Released on 19 March, 1990, "Violator," was the seventh album by the iconic British band Depeche Mode, marked a turning point in their vibrant career. Ironically, its soft, dark, and melancholic sound would earn them more fame than its noisy predecessor.
The album spawned four singles "Personal Jesus", "Enjoy The Silence", both peaked No. 10 in hte UK and USA, "Policy Of Truth" and "World In My Eyes". Violator reached number two on the UK Albums Chart, and was the band's first album to chart inside the top 10 of the Billboard 200, peaking at number seven. The album was supported by the World Violation Tour.
The Basildon band had been building a solid career supported by the release of good and competitive albums that attracted fans to their cause, this caused the level of demand in production to grow, applying new practices that cemented their sound although without straying too far from synth pop, but the change was so significant with "Violator" that they came to cause a global impact.
They had just released the iconic "101" that appealed to the 87-88 tour, and so it was that at the pinnacle of their career when they hired Flood for production, and the choice of Flood was more than appropriate, the guy came from working with New Order, Ministry, U2, Erasure, and Nick Cave, proving that he could change the sound to make it fabulous and indeed that was what happened in this album, which was a masterpiece and the most successful to date.
The recording process was different and Wilder proposed to reduce the pre-production time, Gore presented demos, as long as the rest presented other ideas that would even allow to finish the song, and so came 1989 when the band began to record in Milan, with François Kevorkian a French DJ with whom they obtained the first song that would be the first single "Personal Jesus", which was released on August 29, a song that was promoted by a curious campaign that included classified ads with the phrase "Your Own Personal Jesus", there was a phone number that if you dialed you could listen to the entire song, this allowed the song to reach No. 13 in the United Kingdom and in the United States it was the best-selling single for the Warner label.
Then came the incredible "Enjoy The Silence," whose imprint can be traced in previous releases. The song was a hit everywhere, around that time, a memorable event occurred related with the released of this album. To promote the album's release, the band, in collaboration with Los Angeles station KROQ, decided to hold an event at the Warehouse Records. They didn't expect much of a commotion, but everything got out of hand, with nearly 30,000 people showing up. So there was trouble, people were injured from cuts sustained when many were pushed into the store's window. So, to prevent further damage, Depeche Mode handed out limited-edition cassette tapes. But to this day, it remains one of the band's most iconic moments.
Other fantastics tracks were "Policy of Truth," another huge one played everywhere late that 1990. It wasn't as successful but remains one of the key songs in the band's career. Another song called "World in My Eyes" was the final single. Videos were brilliant thanks to Anton Corbijn's direction, giving them a key visual aesthetic that ties the sound together.
As for the rest of the tracks, they are equally intense and sophisticated as the singles, you had the libidinous "Sweetest Perfection," the dramatic "Halo, the sexy and exquisite "Waiting for the Night," and finally, the album's closing "Clean," making this work something intense and sophisticated that was perfectly suited for that era.
Now 35 years later, it still sounds so fresh and timeless, marking the band's defining moment and its peak performance to date, some critics called the album as the most arresting work to dat by the band, nothing out of place of this album, simply the best record of the band at their career peak, and of course a quintessential benchmark of pop, rock and of course electronic music.
Violator Track List:
1. World In My Eyes
2. Sweetest Perfection
3. Personal Jesus
4. Halo
5. Waiting For The Night
6. Enjoy The Silence
7. Policy Of Truth
8. Blue Dress
9. Clean
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