it's a lot (it's a lot)

Depeche Mode, Some Great Reward (1984, Rhapsody)

Some Great Reward was my first tape, I think. I bought the Tears for Fears tape right around the same time, but tired of it quickly. I'm surprised it has the legs it still does with a lot of people. Blue Oyster Cult's Extraterrestrial Live was my first album; Purple Rain, the first bought with my own money, but tapes went with you like a comet trail. The Army shirt I wore all the time could fit one cassette in its breast pocket and a lot of the time this was it with Bauhaus 1979-1983 in my little red Walkman until I traded off. Those were the two I never left in anyone's car.

But yeah, SGR. That's the one I should've pitched to 33 1/3 even though I gather the general consensus is that Violator is their finest hour. I say no way; "Personal Jesus" is still weak with Johnny cash's gravitas thrown atop it. The should've let the old bastard do "Blashphemous Rumors" with a guitar and a string section in the other room bleeding through the walls. Get a rusty windmill for the rattle; maybe push a coffin down a flight of stairs for the opening racket sequence. Imaging his old nose doing the sniffling at the end and then stopping. That would be a cover version.

♫ Depeche Mode, "Blasphemous Rumors" (Rhapsody)

I have no way of connecting the half-jalapeño, sausage, and cheese biscuit/half-kolache business from Ambrosia this weekend to all this, except maybe there is also a lot of sniffling at the end of eating that many peppers that early in the morning.

♫ Depeche Mode, "Master and Servant" (Rhapsody)

And aww, "Somebody" is still a lovely, rambling thing of devotion after all these years. I'd do this one at open piano night if there was such a thing and I could play piano, which makes it good that there isn't and I don't.

♫ Depeche Mode, "Somebody (Live in Basel and Liverpool)" (Rhapsody)