Ultra

For information on this album's singles, see the Singles section.
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This article is about the album. To view a list of its songs and B-sides, see Ultra songs.

Ultra
Album	Ultra
By	Depeche Mode
Catalogue number	Stumm148 CDStumm148 CStumm148 PCDStumm148 BX Stumm148 Bong25 Verbong 2 CDstumm148 Verbong 2 VSTUMM148 CDSTUMM148
Release date	14 April 1997
Recorded	January 1996 – February 1997
Recorded at	Abbey Road Eastcote Westside Strongroom RAK (London) Electric Lady (New York City) Larrabee West (Los Angeles)
Produced by	Tim Simenon
Engineered by	Q
Number of tracks	11

Ultra is the ninth studio album by Depeche Mode and the first to be produced without Alan Wilder as a member since 1982's A Broken Frame. The album was released on 14 April 1997 by Mute Records. Though not directly supported by a full length tour, it was promoted via a brief series of concerts promoted as Ultra Parties.

Track list

1. Barrel Of A Gun
2. The Love Thieves
3. Home
4. It's No Good
5. Uselink
6. Useless
7. Sister Of Night
8. Jazz Thieves
9. Freestate
10. The Bottom Line
11. Insight

For a full list of songs, singles, and B-sides produced for this album, see the list of Ultra songs.

Singles

1. Barrel Of A Gun – 3 February 1997
2. It's No Good – 31 March 1997
3. Home – 16 June 1997
4. Useless – 20 October 1997

Quotes

Dave Gahan: "Ultra was a very important record to finish in retrospect. You know, we didn't tour with that record. That was probably the best decision that we made. Probably the only studio record that we ever didn't tour with, actually."
Martin Gore: "Did we actually make that decision?"
Gahan: "I don't know."
Andrew Fletcher: "Yeah, we did, didn't we?"
Gahan: "Yeah. I seem to remember sitting in a meeting and everybody's going ..."
Gore: "I think when we couldn't answer. I think they took it as a no."
Gahan: "Yeah. And I might've gotten arrested again or something like that."

— Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher – NME, January 1997

---

I think there was a feeling of us having to prove ourselves, a bit like after when Vince left. It gave us a new challenge and I think in some ways it's spurred on us to do better things.

— Andrew Fletcher – Dotmusic – 4 May 2001

I felt a big part of what we were doing was missing - a leader, musically, and for me Alan was that. The others would say he was too controlling, but he just worked his arse off because he really believed in it and the idea of pushing himself musically, which you can hear on his own records. I find that really inspiring. I miss him.

— Dave Gahan – Time Out – 4 April 2001

---

I can't hear it in the same way as a record I was involved with, but I certainly don't feel a yearning to be involved again, and I've no regrets about leaving at all. The album is difficult for me to comment on, though I do have something of a stock answer, which is: you can probably work out what I think about it by listening to Unsound Methods and then Ultra, because the two records tell you everything you need to know about what the musical relationship was between myself and Martin. It's almost as if we've gone to the two extremes of what we were when we were together. What the band had before was a combination of those extremes.

— Alan Wilder – Sound On Sound – January 1998

Trivia

• The total number of live song plays from Ultra is 1577. This figure is found by summing the number of individual performances for each album track.
• Ultra is the first Depeche Mode studio album to not be directly supported by a major tour.

Statistics

Album BPM range by song
Barrel Of A Gun 83
The Love Thieves 97
Home 75.5
It's No Good 99
Uselink 94
Useless 94
Sister Of Night 90
Jazz Thieves 74
Freestate 95
The Bottom Line 67
Insight 85
Average: 86.68
BPM values are plotted from 1 to 184 BPM. In cases where a song features a change in tempo, the tempo at which the majority of the song plays takes precedence. Unless noted otherwise, BPMs are estimated values determined by Spotify's Audio Analysis algorithm and as such are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

Album live plays by song
Barrel Of A Gun 247
The Love Thieves 0
Home 572
It's No Good 442
Uselink 1
Useless 122
Sister Of Night 100
Jazz Thieves 0
Freestate 0
The Bottom Line 22
Insight 71
Average: 143.36
Song live play values are plotted from zero to 1,100. All values are determined by summing the number of times each song has been performed live by Depeche Mode per tour. These totals do not reflect live plays performed by individual members of Depeche Mode as part of solo projects, solo tours, or known one-off performances.

References

Depeche Mode studio albums 1981-1982: Speak & Spell • A Broken Frame 1983-1986: Construction Time Again • Some Great Reward • Black Celebration 1987-1993: Music For The Masses • Violator • Songs Of Faith And Devotion 1997-2001: Ultra • Exciter 2005-2013: Playing The Angel • Sounds Of The Universe • Delta Machine 2017-2023: Spirit • Memento Mori Recoil studio albums 1986-1988: 1 + 2 • Hydrology 1992-2000: Bloodline • Unsound Methods • Liquid 2007: SubHuman Dave Gahan studio albums 2003-2007: Paper Monsters • Hourglass 2012-2015: The Light The Dead See • Angels & Ghosts 2021: Imposter Martin Gore solo albums and extended plays 1989-2003: Counterfeit e.p. • Counterfeit² 2012-2015: Ssss • MG 2021: The Third Chimpanzee Official releases Studio albums • Live albums • Compilation albums • Video albums • Singles