Every Depeche Mode Album, Ranked
Depeche Mode started as a bright synth-pop act from Basildon and got darker from there; vote for the albums you rate highest. A studio album credited to Depeche Mode is in, however weak, and anything else is out. Concert sets like Songs of Faith and Devotion Live and Memento Mori: Mexico City miss, as does the 1984 compilation People Are People, while Help(2), VCMG and solo records carry other credits. That settles who's in; SPIN, NME, Louder and MOJO rankings only split the run into two bands. Records that 3 or more of their eligible rankings place in a top three form the upper band, the remainder the lower, and the vote sorts within each. A ranking counts for a record it ranks or doesn't predate, so Memento Mori, out nine days after NME's list and absent from it, counts against 3; each entry states its count and total. Links go to Spotify's earliest edition by track titles and count, never the page's year, and entries say how many tracks it adds or drops, and what kind.
Depeche Mode — Music for the Masses (1987) is #1 on “Every Depeche Mode Album, Ranked”.
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Depeche Mode — Music for the Masses (1987)
Gore lifted the joke title from an old LP, Music for the Millions, and the songs were cut in Paris and London with David Bascombe. Louder ranks it first, and with SPIN, NME and MOJO all keeping it inside their top three the count is 4 of 4. Spotify's copy is an 18-track 2006 Digital Remaster, five single b-sides and three mixes trailing the album. Never Let Me Down Again opens it and became a fixture of their live shows.
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Depeche Mode — Black Celebration (1986)
Cut between London and West Berlin, the album remixed a b-side, Fly on the Windscreen, the band thought too good for a flip side. Stripped has Gahan's Porsche 911 ticking over in it, plus a bottle rocket. With NME second, SPIN and Louder third and MOJO fourth, it collects 3 of 4 top-three finishes, enough for the upper band. The link is the 1986 US edition, so one extra track, But Not Tonight, a bonus on American pressings, closes it.
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Depeche Mode — Violator (1990)
Martin Gore's demo of Personal Jesus was a beat and a melody on acoustic guitar, and the finished single was out on 29 August 1989, nearly seven months before Violator itself. SPIN, NME and MOJO each rank the album first and Louder has it second, a full 4 of 4 for the upper band. It reached seven on the Billboard 200, their first album inside that chart's top ten.
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Depeche Mode — Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993)
Work started in a villa about thirty miles outside Madrid, and Walking In My Shoes runs its piano through a guitar processor. MOJO's third is its single top-three placing, so it holds 1 of 4 while SPIN drops it to sixth. Spotify's 2006 Digital Remaster set adds eight plain-titled tracks: My Joy and Death's Door from outside the album plus six alternate versions. No Depeche Mode album before it had topped the UK and US album charts together.
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Depeche Mode — Ultra (1997)
Three of them were left after Alan Wilder quit in 1995, and this is what they made next, with Tim Simenon producing. Barrel Of A Gun was the first single, out in February 1997, and in place of a full tour the band promoted it with a short run of Ultra Parties concerts. NME and MOJO each have it fifth and SPIN has it tenth, leaving it at 0 of 4 for a top-three finish.
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Depeche Mode — Playing the Angel (2005)
Dave Gahan's name shows up in the writing credits of a Depeche Mode album here, a first, with lyrics to three songs, Suffer Well among them, set to music by Christian Eigner and Andrew Phillpott. SPIN and Louder both place it fifth and MOJO tenth, which leaves its top-three tally at 0 of 4. Ben Hillier produced it over 2005 in Santa Barbara, New York and London.
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Depeche Mode — Some Great Reward (1984)
The band made it between Music Works in Highbury and Hansa in Berlin, with Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones producing alongside them. Opinion splits wide here: SPIN puts it fourth and NME eleventh, and with Louder at seventh and MOJO at ninth that adds up to 0 of 4. Radio got nervous about Master And Servant in 1984, and some stations refused to play it over what the lyric describes.
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Depeche Mode — Memento Mori (2023)
Andy Fletcher died in May 2022, and Gore and Gahan cut this as a duo that summer and autumn with James Ford producing. Ghosts Again is one of four songs Gore co-wrote with Richard Butler for it. NME's list ran nine days before release, which leaves 3 eligible rankings, and with Louder and MOJO at eighth and SPIN at ninth it scores 0 of 3.
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Depeche Mode — Speak & Spell (1981)
Blackwing in London, Daniel Miller at the desk, and a debut that made number ten in the UK. MOJO's sixth is its high point and SPIN's fourteenth its low, 0 of 4 for the tier. On Spotify it carries the UK eleven plus one extra, Dreaming of Me, their first single, at the end. Photographic was among the first songs they taped, and an earlier version had appeared on a 1981 Some Bizzare compilation before they re-cut it here.
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Depeche Mode — Sounds of the Universe (2009)
Corrupt stops a little past six minutes on this carrier, because Spotify drops one hidden piece, Interlude #5, which sits after three minutes of silence on the original 8:59 track. Two rankings have it ninth and two have it eleventh, so the tally stays 0 of 4. Hillier came back to produce, working through 2008 in Santa Barbara and New York, and the record lost the 2010 Grammy for alternative album to Phoenix.
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Depeche Mode — Construction Time Again (1983)
Alan Wilder's first album as a member, and he wrote two of its songs. The band carried a portable Stellavox tape recorder out of the studio to collect sounds, and Gore recorded his Pipeline vocal on location, next to railway lines near Shoreditch. SPIN and MOJO both rank it seventh while NME has it fourteenth, the bottom of its list, so the tier count lands at 0 of 4.
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Depeche Mode — Spirit (2017)
Politics in Britain and America set the mood, and Gahan said at the time the band were upset about what was going on in the world. Where's the Revolution, a Gore song, led it off as a single on 3 February 2017. No ranking puts it higher than SPIN's eighth and MOJO has it fourteenth, which nets 0 of 4. The linked carrier is Spirit (Deluxe), five alternate versions and mixes after the twelve songs.
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Depeche Mode — Delta Machine (2013)
Slow dates back to the early 1990s, when Gore first wrote it, and it surfaced here with a much bluesier sound. NME has it seventh, but SPIN and MOJO put it thirteenth and Louder fourteenth, so it gets 0 of 4. Spotify's plain-titled page holds 17 tracks: the 13 plus the deluxe disc's four bonus songs, ending with All That's Mine. The sessions ran through 2012 in New York and Santa Barbara, with Hillier producing and Flood mixing.
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Depeche Mode — A Broken Frame (1982)
Every song is Martin Gore's, on a second album made as a trio, and Leave In Silence, its third single, reached number 20 in the UK. Three of the 4 rankings put it twelfth and Louder has it fifteenth, last, so it collects 0 of 4. Spotify's copy, tagged 2006 Digital Remaster, runs to 19 tracks; the extra nine are two non-album songs, Now This Is Fun and Oberkorn, and seven differently timed versions of album tracks.
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Depeche Mode — Exciter (2001)
Mark Bell, who produced it, said Dream On handled its acoustic and electronic parts as equals. SPIN and MOJO both put it fifteenth, the foot of their lists, and NME's tenth is the kindest anyone is to it, leaving 0 of 4. Chart entries were nine in Britain and eight on the Billboard 200; its four singles ran from April 2001 into February 2002.
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How this list was ranked
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