On August 22nd, 1983—synthpop legends Depeche Mode came into their own with the release of their third studio album Construction Time Again. The album was recorded at John Foxx’s Garden Studios in London, and engineered by Gareth Jones (who had also engineered Foxx’s first post-Ultravox 1980 album Metamatic, which featured “Underpass”) and mixed at the Hansa Ton studio in Berlin. Prior to the recording of the record, Martin Gore reportedly attended an Einstürzende Neubauten concert, giving him the idea to experiment with the sounds of industrial music, which was augmented by the production from Jones, who did the same for DM’s fellow Mute artists Fad Gadget on the single Collapsing New People (a song whose very title pays homage to Neubauten.)
The importance of this album is evident in the fact that this was the first Depeche Mode album featuring Alan Wilder as a full band member. Wilder wrote the songs “Two Minute Warning” and “The Landscape Is Changing”, as well as the B-side Fools. The title comes from the second line of the first verse of the track “Pipeline”.
Construction Time Again features one of Depeche Mode’s most popular singles of all time, the politically charged “Everything Counts” (above), as well as
“Love in Itself”
and “Told You So”
Tracklist:
Under the cloak of night, Berlin transforms into a pulsating heartbeat of shadow and light—a metropolis where history and hedonism…
There is no appetite for grief So feed the faithless lullabies Soothe all our fears with sweetened words The rotten…
As you pretend You are my friend I had to learn it was all a lie Letting go of deeply…
Lost in the storm, no solace in healing Heartbreak bites deep, a bittersweet dance entwining our fragility and resilience. In…
This time I'm standing my ground They're closing in all around When every second counts Pick your battles, push your…
We are makers of masks, artisans of our own disguises, shaping and shading ourselves to be seen, accepted, or remembered.…