ Robinson, John (1 July 1995). "Re-Release the Bats". NME. London. p. 50. ISSN 0028-6362.
  27. ^ Thomas, Pat (22 March 1986). "Albums". Number One. No. 144. London. p. 46. ISSN 0266-5328.
  28. ^ Keefe, Michael (9 May 2007). "Catching Up (Again) with Depeche Mode". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
  29. ^ a b Page, Betty (15 March 1986). "Depeche Mode: Black Celebration". Record Mirror. London. p. 21. ISSN 0144-5804.
  30. ^ a b Sheffield, Rob (19 April 2007). "Into the Mode". Rolling Stone. No. 1024. New York. p. 66. ISSN 0035-791X.
  31. ^ Sheffield, Rob (2004). "Depeche Mode". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 229–230. ISBN 0-743-20169-8. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  32. ^ a b Heath, Chris (12–25 March 1986). "Depeche Mode: Black Celebration". Smash Hits. Vol. 8, no. 6. Peterborough. p. 59. ISSN 0260-3004.
  33. ^ a b Murphy, Kevin (15 March 1986). "Comic Strip". Sounds. London. ISSN 0144-5774.
  34. ^ Sutherland, Steve (15 March 1986). "Black in the Night". Melody Maker. London. ISSN 0025-9012.
  35. ^ O'Hagan, Sean (15 March 1986). "Nipple Erectors". NME. London. p. 25. ISSN 0028-6362.
  36. ^ The Singles 86>98 (electronic press kit). Depeche Mode. Mute Records. 1998. Transcript – via DM Live.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  37. ^ Legaspi, Althea (11 May 2017). "Trent Reznor, Tony Hawk Talk Depeche Mode Fandom". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 14 February 2019. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  38. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 88. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  39. ^ "Austriancharts.at – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  40. ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 0681". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  41. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  42. ^ "European Top 100 Albums" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 3, no. 17. 3 May 1986. p. 17. OCLC 29800226 – via World Radio History.
  43. ^ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. ISBN 978-951-1-21053-5.
  44. ^ "Le Détail des Albums de chaque Artiste". InfoDisc (in French). Retrieved 24 January 2019. Select "DEPECHE MODE" from the drop-down menu and click "OK".
  45. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  46. ^ "Classifiche". Musica e dischi (in Italian). Retrieved 1 June 2022. Select "Album" in the "Tipo" field, type "Black Celebration" in the "Titolo" field and press "cerca".
  47. ^ "Charts.nz – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration". Hung Medien. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  48. ^ "Swedishcharts.com – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration". Hung Medien. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  49. ^ "Swisscharts.com – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration". Hung Medien. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  50. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  51. ^ Lazell, Barry (1997). "Depeche Mode". Indie Hits 1980–1989: The Complete U.K. Independent Charts (Singles & Albums). Cherry Red Books. ISBN 0-95172-069-4. Archived from the original on 5 February 2009. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  52. ^ "Depeche Mode Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  53. ^ "Album Top 40 slágerlista – 2013. 21. hét" (in Hungarian). MAHASZ. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  54. ^ "Oficjalna lista sprzedaży :: OLiS - Official Retail Sales Chart". OLiS. Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  55. ^ "Official IFPI Charts Top-75 Albums Sales Chart (Combined) – Εβδομάδα: 03/2025". IFPI Greece. Archived from the original on 22 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  56. ^ "European Hot 100 Albums – Hot 100 of the Year 1986" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 3, no. 51/52. 27 December 1986. p. 35. OCLC 29800226 – via World Radio History.
  57. ^ "Top 100 Album-Jahrescharts – 1986" (in German). GfK Entertainment. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  58. ^ "Schweizer Jahreshitparade 1986". hitparade.ch (in German). Retrieved 7 May 2022.
  59. ^ "French album certifications – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration" (in French). InfoDisc. Retrieved 16 November 2021. Select DEPECHE MODE and click OK. 
  60. ^ "Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (Depeche Mode; 'Black Celebration')" (in German). Bundesverband Musikindustrie. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  61. ^ "British album certifications – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration". British Phonographic Industry. 21 March 1986. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  62. ^ "American album certifications – Depeche Mode – Black Celebration". Recording Industry Association of America. 11 August 1989.
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