Just Can’t Get Enough: Depeche Mode’s 30 best songs ranked
With a new album about to drop, we count down the British group's top tracks, from hits like "Enjoy The Silence" and "Personal Jesus" to B-sides and deep cuts
Music Lists Depeche Mode
One of the essential bands of the 1980s, Depeche Mode have found themselves, over the course of their long career, at the crest of the synth-pop, new wave, goth-rock, and industrial genres. The British musicians—composed of the late Andy Fletcher, songwriter/instrumentalist Martin Gore, and lead vocalist Dave Gahan for the majority of their four-decade run—broke through on their very first album, on the strength of the hit single “Just Can’t Get Enough.”
Since then, they’ve been an evolutionary, hit-dispensing tour de force. With their 15th studio album, Memento Mori, landing this week and a massive world tour kicking off on March 23, we thought it was time for a refresher: here are the 30 best Depeche Mode songs, from megahits to B-sides to deep cuts, from throughout their catalog.
127 Comments
Good seeing Stripped up high, but I’d have gone with the live version from 101 instead. Barrel of a Gun not only not being in the top 5, but not even on the list is a travesty though. Good list, but I’d swap out several for things like See You, John the Revelator, The Sun & the Rainfall, Useless, People Are People, Master & Servant, and Cover Me.
I was hoping for John the Revelator, but the lack of But Not Tonight is kind of criminal.
But Not Tonight is so good.
I don’t understand how this list can have several B-sides, but no room for But Not Tonight.
This list is nonsense. Their best album barely gets mentioned, there’s a bunch of late-career stuff that you could reasonably describe as “passable”, their best song isn’t anywhere on it, there’s songs from their laughable debut album..
-1 for being too cool to name them because OMG PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW.
Oh, geez, right. I think Ultra’s their most solid front-to-back record, frontloaded with four great singles (including “Home”, their best song) leading into a dreamy, moody back half. I mean, Violator and Black Celebration are great too but Ultra takes it with the production as the cherry on top.
I have a small theory here on this, as I have a different best album. How old were you when Ultra came out?
I want to say.. 18 or so? It might have been my first “new” DM album.
And I was 17 when Music for the Masses – my favorite – came out. 😉
I like the Rammstein version of “Stripped” more than the original. I am hot and cold on them. There are songs I like and stuff I don’t. I remember them breaking it big in the early 80’s when I lived in the UK for a couple years. The “Darkwave” show on Sunday nights at 10PM plays a good bit of their songs from time to time on SXM First Wave station. A couple Halloween shows ago, they played “Ghost” which I really like. Also this remix. It may be played loud in my Jeep while commuting to work and back at times.
“Wrong” is also missing. It’s also their best video!
Interesting that this post came up (out of the blue?), because while I was never a big fan of DM back in the day (enjoyed the odd song here and there), I have been playing various tracks from them on YouTube off and on over the last few weeks, even reading or watching some interviews as well.I’m also liking how Robert Smith has been in the headlines for taking on Ticketmaster. Used to be a huge Cure fan though.Edit: Skipped over the “with the new album about to drop” part.
I just can’t get enough of this bossanova version of the song
There’s a commercial for some financial app that is currently using a remixed instrumental of “Just Can’t Get Enough” in rotation rn.
I guess I’m older than whoever made this list, as Some Great Reward is my Depeche Mode album of choice. I can understand being tired of People are People, but Somebody and/or Master and Servant definitely merit inclusion on this list.
‘Lie To Me’ is massively underapprecated.
Totally agree, I was really surprised when Master and Servant didn’t make the list
A Question of Lust. New Dress. I Feel You
In Your Room
It’s nice to know that if I ever need reminding of the vast cultural gulf between the UK and the US, I can find somewhere on the internet an article describing Depeche Mode as an ‘essential band of the 80s’ with a straight face.
They’ve got the odd decent song, no doubt and good on them for cracking America this hard – it’s a rare achievement for any British band, let alone one that that lost their most creative and talented member one and a half albums into a multi-decade career. But their essentiality is, I assure you, a profoundly local phenomenon.
Some people really, really like Depeche Mode. Others don’t. For me, and many I know, DM were absolutely an “essential band of the 80s.” Other people I know hate DM with an intense passion. Others have no idea who they are. I’d imagine that shakes out roughly the same in the UK, but I could be wrong, I suppose.
I don’t think there are all that many people in the UK that would call them essential, though, however they themselves might feel about the music. They were certainly very popular, but that’s slightly different.
In their early synthpop stage they were definitely second or third fiddle to, say, The Human League or Yazoo (Clarke’s more interesting project, frankly), and this wierd plastic goth/stadium rock hybrid they subsequently turned into is its own thing, and not particularly representative of the 80s or anything very much else.
As far as I’m aware it’s only in the US that people acknowledge them as having some sort of enduring cultural importance, as opposed to just being another long-lasting band that some people like and some people don’t.
In their early synthpop stage . . . and this wierd plastic goth/stadium rock hybrid they subsequently turned intoAgreed that neither of those periods are particularly laudable, but I also think that skips over their most important creative period, running Some Great Reward through Violator. No one else (that I was aware of, anyway) hit that sweet spot between sparse electronic production, cynical worldview, and impeccable pop songwriting. It’s a perfect run, IMO, but then I’m the one saying that it’s simply a matter of opinion.
I also listen to very little electronic music, admittedly. DM is something of an outlier for me (and probably a lot of other people) which may explain their lionization in the US.
I also listen to very little electronic music, admittedly. DM is
something of an outlier for me (and probably a lot of other people)
which may explain their lionization in the US.
That’s possibly it -they just happened to become emblematic of a certain kind of popular music for a certain world population (ironically shortly before they decided to leave it behind).
Again, just to be clear, the word we’re looking at here is ‘essential’. Not ‘popular’, not ‘talented’, not even ‘good’ but ‘essential’.
“No one else (that I was aware of, anyway) hit that sweet spot between sparse electronic production, cynical worldview, and impeccable pop songwriting.”It is possible that several of the UK bands of that era made a bit less of an impact at the time – I am aware it simply wasn’t that big over your side of the sea. But you enjoy the slightly lusher, more sophisticated synthpop of Depeche Mode’s middle years, I would say (for my own tastes) that there were a lot of people doing it just as well if not better.
I expect you would enjoy OMD’s ‘Dazzle Ships’ or Yazoo’s ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’, which for me equal anything DM did. And the Human League perfected the idea, I think, on ‘Dare’ (if anything it’s a bit too perfect, edging into that point where things become slightly inhuman).
but… why do you have to chose? I would die for OMD, love Depeche Mode, love Yazoo, love The Human League.
Where did I say anyone had to choose? I’m responding to a poster who said they weren’t aware of artists other than DM who had combined excellent pop songwriting, sparse synthpop production and a certain kind of cynical detachment, but also that they hadn’t overall listened to a lot of electronic music.
In the UK, that particular style was for a very brief moment incredibly prevalent, but a lot of those bands didn’t really make it over the pond while those that did tended to sand off some of their rough edges to fit in with the poppier New Wave stuff that was more popular there at the time, so I thought it might be helpful to mention a few other acts to explore.
I’m an American and I think they were the best band in the world from mid 80’s to about 1990.
Then in ‘91 U2 and Metallica said, “Hold my beer”.
What 80s band would you take over Depeche Mode? Winger? Kajagoogoo?And what do you mean about losing a creative and talented member? The only member they lost early on was Vince Clarke, who was a hindrance at best.
He wasn’t a hindrance musically at all – he is, and remains, one of the most talented producers of his generation. Depeche Mode, however, wanted to be pop stars, and he wasn’t very interested in that. Which is fine on both sides, and they have succeeded admirably in their respective aims.
He became one of the most talented producers of his generation, eventually. He wasn’t there yet during his time with Depeche Mode, and the songwriting and arranging on Speak & Spell is *rough* throughout. If they’d kept on like that they would be remembered about as fondly as Bros.
I think DM losing Alan Wilder was a bigger loss than Vince Clarke. They made a couple of good albums after Wilder, but I never thought they were as sonically as interesting without him.
DM improved massively after Clarke left. They’ve been consistently mediocre since Wilder left, and I don’t think it’s an accident that Wilder was with the band for their imperial period.
100%. Clarke leaving after Speak and Spell was a favor, Wilder leaving after Songs of Faith and Devotion really sunk their sound.
Agreed. The songwriting was still solid but it just felt like the production was really lacking on some things. It was like many had the potential to be really great but just didn’t get there.
Exactly – if Vince hadn’t left, they would have disappeared entirely.
yeah he went on to do way better stuff with Yazoo and Erasure.
Dammit, I saw Kajagoogoo and thought Chumbawamba and now I got that song stuck in my brain.
Each of their albums went top 10 in the UK, with 3 going to #2 and 2 going to #1.In the US, only 1 went to #1, none went to #2, and a6 didn’t even crack the top 30.
As I say, ‘popular’ is not the same thing as ‘essential’.
I think the ‘of the 80’s’ is the main issue, call them an essential band, full stop. Don’t just toss them in the retro kitsch bin.
There are quite a lot of stops on the line between ‘retro kitsch bin’ and ‘essential’. They were, and remain, a well-liked band all over the world, and I don’t intend to claim that they should not be. Their tenacity and commitment is admirable, and I believe they are thoroughly nice chaps who have used their fame for good on many occasions.
However, from what I am aware it is really only in America that they are thought of as having of the sort of overarching cultural significance that you’d associate with the descriptor ‘essential’.
I was going to answer kind of angrily as if Depeche Mode was my favourite band in the world but actually it isn’t and I remembered something I learned when I moved to London: you Brits love your new wave and post punk and even idm way less than many other countries including Spain where I come from. You are not aware how many of those bands were incredibly popular say in Japan say in Germany say in Italy. Or how comparatively little other countries care about the 90s brit pop apart from the top known names.
Yeah, Matty there is clearly just playing his natural role as an insufferable pompous tit, he probably can’t help it.
Exactly, they rose above the “80’s” associations, successfully reinvented themselves and started making bangers in the 90s and 2000’s. Meanwhile their 80’s new-wave colleagues dissappeared with the decade.
They are far more beloved in the US than the UK. And they are going to have one of the top grossing tours of 2023. But OK.
Depeche Mode are one of the most influential bands to come out of the 80s.Also, Vince Clark may have been the talent behind the band on their 1st album, but Martin Gore left him in the dust with Black Celebration and on (perhaps even before).
They did have a few top ten albums in the US though, including a number 1 album, albeit that those began in the 90s. DM were on the cusp of U2-ness at one point (except without being shit).
It’s true, Depeche Mode is not a huge pop culture band of the 80s. Brits would likely rank then alongside Duran Duran or maybe The Cure on the impact scale. There’s also this thing in the UK that anything a bit goth is looked at with great mirth and generally discounted as sophomoric . Which is kinda weird given they absolutely adore Joy Division. So who do they rate? The Smiths, Joy Division/New Order, Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine and weirdly, Pet Shop Boys. But what Brits love beyond everything else, what they absolutely love beyond all reason, is they absolutely go nuts for early house music. It’s still ubiquitous in the culture, and every bore at every opportunity will tell you in pedantic detail all the various remixes of some blippy, tinny, tuneless 808/303 crap that they did E to at some field in Essex in the summer of 1989. That’s what they find essential. It’s inexplicable given they’ve produced so many great bands, but it’s also why Depeche Mode is not so revered, their type of dance music is completely unfashionable compared to the canon of rave/house music.
…in the UK that anything a bit goth is looked at with great mirth and generally discounted as sophomoric…I’m American and I don’t like Depeche Mode for this reason, sort of. I think 80s Goth is fine. I like the Cure, Joy Division, Bauhaus, etc. The problem with Depeche Mode is the shift somewhere around 1988 from fun, colorful, poppy dance tracks to black leather, heroin chic, Goth with hipster anti-religious imagery. To me it was obvious marketing bullshit. I mean, up till that point Jesus seemed to be doing pretty well by them so why get all backstabby on Him?
But that’s not the case, they didn’t transform in 1988 from fun, colourful, poppy dance tracks: Right after Vince Clark left in 1981, the sound went darker and darker, a natural progression: – there’s “Leave in Silence” from the 1982 album: – there’s “Construction Time Again” from 1983 with a first foray into the industrial sound: – Then you have the album “Some great reward” from 1984, with very non-poppy songs like “Something to do”: – And also “blasphemous rumours” from the same album: – And then in 1986 comes the full album of gloom, Black Celebration, one of their best, with “hits” like So no, there was no marketing bullshit, an album like “Black Celebration” was even considered “commercial suicide” by some music labels people.
Thanks. I admit I only know the hits from that time.
I guess I’ll bite… They’ve sold over 100 million records. They are one of a handful of artists who still fill arenas worldwide when they tour. They’ve had a massive influence on the sound of pop music during the last 10-15 years, not to mention how they were a key influence for techno pioneers like Derrick May and Juan Atkins. I myself think that’s at least approaching “essential”.
British twat yells at cloud
Damn brat… what an attitude…!
It’s not that rare for a British band to crack America since the Beatles landed. LOLLed Zeppelin, The Who, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Duran Duran, the Damned, Yaz, Erasure, New Order, Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Cure, the Alarm, Rolling Stones, Cream… the list is absurdly long!
It’s worth talking to some Eastern Europeans about how local a phenomenon Depeche Mode is. A good place to start would be the Depeche Mode bar in Tallinn or Riga.
I was gonna say … my wife’s Hungarian and she can sing the words to just about any DM song, and they’re not even really a favourite (although she is seeing them this summer for the third or fourth time). They’re just one of those bands that everybody in Hungary (well, over 35 let’s say) knows and everybody loves at least a little bit.
At the time of this list’s publication I was headed to Vegas from Atlanta to attend my first of three shows on Depeche Mode’s most recent tour. To this girl, Depeche Mode is absolutely essential. While I agree that Vince Clarke is indeed a genius in his own right, he did not prove to be the most creative or talented member. Regarding the list – it’s an interesting one. I agreed with some, disagreed with others. The catalog is vast and crosses musical genres. 30 fans would give you 30 different songs. Big props for including Rush, though. One of my favorite of the deep cuts.
Definitely some too cool for school omissions, but Just Can’t Get Enough at 30 is trying way too hard.
Exactly. Its like their number one song (for me). Never Let Me Down Again at number one is just because some tv show made it famous again. There are so many better songs that aren’t even listed.
Which TV show did this? It’s a bloody great tune, but I was surprised not to see I Feel You and Condemnation in that list. Home. Different strokes.
I Feel You is another one I was definitely surprised to not see.That zombie show The Last of Us featured it at the end of the pilot and then later in another episode the creator had his daughter do one of those obligatory “girl sings moody slowed down version of popular song” versions that have been ubiquitous for the last decade or so. Admittedly, it’s not horrible.
Fond memory of walking into Tower Records at Piccadilly Circus where I first heard ‘I Feel You’, loud as fuck too.
The Last of Us
The HBO show The Last of Us has a cover of it they play in I think 2 episodes, over the ending credits.
Music for the Masses was the first (and last) Depeche Mode album I bought. I loved it but everything after it was… not as good.
It still belongs on the list. I’d put it at 4 or 5.
Agreed. There are a lot of great songs on this list, but Just Can’t Get Enough is an almost perfectly constructed song. It’s impossible to be still during that song.
Lack of Dreaming of Me and But Not Tonight invalidates the entire list.
“But Not Tonight” being absent is simply insane. And a missing “Halo” is also a big oversight.
While I looooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeee Enjoy the silence. Whenever I see Depeche Mode written, I read it in the Monarch from Venture Bros voice!
“But that’s the guy from Depeche Mode!”
And see, I read that in his voice as well! So great!
No Somebody??? Better remove your deep cuts for a better cut.
Seriously. Two songs from “Spirit” (and if they were going to pick a song from that album, I would have gone with Cover Me), and no Somebody. No Home. No Wrong. No In Your Room.
Delta Machine gets completely ignored. “You should be higher”
“Home” might be my absolute favorite of theirs. Dave Gahan’s voice is absolutely heartbreaking in that song.
It’s one of my favorites too, but Martin sings that one. Agree that it’s heartbreaking, for sure!
No way! Thanks for the heads up. I didn’t realize their voices were that similar (maybe once you know who sings it you can’t “unhear it”), but now I know I should look at the production notes more closely.
This was a great look back at an incredible catalogue but as I was a 12 year old girl when I got into DM in the late 80’s, both “Somebody” and “A Question of Lust” will always rank high on my personal list of their best ever songs. Both were dreamy and romantic but also felt cooler than most other love songs of the time (which I also listened to and loved, don’t get me wrong). They were like ballads that a Molly Ringwald character would listen to, and I loved them so much.
Came here to mention “Somebody” as well. It’s such an under-rated love song. I’ve gotten way more mileage out of it than any other song in the DM catalog.
There are a lot I think are missing, though I wouldn’t know where to slot them.Wrong is definitely one that should be here, though. And Waiting for the Night.
Yeah if they wanted to include something for post-2000 coverage ‘Wrong’ (and ‘John the Revelatory’) would be the way to go rather than two songs from Spirit
The lack of Somebody on the list feels wrong… but so do these tickets prices for Washington D.C. (non-reseller before the fees!) There were $1000 seats!
Dang! I hope you dance your ass off, having a great time.
I BOUGHT TICKETS! To my metro area. Not for a grand a piece, but not far off! I couldn’t help myself. Yay!
I’m old, but still a bit shocked “People are People” isn’t on here. I heard it isn’t one of their favorites, but it was their first hit in the US (and I think second biggest ever). I know it’s the first song of theirs I remember. And putting on my 2023 hindsight glasses, it seems like it would be pretty high on this list for its message.
I knew there was one I was forgetting. Good point!
‘People Are People’ really has become a bit sidelined, even by the band. It was a bigger chart hit in the US than ‘Personal Jesus’! They lyrics are a bit simple but it sounded like nothing else on Top 40 radio in 1985, so I’ll bet I wasn’t the only person who started getting into weirder music after hearing it.
Not my favorite either but extremely important to their career. Pretty sure it was one of the first DM song I heard too.
Wait…you’re telling me it’s been “reach out and touch *faith*” this whole time? Not “reach out and touch me” on “Personal Jesus”? Paging Mandela for his effect.
Welp, making a new Spotify playlist!
Surprised to agree with most of these rankings! Depeche Mode was right in the sweet spot for my age range and honestly, there aren’t many songs of theirs I don’t love. Pleased to see Music for the Masses represented in the top slot, even while being a little disappointed not to see Question of Lust or But Not Tonight from Black Celebration make it.
This is an absolutely wild list. I admit I read way too too many “best DM song” lists over the years, but this is one of the more original. Two songs from Spirit, Miles Away, Agent Orange (which is great), etc, you just dont usually see songs like those pop up on a top 30
I would just like to say that while Johnny Cash covering Personal Jesus seemed like a great idea on paper, it was one the worst ideas of his late career. No disrespect, the song just didn’t work without the DM production flash.
He did much better with his cover of Nine Inch Nails.
Of course, that’s a classic. A number of his later “surprising” covers worked well, just not that one.
It’s not my favorite of his covers, but “one of the worst ideas of his late career” is a BIT much.
Hey, maybe that just means his standards were high!
I protest any Depeche Mode list that doesn’t have “Waiting for the Night” on it
Same here. That song sucks me in every time.
No mention of Alan Wilder and how he was the reason that Enjoy the Silence was a worldwide hit and not an obscure harmonium ballad? Or any discussion of Flood, Daniel Miller, anything? Just a lot of Martin Gore references as though it were written by someone who has at most a cursory knowledge of the band. Also, any Depeche Mode fan will stay loyal to them for the long haul but their newer songs do not deserve to be placed anywhere near the top 20 of their incredibly vast catalogue, and you know it. DM has been my favorite band for 30 years and this list is…a bizarre take (Where’s the Revolution, seriously?) NLMDA is a great choice for #1 though, and agreed that Agent Orange is criminally underrated.
“Agent Orange” is underrated but surely you can name 20 tracks that should be ranked higher. Hell, I think the only song on MFTM I may have substituted it for would be “Pimpf” (maaaaybe).
Whelp, you lost me at slide one with “Just Can’t Get Enough” at 30.
No “Wrong” on the list?!*gasp**faints*
That’s their best video too!
“Nodisco” should be in the bottom 20 songs by DM, not the top 20.20 underrated / deep cut tracks:Any Second Now [Voices]Blue DressBut Not TonightDangerousGet the Balance Right [Combination Mix]HaloHappiest Girl [Jack Mix]Here is the HouseI Want it AllInsightIt Doesn’t MatterJudas [SoFaD Live]Nothing’s ImpossibleA Question of Lust [Flood Mix]Sea of Sin [Tonal Mix](Set Me Free) Remotivate Me [Release Mix]The Sun and the RainfallTo Have and to HoldUseless [The Kruder & Dorfmeister Session]Waiting for the Night
Surprised to see ‘One Caress’ in there but glad, for what it’s worth, since I absolutely adore that song (much more than the other ones from SOFAD that were also listed).
So many b sides and no Death’s Door
For possibly the first time ever, I actually agree with the #1 song on one of these lists.
Before the release of Sounds Of The Universe in 2009 i made an “official” top 150 of their songs, then that album was such a disappointment that I kind of lost that level of caring about them. I‘m mostly back in the saddle now though. This was a fun list with some unexpected (some might say “insane”) choices, but at least it was a refreshing read.
Also: “World In My Eyes” is very much about sex.
But Not Tonight is a truly underrated song.
No two lists of this type will ever be in agreement amongst fans. With that said, my list would include But Not Tonight, Here Is the House, Suffer Well, Blue Dress, Halo, Ice Machine and Photographic.Thanks for the article. It has inspired me to write my own list for myself as an exercise.
Halo!
What about…But Not Tonight? That is an amazing track, for a soundtrack album I believe. They have done recent live versions and it sounds so good…
I remembering somewhere many years ago that the band hated that song and basically disowned it.
Posting 4 out of 9 songs on Violator when there is no weak track on it…would have been a more interesting list to omit that album altogether.
I’d have ‘People Are People’ and ‘Useless’ in my top 10 and ‘I Feel You’ and ‘Master and Servant’ top 20.
That’s a very Anglocentric perspective you got there. Depeche Mode were huge in a lot of places, Germany, Austria, Northern Europe. And also Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. They were so influential, that only 3 genres existed in Eastern Europe at the start of the 90s: rock, rap and depeche. A lot of the successful artists from the past 30 years cite them as a big influence, from very diverse genres: Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Coldplay, No Doubt, Linkin Park, Rammstein, Deftones, Gotye, The Killers, Arcade Fire and even Shakira.
Pleasantly surprised at the solid choice for number 1, after anticipating ‘Enjoy the Silence’ (which would also have been a solid choice, of course).Surprised not to see any love for ‘Nothing’ and ‘A Question of Time’, both in the list and the comments.
NO PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE?!?!?!?!?!?!HEEEELLLLLL NNNNNOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!