Everything I wanted to write about the resilient English synth pop quartet I set down in early 2012 when I watched D.A. Pennebaker’s Depeche Mode 101:

It’s obvious now that Depeche Mode are teen pop; was it so in 1988? As a document of a band about to go mega, Depeche Mode 101 is a hoot. From David Gahan’s arena-god boorishness (grabbing the microphone stand for a Jesus pose during “Blasphemous Rumours”) to the closeups of his white-denim-hugged ass to the great dumb hooks and the stupid-dumb lyrics, this is what North American teens with a perv streak wanted and didn’t get a year later: Jordan Knight tying Joey McIntire up while Donnie Wahlberg fucks him with a police baton. “Route 66” even starts with the same percussive loop that graces Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now”! But whatever your pleasures, you little treasures, they aren’t as perverse as Gahan getting the audience to sing “Everything counts in large amounts.”

Beyond ridiculous that they emerge head first on the side of sanity, Depeche Mode have made at least a dozen classics of churn ‘n’ burn. I came up with two dozen.

1. Shake the Disease

2. Never Let Me Down Again (Split Mix)

3. Enjoy the Silence

4. Sacred

5. Walking in My Shoes

6. Personal Jesus

7. Just Can’t Get Enough

8. Flexible

9. Halo

10. But Not Tonight

11. A Question of Lust

12. Dreaming of Me

13. World in My Eyes

14. Death’s Door

15. New Life

16. Blasphemous Rumours

17. The Things You Said

18. Mercy in You

19. Strangelove

20. Stripped

21. Dangerous

22. Precious

23. Two Minute Warning

24. Master and Servant

25. I Feel You

26. The Meaning of Love

27. Somebody

28. I Feel Loved

29. Judas

30. People Are People

31. Sea of Sin