Цитата( Daniel Miller )
'Black Celebration' is an all-time favourite amongst Depeche Mode fans and a very important album in terms of their cult appeal. But, it was also one of the hardest to make. 'Shake The Disease' and 'It's Called A Heart' were recorded separately beforehand and although the latter was a simple song, we just couldn't nail it and it got us all a bit down. It was done in the middle of touring so the band had to leave before it was ready and I finished it with Gareth Jones. It was a hard experience to get right and although it turned out really well in the end, it set the tone for the making of 'Black Celebration'.
In late 1985 we had booked a very long recording session in London and Berlin which became increasingly tense and claustrophobic. It was the third album we had worked on together as a team - Gareth, myself and the band - and it began to feel like going to work in the morning. There was not a lot of excitement going in to make the record. It was obvious from early on that we were struggling to get pop singles. Martin just wanted to write much heavier, darker and bleaker songs and although I don't think anybody minded much, there were still natural pressures from inside the band. On the one hand, they were saying 'Fuck it! Let's make records we want to make' and on the other they wanted hit singles as well. They were pulling in two directions at once - not just individual members against one another but within themselves.
We actually started off in Westside Studios in London, just off Ladbroke Grove. I tried to suggest doing something different such as setting up all the instruments in the studio, rather than the control room but when I was met with blank expressions, we simply carried on as we always did. But we also tried some interesting things at Westside. For 'Stripped', we sampled a lot of nice sounds from the real world such as the rumble of Dave's Porsche which you can hear at the beginning. The whole song was based around a slowed-down sample of a motorcycle engine which came from the demo and it had so much atmosphere that we used it throughout the recording. When we wanted a drone, we sampled Dave's car starting up and then idling. We pitched it in a different way in the sampler and it produced that great sound.
Also, it was Guy Fawkes Night when we were doing 'Stripped' and If you listen to the 12-inch remix you can hear some fireworks which we recorded outside in Westside's big car park. In fact, there were several remixes of 'Stripped', which was quite a new idea at the time. We sped the track up and reworked it into a B-side, 'Breathing In Fumes'. I was pleased that Depeche Mode were still experimenting like that.
But there was also tension in the studio, especially once we left London and got to Hansa in Berlin. It was Depeche Mode's fifth album and the pressure was on to push themselves sonically again. Sometimes I think that I felt it more than the band. It wasn't that complacency had set in, I just felt that they were getting slightly world weary. They had made three albums in a short amount of time, done a lot of touring and needed to be pushed a bit. By this point, Alan Wilder was much more involved in the studio and had the confidence to push his ideas but perhaps in a way that made him more closed to other people's. Once again we were running incredibly late and it took twice as long as it should have done. As usual, the band had booked their holidays after the date we were supposed to finish and one by one they kind of fell away, except for Alan who stayed until the end.
'Black Celebration' marked a slight dip in sales in the UK even though it went to Number Three in the album charts, their highest position at the time. It's very dark and really an experimental album, not a pop album -it didn't really have pop singles. 'Question Of Time, 'Stripped' (which is really anthemic) and 'Question of Lust' were all great songs -but not obvious Depeche Mode singles. But for people who were into Depeche Mode it was this album, more than any other, that solidified their cult status. Fans felt they had made an album without regard to commercialism, which is partly true. They had made something they wanted to make and people could really relate to it. It was an 'outsiders' record.
In the classroom, or amongst your friends, it was the odd people who liked Depeche Mode back then. The mainstream people would like Duran Duran or somebody or other, but this was a record for the weirdo's at the back who were wearing black eye make-up and planning to assassinate their teacher. For all the problems we had making it, 'Black Celebration' became a key record from that point of view.
Совсем и не темный, а очень светлый альбом. На нем минор достаточно бодренько звучит. Для светлых помещений. Звук сильно скруглен по высоким у вокала, но это у них было модно. Как и в небесах этот вокал помещать, да и реверберациями злоупотреблять (от них и идет ощущение светлости). Диск вполне в духе группы.
Музыка – 8
Запись -8
Многоканальность - 8
