Kraftwerk - The Model

This is an amazing single.

First off, it's got 'The Model' on it, which could very well be Kraftwerk's best song, and if not is certainly the song which best captures all the elements of what the group is about in an accessible and enjoyable three minute 'pop' song. With that in mind it's slightly baffling as to why it wasn't chosen as a single in 1978. Originally one on the highlights from 1978's The Man Machine it was a further three years before the song enjoyed commercial success in the UK.

'The Model' didn't receive a UK single release until July 1981, by which time Kraftwerk had released and were promoting the Computer World album. 'Computer Love' was selected as the second single from the album with 'The Model' included on the B-side. The single fared admirably, reaching #36 in the singles chart, but it was the B-side that caught the attention of the radio station DJs. After 'The Model' began to receive substantial airplay EMI reissued the single in December, with the same catalogue number, but this time with 'The Model' on the A-side. A music video was also produced. The re-issued single spent thirteen weeks on the charts and scored the group a #1 hit. However, it seems they were unhappy with the label's decision to release old material instead of focussing on Computer World.



Anyone who comes out with the tired old "soulless, emotionless, cold and clinical" response to Kraftwerk should listen for the melancholic yearning in this track. The lyrics speak of glamour, but the music tells the real story; the narrator is made to seem detached from that world, looking in mournfully at a girl whose success seems increasingly hollow and pitiful.

'Computer Love' is another great Kraftwerk track, now sadly more widely recognised as a Coldplay song. But before they got their dreary hands on the sparkling little riff and spread a thick, dull layer of grey jam over the whole thing it actually a rather sweet little song. It's rather light and whimsical in comparison to most of Kraftwerk's body of work; although quite representative of the Computer World album it is taken from.



Finally, the thing I love most about this one is the artwork. Slick, bold, bright and funky; it's just a great, iconic image; perhaps even better now than when originally issued.

Tubeway Army - Down in the Park

Released in March 1979 as the first single from Replicas, ‘Down in the Park’ heralded Tubeway Army’s shift to a starker and more synth-driven sound. Both music and image seem to be highly influenced by Thin White Duke and Berlin-era David Bowie and electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. However, the music contained on this disc is far more sinister and distopian than anything released by either Bowie or Kraftwerk, and whereas pop acts of the early 80s that adopted the synth-pop style can now sound gimmicky and cheesy this melding of new technology and electronic sounds with post-punk guitar riffs has stood the test of time well.

The cover has a fantastic photograph that was later used as the cover of the Replicas LP. Gary Numan, with white hair and skin, stands like a mannequin, dressed in black, in an undecorated room with a bare light bulb hanging down, perfectly capturing the urban alienation that was a central theme of his work for years to come. A panel of the window captures his reflection and juxtaposes it against the moon, giving him an other-worldliness and suggesting the alien invasion themes that pervade Replicas. A bit too literal an interpretation of the song title is the inclusion of a huge neon ‘The Park’ sign, seen through the window. Not everything can be perfect, I suppose.

‘Down in the Park’ exudes a calm, frosty malice and is by turns creepy, menacing and brooding; stark, slick and cool, but also exhibits a wistful and melancholic nostalgia; the sound of looking back with regret and sorrow (most notably heard on the line “I was in a car crash or was it the war? Well I’ve never been quite the same").

Tubeway Army perform 'Down in the Park' on The Old Grey Whistle Test

The back cover is a close up shot of Numan’s eye, with a black bar for a pupil, hinting at themes and characters from the works of Philip K. Dick and further confirming the otherness of Numan’s new image and sound.

B-side ‘Do You Need the Service?’ is far more guitar-centred, but with repeated jabbing synths and an infectious rock drum pattern. Originally a non-album track, it has of course since been included on CD reissues on the album. More urgent and frantic than the A-side; if ‘Down in the Park’ is the menace, then ‘Do You Need the Service?’ is the paranoia.

‘Down in the Park’ failed to chart upon release, but follow-up single ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ scored a UK no.1 a mere two months later. Whatever you may think of Numan’s later increasingly industrial work, this single is an excellent and influential slice of early British synth-pop.

Depeche Mode - The Meaning of Love

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! Well, it’s St. Paddy’s, so let’s all go and squeeze ourselves into a heaving Irish theme pub and wear a wacky hat (wasn’t Comic Relief last week?) with a bunch of sweaty half-wits extolling the virtues of Guinness whilst offering you a liberal spraying of the stuff whilst they speak. Oh, goodie.

I’ve nothing against a celebration and display of national pride, but I’m not Irish and frankly, I think I know more about Robert Mugabe than I do about St. Patrick, and yet I certainly didn’t feel the need to go out and drink copious amounts on the last anniversary of the beginning of Bobby’s illustrious term as President.

So, here I am at my desk instead, ‘reviewing’ a record and enjoying an Irish whisky on my terms. I’ve been rummaging in my local charity shop today and came up trumps with a copy of Depeche Mode’s 1997 album, Ultra. Now, whilst being a junked-up Rock ‘n’ Roll near-casualty and making junked-up electro-Rock ‘n’ Roll pop albums is all very well and good, especially for the album's sales, the CD left me hankering for more innocent times. So, I had a nose through my collection and pulled out this little gem:


‘The Meaning of Love’ was Depeche Mode’s fifth single and second following the departure of electro-pop supremo Vince Clarke, who went to form Yazoo, The Assembley, Erasure blah blah blah… “Gadzooks!” cried the Great British public, along with most of the band and their management, “what in Hades are DM going to do to capitalise on the success of previous Clarke-penned smash hit single ‘I Just Can’t Get Enough’ now that he’s effed off for a bunk-up with Fats Moyet? Surely this is the end of the road for the Mode!?” Well, that was at the end of 1981, and by February of 1982 Depeche Mode had slain the naysayers with refreshing pop ditty ‘See You’ and then went on the release ‘The Meaning of Love’ in May and have since gone on to become one of the world’s best-selling acts, still going strong today. And all because of one man who dared to come out from the shadows, step into the breach and follow his dream. A man so naturally gifted as a songwriter that he reaffirmed the band’s legitimacy with the British music press. A man with such vision that he carried the band to new dizzying heights. A man so devastatingly beautiful that he could get away with wearing women’s make-up, and little else. But a man so misguided that he happily appeared in public for the next 10+ years looking like this:


You’d be forgiven for dismissing Mr. Martin L. Gore as a poor man’s Boy George, but he’s the writer of such classic hits as ‘Personal Jesus,’ ‘Enjoy the Silence,’ and ‘People are People.’ Still, this whole look is just the work of some Smash Hits photographer, right? Trying to make a name for himself off a popular act by glamming him up in the studio for these snaps, yeah? Gore’s obviously got his pop star hat on here, but away from the limelight, out of the studio, he’s probably just like any other normal Essex lad, right? For example, if it were, say, a Sunday and a rabid DM fan happened to catch him in, say, the car park at Ikea, where he’s just been shopping for a new sideboard, and asked him for an autograph, he’d probably just be in his casuals, looking very much like your average man on the street, right...?



Or maybe just traipsing about in lipstick, BDSM gear and a poodle haircut. So, our Martin may be a touch fruity, but he’s come up with an absolutely smashing couple of tracks on this ‘ere disc. The A-side carries on in the vein of ‘See You,’ being an upbeat and chirpy track that was either written in the composer’s youth, along with ‘See You,’ or is otherwise a cynical attempt at replicating the success of that single. I’m sure it can’t be the latter. Dave Gahan croons, “From the notes that I’ve made so far love seems something like wanting a scar/Still, I could be wrong; you see, I’ve never been in love before,” which is so cloyingly sugary in it’s naïveté that it invokes extreme urges to either pinch Gahan’s chubby little cheeks or puke all over him. Personally, I just find it pleasantly twee and catchy and have no desire to go anywhere near Gahan or ANY OTHER MEMBER OF DEPECHE MODE*

*I have been advised by my lawyer to insert this statement into any correspondence on the subject of Depeche Mode, ever since ‘the incident.’

To match the vibe, we get a lovely flowery record sleeve and happy, kissy birds on the label. There is an equally syrupy promo video to accompany the single, but it seems fairly difficult to track down. The early video compilation Some Great Videos (a play on the title of contemporaneous album Some Great Reward) contains approximately zero great videos, a couple of decent videos and a great big dollop of cringe-worthy O-Level art student videos. Apparently, ‘The Meaning of Love’ didn’t even live up to these low standards, as the home video omits the clip to save the boys from any further embarrassment. Since then, I’ve seen it on YouTube, but having searched for it just now, it seems to have mysteriously disappeared and now only exists as a fading memory in the minds of a lucky few; which is just the way Mute Records wants it.



‘The Meaning of Love’ reached #12 in the UK singles chart and was included on Depeche Mode’s second album A Broken Frame, released in September 1982. The B-side, ‘Oberkorn (It’s a Small Town)’ was initially only available on this single, although I’m sure it’s since been released on a plethora of re-issues and compilations, so shouldn’t be too hard to find if you fancy a listen. ‘Oberkorn’ is an atmospheric and fragile-sounding instrumental, all warm analogue synths and sounding like something from the soundtrack of a classic 80s movie. I mean, it could even have been used on something truly brilliant, like Flight of the Navigator, or something! It’s a very nice companion piece to the A-side, displaying a more thoughtful and experimental side to the band’s work at the time. It seems that interesting things were going on around this time with DM’s B-sides, as many of them were instrumentals that explored a more layered, atmospheric and ominous sound that hinted at the industrial-pop that was to follow, developing on Construction Time Again (1983), Some Great Reward (1984) and being fully realised on the bleakly gothic Black Celebration (1986).

Depeche Mode release new album Sounds of the Universe on April 20th, but I guarantee you there’ll be nothing as nice and soppy and twinkly and lovely as ‘The Meaning of Love’ on there. This certainly isn’t a record to drink whisky to.