Dave Gahan on the best Depeche Mode song
Things had come to a breaking point for Depeche Mode in 1992. Although the massive success of Violator two years earlier had given them their biggest critical and commercial achievement of their career, the band members were now living on different continents and listening to different kinds of music, leaving the unity and identity of the band in doubt.
Singer Dave Gahan, in particular, was feeling separated from his bandmates. Now living in Los Angeles, Gahan was taking in the best of the California alternative rock scene. Comparatively, the cold and robotic arrangements that Depeche Mode were creating for their next record, Songs of Faith and Devotion, seemed alien to him. The clashes occasionally led to better harmony between the members, as Gahan could channel his disconnect into the vocals for ‘Condemnation’.
“Martin and Alan were into the idea of an electronic blues sound which had started with ‘Personal Jesus’ on Violator and was a way for Dave to bring in his rocky side,” producer Daniel Miller said in the liner notes to Songs of Faith and Devotion. “‘Condemnation’ is still one of his best vocals ever.”
“I immediately knew the song,” Gahan claimed about ‘Condemnation’ to Exclaim. “It wasn’t necessarily completely accurate to the way Martin wrote the melody line or the phrasing or the timing. I just sang it, and [after] I sang it, the tape stopped rolling, and it went on quiet. I’ve got my headphones on, and I hear [producer] Flood’s voice go, ‘Yeah, I mean, you could do another one. But I think we got it.’”
After the breakout success of the lead single ‘I Feel You’, ‘Condemnation’ was saved for the band’s third single release of the album cycle. It performed nearly as well as ‘I Feel You’, peaking at number nine on the UK Singles Chart. The track didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but it did hit number 23 on that publication’s Modern Rock chart, which was home to the artists that Gahan himself was listening to at the time.
Gahan’s love for ‘Condemnation’ continued even after Songs of Faith and Devotion was released. Largely at Gahan’s insistence, the song stayed in Depeche Mode’s live set throughout the 1990s before being largely retired after 2001. Still, the track was brought back during the band’s 2023 tour dates. In an interview with Simon Amstell for the BBC TV programme The Big Ones, Gahan offered up ‘Condemnation’ as his personal choice for the best Depeche Mode song.
Check out ‘Condemnation’ down below.
