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Date Posted: 17:30:44 02/07/03 Fri
Author: ModeMan
Subject: Re: Gore v. Wilder
In reply to: nihilist 's message, "Gore v. Wilder" on 13:09:56 02/06/03 Thu

There's some pretty good examples out there of the differences between Martin and Alan...For example, pretty much everything between 82 - 87 was Martin's doing - he wrote the songs, demo'd them up, and took them to the studio, where the producer and Alan would pretty much re-create them virtually the same as the demos. So we can assume that the music in this time period was mostly Martin's creativity/genius.

For the recording of Violator in 1989, the band proposed that Martin leave his demos more sparse, less finished, using only a guitar or piano in addition to the lyrics. This allowed the band to have more say in the finished product, as they clung less rigidly to Martin's demos than in the past. By the time Songs of Faith and Devotion came around, Alan (in addition to producer Flood) had pretty much become the only real creative mind in the studio, since it bored Martin, and was over Dave and Fletch's heads. These two albums were pretty much Martin's words and Alan's music.

In addition, 1997's Ultra, DM's first post-Alan album, is really stark and minimalistic, showing how much Alan's adding of depth and layering of sounds strengthened the previous albums. It has been written that Ultra was pretty much Tim Simenon (producer) and Martin working together in the studio, so again, we can see Martin's individual style here, kind of basic and minimalistic.

It's also interesting to listen to Recoil's music, the current project for Alan Wilder. I think this also really shows what Alan's strengths were, assembling sounds together to make interesting music - but it lacks the human feeling that Martin's songs always have. So, if we have to draw some conclusions about DM's best works, I'd say Martin provided the soul and Alan provided the atmosphere.

So, I hope I answered that part well enough! :)

About the only songs that really were truly Wilder and Gore collaborations were the instrumentals...Gore takes the writing credit, but because Alan performed them on record, we can also assume that he added certain parts and came up with his own ideas to fuse into the instrumental pieces. But, because most ideas were originally Martin's, Alan didn't insist on a co-writing credit. But, he did mention a lack of recognition in his press statement regarding his departure from DM (which I have copied on this site, check under "Band Bios"). I think Alan was referring to the fact that the albums would say on them "Produced by _____ and Depeche Mode", even though the "Depeche Mode" part really meant Alan alone. I think that's not the largest reason behind his exit, since if it were a big deal to him, he would've mentioned something about it at the time, not a few years down the road.

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