Depeche Mode "Black Celebration (Germany, Mute Records, 846-818)"

Black Celebration is the fifth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 17 March 1986 by Mute Records. Daniel Miller devised “a plan to capture the essence of the dark works” that Martin Gore created because Martin Gore had no intention of compromising the mood that his demos had set. With the release of the album, Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones presented Black Celebration which they produced to be more like an environment rather than a collection of songs. Their production created “a tech-noir future dystopia” that “glitters of gloom.”

Black Celebration reached number four on the UK Albums Chart, and has been cited as one of the most influential albums of the 1980s. To promote the album, the band embarked on the Black Celebration Tour. Three years after its release, Spin ranked it at number 15 on its "25 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

The album was promoted by the single "Stripped" released 10 February, and was followed by "A Question of Lust", released 14 April, "A Question of Time" released 11 August. Instead of "Stripped", "But Not Tonight" was released as a single in the US, due to its more commercial appeal on 22 October.

The band wanted to change their working routine yet again to make sure that things would not lead to boredom or lack of production. Daniel Miller stated: "I was a bit frustrated because I couldn't get the guys to think about working in different ways." He admired the working methods of the German film director Werner Herzog, which meant that the band had "lived the album", meaning they attended the studio every day and worked endlessly on the songs and production. Miller felt that he wanted "a kind of intensity", as he had felt that production was slowing down since their debut Speak & Spell, which had snappy recording and production, with the exception of Construction Time Again, which he claims was due to there being "so many new things going on.".

With regard to the recording processes and song formation, samples were yet again at the forefront of the sound. Gareth Jones stated that they would always use their own samples and tried to avoid using samples from other sources. For example, the opening title track initially was to have samples of Winston Churchill saying "A brief period of rejoicing" because they enjoyed "that idea of a brief moment of rejoicing." However, instead of sampling Churchill saying it, they had Miller say the quote instead. He said that, though they admired hip hop, they had no desire to sample in the same fashion. "We didn't want to collage other people's work and drop it into Martin's songs. We used samplers to grab real sounds from the real world to make sure our samples were original." On the song "Fly on the Windscreen", Jones recalled: "You can hear a rather young sounding Daniel again saying 'over and done with.' The breath sample noise at the start is interesting too." On Alan Wilder's Shunt website, in the Q&A section, he stated that these "breath samples" were in fact Miller saying "'Horse' repeatedly very fast."

The tour began with a European leg, starting in Oxford, England in late March 1986 and finishing in Rüsselsheim, West Germany in late May. A North American jaunt followed in early June, commencing in Boston and culminating mid-July in Irvine, California. Shortly after the North American leg, the group headed to Japan to play three dates.

In early August, the group began a second run of European shows, starting in Fréjus, France. The group performed four additional dates in France, as well as two shows in Italy, before wrapping up the tour in Copenhagen.

Book of Love joined the tour as the opening act on 29 April in Hanover, West Germany, and continued for the rest of the first European leg and throughout all tour dates of the North American leg (ending on 15 July)

Track listing

All tracks are written by Martin L. Gore, except where noted. All lead vocals by Dave Gahan, except where noted

1. "Black Celebration" 4:55
2. "Fly on the Windscreen – Final" 5:18
3. "A Question of Lust" Gore 4:20
4. "Sometimes" Gore 1:53
5. "It Doesn't Matter Two" Gore 2:50
6. "A Question of Time" 4:10
7. "Stripped" 4:16
8. "Here Is the House" Gahan/Gore  4:15
9. "World Full of Nothing" Gore 2:50
10. "Dressed in Black"   Gahan/Gore  2:32
11. "New Dress" 3:42

Total length: 41:01