‘Wrong’: Depeche Mode’s antidote to bubble-gum pop
It was a miracle that Depeche Mode made it to the 21st century intact and still performing. Spending the 1980s conquering the world while their contemporaries had fallen by the wayside to nostalgia circuits and retro nights, followed by an effortless jump into the next decade’s alternative rock zenith, it appeared Basildon’s biggest cultural export could do no wrong.
Yet internal band fractal lines and Dave Gahan’s gnawing heroin habit resulted in longtime member Alan Wilder’s departure in 1995, and their frontman’s several overdoses pushed the band to the brink of dissolution.
Licking their wounds and reduced to a trio unseen since 1982’s A Broken Frame, Depeche Mode released 1997’s spiky Ultra before embarking on a world tour to promote their Singles 86–98 compilation. They were back. Creatively detouring with the digital fragility of 2001’s Exciter, the band enlisted the production chops of Ben Hillier to resurrect some of the old dramatic clangour of their classic era that suited principal songwriter Martin Gore’s trusty lyrical obsessions surrounding pain, sex and addiction to both.
What began as a lengthy studio collaboration second only to Mute’s label founder, Daniel Miller. Following 2005’s return to form with Playing the Angel, 2009’s Sounds of the Universe continued a renewed fascination with analogue hardware and old-school synthesizers for added sonic crunch. The opener ‘In Chains’ kicked off the album with a discordant tuning of various synths and modular gear, establishing an immediate note of electronic disquiet.
Keen to boldly signal their sonic direction, Depeche Mode sought to pick a lead single that would confound expectations as opposed to their previous LP lead ‘Precious’ and assure pop appeal. Opting for ‘Wrong’, they unleashed a new sound for the band: a twisting groove that skulks along mechanically, scoring past misdeeds and moral failures, coming as close to funk as they would ever get. Unfolding like a noir-ish night, the stabbing vocoder infuses a sentiment of menace throughout the single, allowing for an evocative sense of danger, perfectly illustrated by Patrick Daughters’ cinematic video.
When discussing the track with Billboard, founding member Andy Fletcher described ‘Wrong’ as “an antidote to bubble-gum pop inappropriate for where we are in society at this moment”. With the financial crisis still raw, Depeche Mode likely felt resting on their synthpop laurels wouldn’t cut it in a climate growing disempowered and alienated.
It’s a sentiment revisited more coherently on 2017’s Spirit, an album filled with spiritual explorations of contemporary alienation and a scathing fury at the political failure destroying society and the planet. To make their feelings well and truly clear, its lead single ‘Where’s the Revolution’ saw the trio donning Karl Marx beards—a fierce riposte against white nationalist Richard Spencer’s appraisal of the band.
But seeds were sown with ‘Wrong’, flexing a darker cut for dark times to set a trajectory for their latter output. That, combined with Gahan’s love of gospel blues, ensured cracks of light through Gore’s ruminative songbook. Playing out as a broken motif on Sounds of the Universe’s closing secret coda, Depeche Mode knew they’d tapped into something special that loomed large over the rest of the album.
