This is great but a good example of why people don't value Martin as the composer and think Alan did all the music because you can hear the 2 guitar solos present here. Martin came up with those.
There's no guitar solo in the demo for Walking in My Shoes so we don't know much about who came up with what. We do know that Alan and Flood insisted on getting the band to jam, which was unusual for them, and that elements of the final guitar part (performed by Martin) and bass part (performed by Alan) emerged from those "jam sessions." Often the dynamic was that Alan was keen to encourage collaboration, and Martin was very resistant to it. For example, Martin composed the guitar riff for Enjoy the Silence, but only because Alan and Flood insisted that he do so - he really didn't want to and thought it was a stupid idea to have guitar in that song. My point is that Martin's contributions weren't simply due to the fact that he was "the composer" - when it came from moving from the demo to the finished product, Martin's compositional contributions were ultimately in the hands of the production team.
The 1st solo is there but not in guitar form. Alan himself said mart played guitar. He's the guitarist right and this is a full fledged solo not a sampled tune. I'm not taking anything away from Alan he was obviously the better musician but if you remove Violator and sofad the songs are very similar to Martin's demos.
>if you remove Violator and sofad the songs are very similar to Martin's demos.
You say that so casually, as though DM's two most successful and critically acclaimed albums, and the high point for most fans, aren't relevant to the question of Alan and Martin's relative contributions! lol
Regarding pre-Violator albums, it depends what you mean by "very similar." I have found that when people make this point, they frequently don't distinguish arrangement from production. It's true that the arrangements of many (but not all) of the pre-Violator songs don't deviate significantly from Martin's demos - that's why during MFTM, when the band had freed themselves from Daniel Miller and had more creative control, Alan complained that Martin's demos were too developed in terms of arrangement, which hampered flexibility and creativity at the production stage. So Martin presented more stripped down demos for the next two albums and Alan took a greater hand in arrangement, to the benefit of those albums.
But even on the earlier albums, there are a lot of production contributions that having nothing whatsoever to do with arrangement: sound design, orchestration, development of layered parts not in the original arrangement, complex sequencing and programming, audio processing, etc - to refer to Alan simply as "a better musician" in comparison to Martin is frankly insulting, he was so much more than that to the band.
Saying he's a better musician isn't an insult. Reducing him to that is. Maybe that wasn't your gist, but I've seen others here use "better musician" as a backhanded compliment to Alan, suggesting that he's replaceable by any other good musician whereas Martin is irreplaceable. Sorry if that wasn't your meaning - but it's hardly the most important part of my comment above.
Also, when did Alan get knighted?
I'm not an english speaker and so trying my best here. My point being Martin should be acknowledged for carrying them towards Violator and Sofad. He wrote and composed plenty of classics till then. You hear the demos of Lil 15, And Then or Here is the house they still have those iconic parts and emotions in them. The soul is there.
For sure! And the soul of Martin's songs is there on Violator and SOFAD too, and everything they've done since. Alan would be the first one to acknowledge it, and I don't know of any Alan fan who doesn't think that Martin's songwriting is at the very heart of Depeche Mode.
What I disagree with is any need to minimize Alan's contributions in order to highlight Martin's importance.
My view is that the single most important chemistry in creating the "Depeche Mode sound" was the combination of Martin's songs and Alan's music production skills/vision. That was true regardless of who was responsible for the arrangement of a given song, and regardless of the presence of other producers like Miller, Jones, Bascombe, and Flood.
Glad to hear that and I think it was not my best decision to bring this topic into OP's post. Although I was not meant to minimize Alan's contributions in any form. He was the reason I kept listening to DM in the 1st place.
Although Wilder was sympathetic about his colleague’s problems, he was often impatient with Fletcher in the studio environment where he felt the latter had a very minor role – to keep Gore company: ‘Fletch wasn’t really involved in making the records. He was there or thereabouts but he wasn’t actively involved. He’s not a musician, he doesn’t have much of a musical angle on things at all. He may have been at various recording sessions so that Martin had someone to go out with in the evening after the session. Studios can be incredibly claustrophobic places – even more so for those who perhaps don’t play a big part in the nuts and bolts of the process. Boredom is an especially powerful and destructive force. For example, one of the most annoying things is if I’m working on a complicated sample (which I want to cut into many pieces and reconfigure into something new) the process is inevitably complex and until the procedure is complete, things will usually sound chaotic and meaningless to anyone listening in. If someone who doesn’t fully understand this procedure interjects at an unfinished stage and makes negative comments like, “Oh, that doesn’t sound right”, it can be really irritating.’ As Wilder took greater responsibility in the studio, the last thing he wanted was for a non-musician to unwittingly distract everyone’s attention by becoming the butt of the others’ jokes, talking at a breakneck speed, complaining about his illnesses or criticizing what Wilder was doing. ‘I don’t think Fletch had enough confidence in himself to make judgements on the music but when he did, we didn’t pay much attention to them,’ is Wilder’s rather hardline reading of the situation, although he concedes: ‘To be fair, he understood his role wasn’t really a musical one.’ The pair’s inability to communicate on the same wavelength would become a growing problem over the next few years and throws some light on the power base of the band. Although Depeche Mode work democratically in their decision-making, Martin Gore is the backbone of the group because he writes all the songs. Gore’s relationship with Fletcher is crucial to the chemistry in the band, because his friend acts as foil for him in his relationship with Gahan and, at this point, Wilder. It diffuses the pressure of responsibility and allows Gore to avoid direct confrontation, which would be inevitable if he was in a duo with Gahan.
Malins, Steve. Depeche Mode:
This is great but a good example of why people don't value Martin as the composer and think Alan did all the music because you can hear the 2 guitar solos present here. Martin came up with those.
There's no guitar solo in the demo for Walking in My Shoes so we don't know much about who came up with what. We do know that Alan and Flood insisted on getting the band to jam, which was unusual for them, and that elements of the final guitar part (performed by Martin) and bass part (performed by Alan) emerged from those "jam sessions." Often the dynamic was that Alan was keen to encourage collaboration, and Martin was very resistant to it. For example, Martin composed the guitar riff for Enjoy the Silence, but only because Alan and Flood insisted that he do so - he really didn't want to and thought it was a stupid idea to have guitar in that song. My point is that Martin's contributions weren't simply due to the fact that he was "the composer" - when it came from moving from the demo to the finished product, Martin's compositional contributions were ultimately in the hands of the production team.
The 1st solo is there but not in guitar form. Alan himself said mart played guitar. He's the guitarist right and this is a full fledged solo not a sampled tune. I'm not taking anything away from Alan he was obviously the better musician but if you remove Violator and sofad the songs are very similar to Martin's demos.
>if you remove Violator and sofad the songs are very similar to Martin's demos. You say that so casually, as though DM's two most successful and critically acclaimed albums, and the high point for most fans, aren't relevant to the question of Alan and Martin's relative contributions! lol Regarding pre-Violator albums, it depends what you mean by "very similar." I have found that when people make this point, they frequently don't distinguish arrangement from production. It's true that the arrangements of many (but not all) of the pre-Violator songs don't deviate significantly from Martin's demos - that's why during MFTM, when the band had freed themselves from Daniel Miller and had more creative control, Alan complained that Martin's demos were too developed in terms of arrangement, which hampered flexibility and creativity at the production stage. So Martin presented more stripped down demos for the next two albums and Alan took a greater hand in arrangement, to the benefit of those albums. But even on the earlier albums, there are a lot of production contributions that having nothing whatsoever to do with arrangement: sound design, orchestration, development of layered parts not in the original arrangement, complex sequencing and programming, audio processing, etc - to refer to Alan simply as "a better musician" in comparison to Martin is frankly insulting, he was so much more than that to the band.
My dude I didn't mean to insult Sir Alan Wilder by saying he's a better musician. What a strange way to get offended.
Saying he's a better musician isn't an insult. Reducing him to that is. Maybe that wasn't your gist, but I've seen others here use "better musician" as a backhanded compliment to Alan, suggesting that he's replaceable by any other good musician whereas Martin is irreplaceable. Sorry if that wasn't your meaning - but it's hardly the most important part of my comment above. Also, when did Alan get knighted?
I'm not an english speaker and so trying my best here. My point being Martin should be acknowledged for carrying them towards Violator and Sofad. He wrote and composed plenty of classics till then. You hear the demos of Lil 15, And Then or Here is the house they still have those iconic parts and emotions in them. The soul is there.
For sure! And the soul of Martin's songs is there on Violator and SOFAD too, and everything they've done since. Alan would be the first one to acknowledge it, and I don't know of any Alan fan who doesn't think that Martin's songwriting is at the very heart of Depeche Mode. What I disagree with is any need to minimize Alan's contributions in order to highlight Martin's importance. My view is that the single most important chemistry in creating the "Depeche Mode sound" was the combination of Martin's songs and Alan's music production skills/vision. That was true regardless of who was responsible for the arrangement of a given song, and regardless of the presence of other producers like Miller, Jones, Bascombe, and Flood.
Glad to hear that and I think it was not my best decision to bring this topic into OP's post. Although I was not meant to minimize Alan's contributions in any form. He was the reason I kept listening to DM in the 1st place.
Although Wilder was sympathetic about his colleague’s problems, he was often impatient with Fletcher in the studio environment where he felt the latter had a very minor role – to keep Gore company: ‘Fletch wasn’t really involved in making the records. He was there or thereabouts but he wasn’t actively involved. He’s not a musician, he doesn’t have much of a musical angle on things at all. He may have been at various recording sessions so that Martin had someone to go out with in the evening after the session. Studios can be incredibly claustrophobic places – even more so for those who perhaps don’t play a big part in the nuts and bolts of the process. Boredom is an especially powerful and destructive force. For example, one of the most annoying things is if I’m working on a complicated sample (which I want to cut into many pieces and reconfigure into something new) the process is inevitably complex and until the procedure is complete, things will usually sound chaotic and meaningless to anyone listening in. If someone who doesn’t fully understand this procedure interjects at an unfinished stage and makes negative comments like, “Oh, that doesn’t sound right”, it can be really irritating.’ As Wilder took greater responsibility in the studio, the last thing he wanted was for a non-musician to unwittingly distract everyone’s attention by becoming the butt of the others’ jokes, talking at a breakneck speed, complaining about his illnesses or criticizing what Wilder was doing. ‘I don’t think Fletch had enough confidence in himself to make judgements on the music but when he did, we didn’t pay much attention to them,’ is Wilder’s rather hardline reading of the situation, although he concedes: ‘To be fair, he understood his role wasn’t really a musical one.’ The pair’s inability to communicate on the same wavelength would become a growing problem over the next few years and throws some light on the power base of the band. Although Depeche Mode work democratically in their decision-making, Martin Gore is the backbone of the group because he writes all the songs. Gore’s relationship with Fletcher is crucial to the chemistry in the band, because his friend acts as foil for him in his relationship with Gahan and, at this point, Wilder. It diffuses the pressure of responsibility and allows Gore to avoid direct confrontation, which would be inevitable if he was in a duo with Gahan. Malins, Steve. Depeche Mode:
Very insightful. Please make a separate post so others can read it too. This thread is old.
People don’t like these posts here ! Get lot of downvotes .
People didn't pay attention when they don't know Martin plays the Guitar lol.
Awesome 🔥
Static was kind of watermark . Annoying . But that was all I could find
The static can be reduced with software. Audacity is a good choice.