1990-03-1x 91X, San Diego, California, USA

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Notes

With the 25th anniversary of the release of Depeche Mode’s smash album Violator quickly approaching next month, Slicingupeyeballs.com figured it was a great time to dust off this old tape from the Slicing Up Eyeballs archives that features a pair of DJs on San Diego’s 91X FM excitedly premiering the album a few days before its release on March 20, 1990. In an era of illicit leaks and sanctioned pre-release album streams, it’s easy to forget that, outside of a single or two, it was rare to hear anything off a new album ahead of its release — which is why this is such a great glimpse at the monstrous excitement that accompanied the release of Violator back in 1990.

On this 5-minute segment of airtime, you will hear 91x DJs Oz and Mike Halloran discussing the Violator CD that Halloran literally had to drive to Los Angeles to retrieve in the days ahead of its release. They discuss the tracklist, the album artwork and the liner notes, then play, for the first time on San Diego radio, future singles “World In My Eyes” and “Policy of Truth,” plus “Halo.” (The actual songs have been cut from this tape to avoid the whole thing being taken down by Soundcloud’s copyright-protection robots.)

After playing the songs, Halloran chats with a record label rep on the phone, who announces the soon-to-be-infamous Wherehouse in-store appearance coming up on the album’s release date, March 20, which leaves Halloran accurately predicting, “We’re expecting total melee outside” the record store.

• Duration: 4:57 minutes