In the Studio: Depeche Mode Go "Spiritual"

Before Depeche Mode began recording their new album, the group's guitarist and chief songwriter, Martin Gore, went out and bought a bunch of vintage gear. "It's helped to shape the sound of the album," says Gore. "The sounds we are making are more akin to stuff we did in the late 1980s, around Violator. That was a real creative high for us." The group has been recording off and on for nine months in New York and in a studio near Gore's Santa Barbara, California, home. On its last release, 2005's Playing the Angel, singer Dave Gahan contributed songs for the first time in Depeche Mode's 25-year career. So far, he's given four new songs to this currently untitled set. "I think it's natural," says Gore — who was the group's sole songwriter for most of its career. Gore says it's too early to discuss specific tracks, but he says the album has a strong "spiritual feel."

[From Issue 1066 — November 27, 2008]

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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