Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward (1984)

Sire Records ■ 9 25194-1

Released September 24, 1984

Produced by Daniel Miller, Depeche Mode, and Gareth Jones

Additional Engineering by Ben Ward, Stefi Marcus, Colin McMahon

Side One:	Side Two:
Something to Do Lie to Me People Are People It Doesn't Matter Stories of Old	Somebody Master and Servant If You Want Blasphemous Rumours

In high school, I was sent--as we could now do this--"Enjoy the Silence" in trade from someone I knew at the time (previously mentioned as responsible for the purchase of another album on my behalf), but, somewhat oddly, it had little resonance with me. This is odd, of course, because I've had a life-long love of synthesizers and 1980s musical styles--a sort of misaligned nostalgia, I guess you might say. It's that much more odd when one considers how many covers of Mode songs are out there,¹ including plenty by bands I liked at the time. It gets that much more odd when one includes the fact of my rather bizarre--embarrassing, no doubt, if I were anyone but me--love of the Erasure song "Always", established many years prior when I was all of ten or eleven years of age (I only bought I Say I Say I Say last year, despite spending every trip to a used record store in those days looking for it, simply because of that song).  If that means nothing to you: Depeche Mode's original leader was Vince Clarke, who left after Speak and Spell to form, well, Erasure (okay, after a few other bands, but, still...)

Deftones - Deftones (2003)

Maverick ■ 48350-1

Released May 20, 2003

Produced by Terry Date and Deftones

Engineered and Mixed by Terry Date

Additional Engineering by Pete Roberts

Mastered by Tom Baker

Side One:	Side Two:
Hexagram Needles and Pins Minerva Good Morning Beautiful Deathblow When Girls Telephone Boys	Battle-Axe Lucky You Bloody Cape Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event Moana

If you had known me in high school (and at least a person or two who reads here on occasion did), you would find this band's appearance none too surprising. I normally try not to date myself, as it influences opinions about my opinions, but it's difficult to avoid here (as it has been on a few odd other occasions)--in 2000, Deftones' White Pony was released, their prior hit, "My Own Summer" from 1997's Around the Fur having taken them up on the crest of the "nü-metal" wave most typified by Limp Bizkit and Korn,¹ but, as with grunge and various other genres named for reasons of simplification (in the end, often rounding up disparate genres and slapping them under a single umbrella for marketing reasons, though there tends to be something shared), many bands didn't share the overt stylistic leanings of the flag-bearers.