Music For The Masses

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For information on this album's singles, see the Singles section.
Album-Black.jpg #5: Black Celebration
Albums
#7: Violator Album-Violator.jpg
This article is about the album. To view a list of its songs and B-sides, see Music For The Masses songs.
Music For The Masses
Album-MFTM.jpg
Album Music For The Masses
By Depeche Mode
Catalogue number Stumm47
Stumm47
CDStumm47
CDStumm47
CDXStumm47
CDXStumm47
CStumm47
CStumm47
CStumm47
HMV1
Stumm 47
CDStumm47
Stumm47
Release date 27 September 1987
Recorded at Guillaume Tell (Paris)
Konk (London)
Puk Studios, Denmark
Produced by Depeche Mode
Dave Bascombe
Engineered by Dave Bascombe
Number of tracks 10

Music For The Masses is the sixth studio album by Depeche Mode. It was released on 27 September 1987 by Mute Records and was supported by the Music For The Masses tour.

Track list

  1. Never Let Me Down Again
  2. The Things You Said
  3. Strangelove
  4. Sacred
  5. Little 15
  6. Behind The Wheel
  7. I Want You Now
  8. To Have And To Hold
  9. Nothing
  10. Pimpf

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

Singles

  1. Strangelove - April 13, 1987
  2. Never Let Me Down Again - August 24, 1987
  3. Behind The Wheel - December 28, 1987
  4. Little 15 - May 16, 1988

Quotes

"The title's [...] a bit tongue-in-cheek, really. Everyone is telling us we should make more commercial music, so that's the reason we chose that title."[1]

Andrew Fletcher - Stripped: Depeche Mode - Jonathan Miller (2003)

Martin Gore: “[...] When we called [the] album ‘Music For The Masses’, we were accused of being patronising and arrogant. In fact it was a joke on the uncommerciality of it. It was anything but music for the masses!”

Alan Wilder: “There’s much more humour than we’re given credit for. Perhaps it’s just that ours, or particularly Martin’s is a little specialised.”[2]

Alan Wilder, Martin L. Gore - NME, February 1990

Statistics

Album BPM range by song
106
110
118
120
108
125
103
149
107
114

Average:
116
  • 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
1067
106
294
101
3
618
139
0
101
101

Average:
253
  • 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.

Trivia

  • The total number of live song plays from Music For The Masses is 2530. This figure is found by summing the number of individual performances for each album track.

References

  1. Source: Stripped: Depeche Mode - Jonathan Miller (2003)
  2. Source: Stuart Maconie, NME, February 17 1990 via SacredDM (now defunct).


1981-1982: Speak & SpellA Broken Frame
1983-1986: Construction Time AgainSome Great RewardBlack Celebration
1987-1993: Music For The MassesViolatorSongs Of Faith And Devotion
1997-2001: UltraExciter
2005-2013: Playing The AngelSounds Of The UniverseDelta Machine
2017-2023: SpiritMemento Mori
1986-1988: 1 + 2Hydrology
1992-2000: BloodlineUnsound MethodsLiquid
2007: SubHuman
2003-2007: Paper MonstersHourglass
2012-2015: The Light The Dead SeeAngels & Ghosts
2021: Imposter
1989-2003: Counterfeit e.p.Counterfeit²
2012-2015: SsssMG
2021: The Third Chimpanzee
Official releases