Construction Time Again

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English {{safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst-infobox||$params=italic_title,name,type,longtype,artist,cover,border,alt,caption,released,recorded,venue,studio,genre,length,language,label,director,producer,compiler,chronology,prev_title,prev_year,year,next_title,next_year,misc|$extra=italic_title,longtype,border,caption,language,director,compiler,chronology,year,misc|$aliases=italic title>italic_title,Italic title>italic_title,Name>name,Type>type,image>cover,Cover>cover,Border>border,Alt>alt,Caption>caption,Longtype>longtype,Artist>artist,Released>released,Recorded>recorded,Venue>venue,Studio>studio,Genre>genre,Length>length,Language>language,Label>label,Director>director,Producer>producer,Compiler>compiler,Chronology>chronology,Misc>misc|$flags=override|$B={{#ifeq:{{#invoke:Is infobox in lead|main|[Ii]nfobox [Aa]lbum}}|true|{{#if:Template:Has short description | |{{#if: 22 August 1983 | Template:Short description}}}}}}{{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}Template:Template other Template:Category handler Template:Main other{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Infobox album with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y|italic_title |type |name |image |cover |border |alt |caption |longtype |artist |released |recorded |venue |studio |genre |length |language |label |director |producer |compiler |prev_title|prev_year|next_title|next_year|chronology|year|misc}}{{#if:{{#invoke:String|match|error_category=Music infoboxes with Module:String errors|A|1=A Broken Frame1982People Are People1984studioConstruction Time AgainDepeche Mode - Construction Time Again.pngDepeche Mode22 August 1983Mid-1983* The Garden (London)

Hansa Studios (Berlin)* Synth-pop<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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industrial<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
new wave<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Construction Time Again is the third studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 22 August 1983 by Mute Records. It was the band's first album to feature Alan Wilder as a member, who wrote two of the album's songs. The album's title comes from a verse of the track "Pipeline". It was recorded at John Foxx's The Garden studios in London, mixed at Hansa Studios in West Berlin, and supported by the Construction Time Again Tour in Europe, which ran from September 1983 through March 1984.

The album, which reached number 6 on the UK Albums Chart, was supported by two singles: "Everything Counts", which reached number 6 on the UK singles chart, and "Love, in Itself", which charted at number 21.

Background and recording

File:Depeche Mode 1983.jpg

Depeche Mode in 1983; Construction Time Again was the band's first studio album with Alan Wilder, pictured on the far right.

Depeche Mode had released their previous album, A Broken Frame in September 1982Template:Sfn and supported it with their A Broken Frame Tour, which lasted through May 1983.Template:Sfn In early 1983, while still on tour, the band started to plan how to approach recording their new material; according to producer Daniel Miller, it was "the first record where you could say we actually sat down before we started and really decided how we were going to utilize the technology that was available at the time."Template:Sfn In April, while on the Asian leg of the tour in Thailand, the band were unsettled by the poverty and open child exploitation.<ref name="qmag"/>Template:Sfn New band member Alan Wilder noted that songwriter Martin Gore "wrote pretty much all [the songs of Construction Time Again] in a couple of weeks straight after those trips. They seemed to come together pretty quickly and it was obvious that all these bizarre places such as Bangkok had opened up a few eyes in the band."Template:Sfn This was the first Depeche Mode album to include Wilder in the writing and recording process, who had been inducted into the band in late 1982, after their previous album had been recorded and released.Template:Sfn

The band, as well as Miller, wanted to change up their recording process for this new album, and collectively they decided to work at a new studio, and so the first time did not record at Blackwing Studios,Template:Sfn instead choosing to work at John Foxx's Garden Studios in London.<ref name="dm83" /> There, they worked with Gareth Jones as their sound technician, who had worked with Foxx on his debut solo studio album Metamatic (1980),<ref name="dm83" /> as well as with German new wave band Ideal on their album Bi Nuu (1982).Template:Sfn Initially, Jones was reluctant to work with Depeche Mode as he felt they were too commercial and viewed them as "pop" and "lightweight."<ref name="dm83" /> However, Foxx had persuaded Jones to work with the band as he felt that due to his appreciation for Mute Records' musical output, such as Miller's "Warm Leatherette" the band would be worthwhile as Miller was their producer and they were a Mute label artist.<ref name="dm83" /> In the studio, Gore and Jones bonded over their interest in the band in German experimental music group Einstürzende Neubauten, who Gore had seen at a show in January that year, giving him the idea to experiment with the sounds of industrial music in the context of pop.<ref name="qmag">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Said Jones, "It turned out that we had compatible approaches to the studio. We all wanted to discover new sound worlds, and give a sense of depth, scale and edge to the songs and music."Template:Sfn Since he was the newest member of the group, Wilder felt he had to be diplomatic about how he asserted himself in the studio without appearing pushy, but the other members of the band appreciated Wilder's input, presence and classical music training, with Gore saying "I quite liked the fact that he was there. It was almost like having a teacher check your work before it goes out."<ref name="ytdm83">Template:YouTube</ref>

For the album, Wilder and Miller had brought both a Synclavier and an Emulator, which allowed the band to capture and manipulate sounds in a way they hadn't been able to prior.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn They were inspired to buy the expensive piece of equipment after it was used to produce Michael Jackson's album Thriller (1982), which was on its way to becoming the best-selling album in history.Template:Sfn The band found the Synclavier cumbersome to use, but were happy with the results on their previous single, "Get the Balance Right!".Template:Sfn To get a "tougher" sound out of their music, they often hooked up the synthesizer to amplifiers and recorded the sounds in the studio space, as Jones said, "we often recorded the sound of the space as well as the sound of the synthesizer".<ref name="ytdm83"/> They also had a portable Stellavox tape recorder, which allowed them to record sounds outside the studio for inclusion on the album.Template:Sfn Wilder remember that initially, recording the album "was like a pioneering expedition. All of us would go off to derelict areas armed with a hammer and tape recorders."Template:Sfn Gore found the approach to be "a revelation": "We were going out, smashing pieces of metal with sledgehammers, raiding the kitchen drawer for utensils to make percussion sounds."Template:Sfn With regards to the heavy amount of sampling, the band would sample various 'found' sounds, such as toy instruments or other objects like stones and objects found in construction sites which they would manipulate using the Synclavier. Wilder said, "You can take the purest voice in the world, and fool around with it digitally until it's the most evil, monstrous sound. Or you can take a moose fart and make it beautiful."<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Miller recalled "Martin [Gore] would turn up with some toy or some other weird instrument and we just started recording it, sampling it, doing shit with it."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He looked back on the recording process as one of the most enjoyable he has been through stating "I sit at home with my synthesizers making great noises, but when you can put those experiments into the pop form that's thrilling."<ref name=":0" />

Template:Listen Despite calling themselves a "non-political" band,Template:Sfn Gore started to write more socially-conscious lyrics, especially after the trip to Thailand.Template:Sfn "Everything Counts" was, according to Gore, "about things getting out of hand. Business getting to the point where individuals don't count, and you'll tread on anybody."Template:Sfn Wilder wrote two of the songs on the album, "The Landscape is Changing" and "Two Minute Warning", both of which reflected the band's growing political and social lyrical focus.Template:Sfn

The song "Pipeline" reflected the "found sound" ethos of the album the most; for the vocals, Martin sang on location beside train tracks near Shoreditch.Template:Sfn According to Miller, Gore sang the song while standing under an arch of an old building: "You can hear the trains in the background, and all sorts of stuff."Template:Sfn The song's final mix didn't include any additional overdubs, the only changes were adjustments to balance levels.<ref name="ytdm83" />

Although they had a reputation as an all-synth band, two tracks from the album incorporated guitar ("Love, in Itself" and "And Then..."),Template:Sfn as had their previous single, "Get the Balance Right!",Template:Sfn which, despite having been recorded only a few months prior to the Construction sessions, was not included on the album, as the band felt that the song had little in common with the newer material they were recording.Template:Sfn Miller described the recording process as "a massive leap forward" from previous albums.<ref name="dm83">Template:Citation</ref>

In July 1983,Template:Sfn the band moved to Hansa Studios in Berlin to mix the album.<ref name="dmdt">Template:Cite book</ref> Lead vocalist Dave Gahan explained that, as Hansa had the only 56 track mixing desk in the world at the time,Template:Efn "we had used so many channels on the recording that we couldn't possibly have mixed the record at the studio we recorded it [The Garden in London] – they only had a 24 track desk. Plus, we wanted to sample a different atmosphere. If you work in just the one place it can get quite boring."<ref name="dmdt" /> Gore, who had been engaged to his childhood sweetheart Anne Swindell while living in England, broke off the engagement shortly after moving to Berlin.Template:Sfn Describing Swindell, Gore said "she had me on the reins. She was ridiculous - anything was perverted! If I watched something on TV, and there was somebody naked, I was a pervert."Template:Sfn Enjoying his newfound freedom in Berlin, Gore found a new girlfriend, a German woman named Christina Friedrich.Template:Sfn Gore, Friedrich, and most of the band took to partying in the city's all-night clubs.Template:Sfn Jones later said that "Everyone got the Berlin vibe and started wearing black leather, me included!"Template:Sfn

Album cover, title and socialist themes

The album cover was designed by Martin Atkyns and photographed by Brian Griffin, both of whom had worked with Depeche Mode on the earlier album and single covers.Template:Sfn The cover, with its "worker-with-sledgehammer design", was a continuation of the concept started by their earlier single, "Get the Balance Right!".Template:Sfn Atkins would explain the cover as influenced by socialist realism: "that kind of political look at things was more fashion than specific statement. It was exciting-looking stuff and I think that nobody had really exploited it, had never marketed it in an everyday product like a record."Template:Sfn Griffin took the cover image in Zermatt, Switzerland to shoot the model, who was his assistant's brother and a Royal ex-Marine,<ref name="ytdm83" /> with the Matterhorn in the background.Template:Sfn Griffin said later that he's occasionally asked if the cover is Photoshopped due to its composition.<ref name="ytdm83" />

The album got its name from album track "Pipeline", which contained the lyric "construction time again", which tied into the cover's "work" concept.Template:Sfn The titles of A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again were, according to Wilder a few years later, likely a reflection of what was going on within the group at the time, saying that the former was "some kind of comment on Vince leaving" and that the latter reflected how the band was putting itself back together.<ref name="ytdm83" />

Wilder said of the cover and title "the album leans toward socialist ideas, and the Worker [on the cover] illustrates that — he's an obvious, universally understandable symbol of socialism. Looking at this man breaking the mountain, you immediately realize he's not destroying it. Because he's a worker, he's going to rebuild it — his action is constructive. That was the intended message of the album — positive, which is why we called it Construction Time Again, not Destruction Time."<ref name="mmcta">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Gahan elaborated, saying "Martin [Gore], Andy [Fletcher], and I come from working-class backgrounds, and our lyrics are starting to reflect that."<ref name="mmcta" />

Release and promotion

File:Construction Time Again Tour poster.jpg

Promotional poster for the Construction Time Again Tour

"Everything Counts" was released as the lead single from the album in July 1983,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and a month later, Construction Time Again was released on 22 August 1983 by Mute Records in the UK with catalogue number STUMM13.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="allmusic"/>Template:Sfn In Germany, Intercord Records released the album (catalogue number INT 146.807) as well as a 'special edition' that came packaged with a poster and the 12" single for "Get the Balance Right!".Template:Sfn

The band worked to evolve their look over the course of the album's release, moving away from "respectable pull-overs and checked shirts" and towards wearing black; Gore started wearing fetish leather harnesses in photoshoots, which became part of the band's image over the next few years.Template:Sfn

Upon release, Construction Time Again faired well in the UK, reaching number 6 on the album charts, and in Germany where it reached number 7.Template:Sfn Although the German press had been good to the band, they were confused about their relative success in Germany, where the album sold twice as many copies as in the UK.Template:Sfn Said Andy Fletcher, "We never saw ourselves as having vaguely Germanic overtones to the music. If you've ever heard German pop music ... I can't see the connection."Template:Sfn By contrast, reception in the US was lackluster, resulting in the planned US leg of their upcoming tour being cancelled.Template:Sfn

At the end of 1983, RCA Records released the album track "Told You So" as a promo single on 7" vinyl under catalogue number ESP-611, and in early 1984, Warner Records in the US released a rare promotional cassette sealed inside a soft drink can that contained the 12" remix of "Everything Counts" as well as select tracks by other contemporary artists such as The Smiths and The Cure (catalogue number SR-1A).Template:Sfn

Tour

The Construction Time Again Tour, which took place in Europe, began in September 1983 in Hitchin, England.<ref name="ctat">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> For the first time, the band had a stage concept for the show, which included podiums for the keyboardists and a light show from three lighting towers on stage.Template:Sfn Following an initial leg of dates in the United Kingdom and Ireland, a second leg in December reached Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and West Germany.<ref name="ctat" /> In March 1984, the group performed its first dates in Italy and Spain.<ref name="ctat" /> on 2 June 1984, three months after the previous show of the tour, Depeche Mode played a one-off show supporting Elton John in Ludwigshafen, West Germany.<ref name="ctat" />Template:Sfn The BBC recorded and broadcast the show on 6 October 1983 on BBC Radio 1 and later released a 7-track sampler from that show on promotional vinyl (catalogue number CN 4304/S).Template:Sfn

Critical reception

Template:Music ratings On the album's politically inclined lyrics, Anne Lambert of Number One wrote: "[Martin Gore]'s protest songs are serious and sharply observed, but they retain that distinctive ear for a commercial melody". She concludes: "It's impossible to pick out tracks, as the whole effect is sharp, tight, smooth and absolutely riveting!"<ref name="numberone"/> In Smash Hits, Peter Martin notes that the band's attention is now turned "outwards to the world (and all its problems)", pointing out the Russian, European and Oriental influences apparent in the music.<ref name="smashhits"/> He goes on: "The songs are still electronically based, but the brilliantly melodic and bouncy edge is contrasted by a brooding Template:'Tin DrumTemplate:'-type sparseness."<ref name="smashhits"/> Summing up, Martin calls the album "[a] brave departure"<ref name="smashhits"/> and that the band had "made a bold and lovely pop record. Simple as that."Template:Sfn

NME hailed the album, saying that "Everything Counts" "is Mode's best ever single [...] It sold because it combines edgy and poignant melodies held in thrilling tension; a tough, urgent dancebeat; and a gleamingly modern sound with an element of quirkiness to mark it out in the crowd. And the same goes for every other track on the album." Reviewer Mat Snow qualified Wilder's composition "Two Minute Warning" as "a haunting melody whose transition from verse to chorus explodes in one of those breathtakingly uplifting moments" and concluded that Depeche Mode "have made a bold and lovely pop record. Simple as that."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Commenting on the results of the band's new line-up, AllMusic's Ned Raggett considers Construction Time Again to be "a bit hit and miss... [although] when it does hit, it does so perfectly". Singling out "Love, in Itself", Raggett observes: "Depeche never sounded quite so thick with its sound before, with synths arranged into a mini-orchestra/horn section and real piano and acoustic guitar spliced in at strategic points." Regarding Wilder's songwriting, Raggett states: "Wilder's... songwriting contributions are fine musically, but lyrically, 'preachy' puts it mildly, especially the environment-friendly 'The Landscape Is Changing'."<ref name="allmusic"/>

PopMatters reviewer Michael Keefe claimed it "marked the shift of this movement away from the band's bouncier beginnings. Leaving behind the perky synth pop of 'Just Can't Get Enough' (from Speak & Spell) and 'See You' (of A Broken Frame), 'Love, in Itself' consented to offer a beat you could dance to, but it bore a heart of darkness. Martin Gore expressed his gloomy view on the redemptive potential of love to cure 'All of the absurdities that lay before us / All of the doubts and uncertainties that lay in store for us.' The track 'Pipeline', meanwhile, is unrelentingly depressing. It's also overly lethargic. 'More Than a Party' is up-tempo, but far from upbeat. It's seething, pre-industrial groove prefigured the following album's musically similar, yet vastly superior, 'Master and Servant'."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Live performances

Most of the songs from Construction Time Again were performed extensively during Depeche Mode's 1983–1984 Construction Time Again Tour in support of the album. "More Than a Party" was played live on their 1986 Black Celebration Tour, a performance of which was released as the B-side to their 1986 single "A Question of Time". "Everything Counts" became a staple of their live shows, performed on the 1984 Some Great Reward Tour, the 1987-88 Music for the Masses Tour, the 1993-1994 Devotional Tour/Exotic Tour, and the 2005-2006 Touring the Angel Tour, released on The World We Live In and Live in Hamburg (1985), 101 1989, Devotional (1993) and Touring the Angel: Live in Milan (2006), respectively.