Flashback 1990: The Three Albums of the Apocalypse?

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Flash back to late 1990...
(...make screen go all wavy, blurry and vague...)
Right before the whole "Nirvana Thing" "changed all the rules" "forever" three bands (apparently sensing a change in the wind) made an album radically different than what their devoted fanbases had expected. These three albums added whole new fanbases to the fold while befuddling, irritating or even alienating the hardcore "classic" fans.
The albums this thread discusses are

Depeche Mode Violator
U2 Achtung, Baby
Metallica Metallica

Essay Questions (please print with a number 2 pencil and double space, using MLA standard format and Strunk/White grammar)
1) There is alot of eerie similarities between these three records, such as....
2) There is no coincidence, these bands had painted themselves into corners throughout the 80s, and this was their only way out of the rut they had worn themselves into.
3) These might be the more famous examples, but [ALBUM X], besides being much more obscure, revamped [ARTIST X] in a much more (radical|interesting|infuriating) fashion. Here's why....
4) This was all a conspiracy perpetrated by the Cancer Man! All three bands were swapped with pod people, and the REAL Depeche Mode is in suspended animation underneath the Pentagon. And here's my proof...

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 7 March 2003 15:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Drink less coffee.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 7 March 2003 15:52 (twenty-three years ago)

didnt 'Achtung Baby' come out around the same time as 'Nevermind', 'Metallica' is also late '91 i thought. sorry i'm a pedant

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 7 March 2003 15:53 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm side-stepping here, but how did Violator represent some radical change of path for DM? sure it was better, more assured and mature that what came before, but radically different from Music for the Masses?

I dunno much about Metallica but I didn't have the impression that the Black album was such a 'achtung baby' makeover album either. Or was it just because at that stage they were considered to be selling out?

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Friday, 7 March 2003 15:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Timeline...

Violator: Feb 1990 (release) inprint
Metallica: Aug 1991 (release) inprint
Nevermind: Sep 24, 1991 (release) inprint
Achtung, Baby: Nov 19, 1991 (release) inprint

U2 were a bit late, but they were close to done working on each album right before Nevermind came out.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 7 March 2003 16:01 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm side-stepping here, but how did Violator represent some radical change of path for DM?
All the DM fans I knew at the time seemed to think It was a radical change. Some even claimed to hate the record and were annoyed that it was selling so well and getting so much airplay.

Or was it just because at that stage they were considered to be selling out?
Um...I'm not going to open that 'selling out' can of worms, but the fans I knew were either confused or unhappy about those records.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 7 March 2003 16:04 (twenty-three years ago)

i hated the fact that a record *not that much*
better than the previous 2 DM ones was causing all the fuss
and hype, mainly cause THE FACE had
the previous summer featured their now-legendary
'did depeche mode detonate house ?' article,
and caused a radical writerly rethink.
that and the fact that they did detonate house and were
finally getting long overdue/overcompensatory credit.

― piscesboy, Friday, 7 March 2003 16:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay. Did the Metallica and U2 rekkids have the same effect on you?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 7 March 2003 16:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Violator always left me cold. It's one of my least favourite DM albums.

After the bombastic triumphant Music for the Masses, it seemed..... lightweight to me.
'Silence' was a great single..... but the rest didn't excite me much at all.

It was lyrically awful, too.

― russ t, Friday, 7 March 2003 16:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Violator always left me cold. It's one of my least favourite DM albums.

:-(

It was lyrically awful, too.

Quite how the lyrics are different on that one than from any other DM album from 1986 to 1997 is beyond me.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 7 March 2003 16:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Martin Gore stopped writing kinky songs about S&M awhile back. He hasn't been any fun ever since. He still sometimes wears the creepy spiked bandolier thing over his skinny pale chicken-chest. (Brrr.) I don't know whats worse, Martin Gore bondage gear or Bono in a Sari.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 7 March 2003 18:24 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't agree that "Violator" was such an album. I was a huge Depeche Mode album at the time, and felt "Violator" almost as a "return to form" after the disappointing "Music For The Masses" album.

The one Depeche Mode album that pissed off their fans (me included) was "Songs Of Faith And Devotion" in 1993. However, they won me back with 1997's excellent "Ultra".

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:03 (twenty-three years ago)

All the DM fans I knew at the time seemed to think It was a radical change. Some even claimed to hate the record and were annoyed that it was selling so well and getting so much airplay.

Must be those American fans that expected more of the stadium band from "Music From The Masses". Those who used to love the synthpop band of the 1980 (the DM that did never do much in the US) have a tendency to view "Violator" as their last great album.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:05 (twenty-three years ago)

The one Depeche Mode album that pissed off their fans (me included) was "Songs Of Faith And Devotion" in 1993.
Well, all the Depeche-heads I knew back in 11/12th grade reacted to Violator with treipidation, calling Gahan an "LA Cock Rocker Wannabe Sellout"; they reacted to Songs of Faith and Devotion (both versions) as the slippery slope toward oblivion.
Me, I thought "Personal Jesus" has dee-yoo-emm-bee dumb lyrics but a GREBT swinging twang in the guitar riff.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 7 March 2003 22:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Every time a new Depeche album comes out I think it's their best one yet. Still do in ways.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 7 March 2003 23:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Every time a new Depeche album comes out I think it's their best one yet.

No. Actually, that hasn't happened since 1983. :-)

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 8 March 2003 01:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, all the Depeche-heads I knew back in 11/12th grade reacted to Violator with treipidation, calling Gahan an "LA Cock Rocker Wannabe Sellout"; they reacted to Songs of Faith and Devotion (both versions) as the slippery slope toward oblivion.
Me, I thought "Personal Jesus" has dee-yoo-emm-bee dumb lyrics but a GREBT swinging twang in the guitar riff.

You are right that reactions were a bit violent towards the "Personal Jesus" single when it was released in the autumn of 1989. The guitar is obviously more of an important instrument there than on any previous Depeche track.

But the album there was no such reaction against. I mean, after all it was their most electronic sounding album for a while, as it was the first Depeche Mode album since "Construction Time Again" that used at least some synth sounds that sounded warm and "analog" rather than harsh and metallic.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 8 March 2003 01:17 (twenty-three years ago)

No. Actually, that hasn't happened since 1983. :-)

The Nediverse keeps its own counsel. That is the point.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 8 March 2003 01:24 (twenty-three years ago)

It was lyrically awful, too.

Quite how the lyrics are different on that one than from any other DM album from 1986 to 1997 is beyond me.

that's because they're all lyrically awful! [ducks]

― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 8 March 2003 06:40 (twenty-three years ago)

back in the early 90s, i was enamoured with anything deemed "alternative"
when I first heard the fly on the radio, I thought to myself "cool, U2's gone alternative"
i was an idiot

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Saturday, 8 March 2003 08:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Simple really. Metallica decamp to Canada to record so their album comes out all bland and homogeneous. U2 fix their sights on the then-New Europe so their stuff comes out with the kind of radical wide-eyed futuristic enthusiasm that seems dated a week later. Depeche Mode cross the Atlantic where they finally stop fucking about in their sisters' clothes and put some goddamn weight on musically

― dave q, Saturday, 8 March 2003 11:07 (twenty-three years ago)

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