Speak & Spell is the debut studio album by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released on 29 October 1981 by Mute Records in the UK, and Sire Records in the US. It was the band's only album to feature founding member Vince Clarke.
The album peaked at number 10 on the UK Albums Chart, and was ranked number 991 in the 2000 book All Time Top 1000 Albums.
Band formation and first singles Vince Clarke and Andrew Fletcher had joined to form a band called "Composition of Sound" and saw Martin Gore play his Moog Prodigy synthesizer at a show at a local pub, after which the three joined up and turned Composition of Sound into an all-synth band, switching partly due to the cheap cost and convenience of the devices. Said Clarke, "Here was an instrument that didn't need its own amp – you could just plug it into the PA", and for local shows, the band would often carry their keyboards, the only equipment required, under their arms to the venue.
Together they played their first live show on 30 May 1980 in Basildon, UK. At their first show, Clarke was the singer for the band, but he felt that the band needed a front man to make their show more interesting, as Clarke was always standing behind his keyboard. The band auditioned several people to be their singer and selected Dave Gahan, and the band's next show on 14 June 1980 was the first with all four members performing. Said Gore of hiring Gahan, "It wasn't as if he was a total stranger. In fact, we've all known each other since schooldays. It’s much better that way. You can't possibly get on as well with newcomers who've been fixed up from adverts in the music press." By August they had a regular gig booked at a club named Croc's in Rayleigh, Essex, which they played at, amidst other live shows in the UK, for the rest of the year until a New Year's show on 3 January 1981. They officially changed the name of their band to "Depeche Mode" at Gahan's behest, who saw a French fashion magazine of that name; their first show under the new name was played on 29 October 1980 at a show at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London's Soho neighborhood. Gahan claimed that they were the first band to play at Croc's, saying "The resident DJ, Rusty Egan, liked us and so we then got a spot on one of the Thursday nights he was running at the venue." Due to Gore's and Fletcher's work and Gahan's university commitments, the band occasionally had to turn down live show opportunities when their daily schedules interfered. Early live performances by the band included a mix of original songs, such as "Photographic" and "Ice Machine", as well as cover songs by the Beach Boys, Lieutenant Pigeon, the Everly Brothers and Gerry and the Pacemakers.
An offer to appear on an upcoming synthpop sampler album called Some Bizzare Album led the band to record a demo tape with three of their songs, "Ice Machine", "Photographic" and "Radio News". "Photographic", which has the distinction of being the first Depeche Mode song ever recorded in the studio, was included on Some Bizarre Album (1981).
Depeche Mode's first official single, "Dreaming of Me", was released on 20 February 1981. The band took a few months to tour before returning to the studio in May 1981 to record their second single, "New Life", and its B-side, "Shout!", which was released on 13 June.
On 11 June, just two days before the release of "New Life", the band performed "Boys Say Go!", "Photographic", "Big Muff" and "Tora! Tora! Tora!" on Richard Skinner's BBC One evening radio show, a performance which was broadcast on BBC Radio 1. The band in later years deemed their performance underwhelming and have denied the BBC's repeated requests to release the material from that session.
The band was invited to perform "New Life" on BBC's Top of the Pops (TOTP) after the song climbed to number 11 on the UK charts, which they did on 16 July 1981. After the TOTP performance, the band started to record the rest of Speak & Spell'''s tracks at Blackwing Studios in London.
Joining Mute Records The band searched for a label, but was turned down repeatedly until they were referred to Daniel Miller, who had started his own label, Mute Records. Miller said of the first time he heard Depeche Mode play live, "Fad Gadget had just finished a sound check and normally I would have gone off with them, but for some reason I stayed behind and watched this group who looked like a dodgy New Romantic band. I hated the New Romantics but what came out of the speakers was incredible. I thought, 'Well, everybody plays a good song first' – but it just got better and better." Gahan later said that the band joined the Mute record label after being offered a "50/50 split, which meant we would have to pay half of all our bills, but we'd get half the profits", although Gore clarified in 1989 that the band actually got 75% of the profits in Europe, due to licensing deals. The band had entertained offers from other labels such as CBS Records, Island Records and Phonogram, but dismissed them when they realized, according to Gahan, that the labels "didn't seem bothered about records or anything, they just wanted to add our name to their roster." In 1987, the band reflected on their choice to choose to go with Mute instead of joining a major label; said Gore, "It was quite tempting [to join one of the major labels]. Looking back, I can't imagine why we didn't go with them, it was just a stroke of luck we didn't. I mean, can you imagine four 18 year old boys with no cash being offered sums of money like £200,000? But it was the best decision we ever made. ... We've been given the freedom to do what we want by being on Mute. We're not pushed in any particular direction, and Daniel [Miller] isn't like a record company boss, he comes down to the studio and helps us out. He's more like a friend." Gahan also said the band avoided the offers from labels with advances, because they'd have to pay that money back. Fletcher clarified that "We went for points, percentage of the profits, there's no way a major [label] would have given us the points deal we've got with Mute. We had to go for the first two years without much money, because we didn't get a huge advance."
Recording
According to Daniel Miller, who co-produced Speak & Spell with the band, it was a collection of songs the band had been playing live over the past year, plus a few new songs, although some songs from their live act did not make it on the record. One song that the band performed live, "Television Set", was co-written by Gore and a friend of the band, and the band likely did not record the song for inclusion on the album to avoid having to pay royalties to the co-writer. Of the songs that were recorded for the album, Clarke wrote most, with Gore contributing two tracks. Gahan recalled that, despite being all-synth, they used them traditionally in their songs, with a lead line, a bass line and a rhythm line. Clarke was the only member of the band without a job during this time, so he and Miller would work on the album during the day, and the others would show up later after they were done with work. Miller brought an analog ARP 2600 synthesizer and sequencer into the studio to record. The studio only had an 8-track system, so the album was essentially recorded live, with little overdubs. Said Miller, "I would capture, as best I could, the atmosphere and the vibes of the songs the way I'd seen them live. Just to have a good electronic pop sound that wasn't a copy of something else." Clarke was the only member of the band interested in the production side of recording. Miller remembered that Gore and Fletcher were far more likely to goof around in the studio while Clarke and Miller worked on putting the songs together, which suited Clarke, who "was not without Control freak tendencies." Fletcher said "[Clarke] always wanted to do a lot in the studio, and the rest of us would feel restricted," noting that it was often uncomfortable for them to challenge Clarke in the studio. Miller and the band tested the final mix of the album by putting the album on cassette tape, getting in sound engineer Eric Radcliffe's car and listening to the album there, figuring that if it sounded good in the car it would sound good on any quality hi-fi system.
Lyrically, Clarke was not concerned about the meanings of his songs, saying "There were no messages in the songs at all – nothing!" He elaborated, saying "I like the sound of words, and the way words fit together and rhyme – things like that. Or the way they sound coming from my mouth. The sound of words rather than the meaning of words. For instance, when I write a phrase or something, I think about how easy it is to sing, to fit in with the melody. ... I can't write like Simon & Garfunkel. I wish I could in some ways, but I can't, so when I write lyrics I just use words as words. I don't really write about anything." Gore said in an interview, that the lyrics are odd because "they don't mean anything. He [Clarke] looks for a melody, then finds words that rhyme."
Title Miller suggested the name for the band after the Speak & Spell toy, which had recently become available in the UK. The name was meant to indicate "a band taking its first steps", a nod to the toy's target audience of children.
Album cover The album's cover, a "puzzling" picture of a swan wrapped in plastic, was designed by Brian Griffin and earned him a "brazingly inflated" £1000 fee (about £ today). The band had agreed to not show their faces on their album cover, wanting the quality of the artwork to reflect their seriousness as musicians. Griffin would go on to shoot the cover artwork for the rest of Depeche Mode's early- to mid-1980's albums, including A Broken Frame (1982), Construction Time Again (1983), People Are People (1984), and Some Great Reward (1984).
Release and promotion In May 1981, the band's relationship with Stevo Pearce of the Some Bizarre project soured. They were advertised, but not invited, to play at a live Some Bizarre concert. Said Gahan, "We didn't play the Bizarre evening here at the Lyceum. We were never even approached to play it. It was only when we were advertised that we knew anything about it. We had no intention of doing it at all." Clarke suggested that part of the reason was the name, saying "we're not bizarre. It's the whole sort of thing about being a futurist band and all that crap. There isn't a futurist scene really is there? It's only a name."
On 21 June 1981, the band had their first photoshoot as a group, done by an acquaintance who was an early fan of the band, and shot in Basildon.
In July 1981, the band appeared on a segment on the UK TV show "Twentieth Century Box" on London Weekend Television, and on 25 July, the band performed their first-ever show outside of England at the Parkpop Festival in The Hague, Netherlands.
In late August/early September 1981, the band performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts's "Rock Week" alongside The Chefs and Tarzan 5, earning praise in a NME magazine review that said "Depeche [Mode] are danceable, electric, earnest and endearing, young, glowing and sweet, they’ve got more poise than pose, and they’re proud to appeal to all." Accompanying the NME story was a photograph of the band by Anton Corbijn, who went on to help define the band's look in the late 1980's and after, although the picture he took of the band that day bothered Gahan, who was shot out-of-focus from the rest of the band. The second single from the album, and the band's third overall, "Just Can't Get Enough", was released in September 1981 and earned the band another invitation to perform on TOTP after that single went to number 8 in the UK.