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Brooding electronic-rock godfathers Depeche Mode were formed in Essex, England when vocalist David Gahan met the songwriter Martin Gore. After trying out a series of band-mates and names, they met up with kindred electronic music enthusiasts Andrew Fletcher and Alan Wilder and Depeche Mode as a band crystallized in 1980. The band's early album Speak and Spell spawned the hit-single "Just Can't Get Enough" that catapulted the quartet to instant UK fame while failing to anticipate their future, dark image. The single did play up their trademark synthesizers and electronic beats both new and novel at the time but the melody and lyrics were positively chipper, causing the band to be lumped in with other frothy teen-pop idols by the British press. This led to a long series of misunderstandings between the band and their public after being dismissed at home, they were embraced by music fans in Germany and Eastern Europe, areas famous for spawning some of the first electronic bands like Kraftwerk and CAN. In 1984, they put out "Blasphemous Rumors," a collection of moody, bitter tracks. "Blasphemous Rumors" coupled with their exotic big-in-Germany reputation helped them break into North American college-radio, where they were embraced by post-punk's angrier partisans and roped into the "goth" scene. Though certainly displaying some traits of goth music cynical, sometimes kinky lyrics, sunglasses and an antisocial world view Depeche Mode also have a romantic side, which came to the front on their snidely titled smash hit, Music For the Masses. The album was a synth-pop classic?all cold vocals and pulsing beats?and the single "Personal Jesus" still rocks 80's club nights today. This was followed up with their second classic, 1990's hard-edged Violator. Though Alan Wilder left the band in the 90's and Gahan has admitted to battling heroin addiction, Depeche Mode still fill arenas with the dark and the faithful.

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