Depeche Mode: Exciter (2LP) [LEGACY RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket. Exciter debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and went gold in both the US and Canada.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Twenty years into their career, Depeche Mode handed the controls to someone who had grown up listening to them. Mark Bell of LFO had first heard the band at 12, and he brought an abstract, glitchy electronic edge to Martin Gore's songs, matching Gore's own taste for the more experimental electronic music he'd been listening to at the time.

Gore wrote every song, and Dave Gahan credited Bell with making him a more confident singer. "Dream On" treats acoustic guitar and electronics as if they were the same instrument, "I Feel Loved" and "Freelove" became singles, "When the Body Speaks" has a 1950s glow, and "The Dead of Night" goes harsh on vintage analogue synths like the EMS Synthi AKS. Gareth Jones and Paul Freegard helped with pre-production and programming, and "Goodnight Lovers" sends everyone off gently.

The Exciter Tour began its official run in Montreal and became one of the band's most successful. The agave on the cover, a species nicknamed the lion's tail, has also held up remarkably well, which is more than our shop cactus can say.

Also at Kops: more Depeche Mode on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On Mute / Columbia (cat# 19802888181), a reissue of the 2001 album.