What is the best Depeche Mode album of all-time? [UPDATE 2023]

Too often we indulge ourselves in nos­tal­gic­ally trans­figured memor­ies. Our brains tend to for­get bad memor­ies rather than good ones. That's why many people believe that everything was bet­ter in the past? Was that really it? I do not think so and all the stat­ist­ics speak against it.

In order to stay as object­ive as pos­sible with reviews, I decided to use our estab­lished Track by Track review sys­tem. This is fair and optim­ally suited to com­par­is­ons. Otherwise, as a big Depeche Mode fan, I would give each album a full 5‑star rat­ing. However, that is a purely sub­ject­ive opin­ion, because I think not every track on the albums is equally good.

A kind of discography review

So to find out which is the best Depeche Mode album, I did the work and rated every single album track by track. I sum­mar­ized the res­ult in a rank­ing and would like to present this to you here. At the end of the art­icle, the val­ues are again clearly arranged, shown chro­no­lo­gic­ally in a curve graph.

The best Depeche Mode album charts

15. Speak & Spell

Release: 1981
Overall Rating: 3.41 ★★★☆☆
Great tracks: New Life, Puppets, Dreaming Of Me, Photographic, Tora! Tora! Tora!
Weak tracks: Big Muff

For a debut album a great found­a­tion for a build­ing. Nevertheless, the major­ity sounds very naive and mediocre.

14. A Broken Frame

Release: 1982
Overall Rating: 3.7 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Leave In Silence, The Sun & The Rainfall, My Secret Garden, See You
Weak tracks: Nothing To Fear

The second album is more ser­i­ous and gloomy. But it also comes with more extreme in the indi­vidu­al track rat­ings. Here, the rat­ing of each song is either very high or very low.

13. Exciter

Release: 2001
Overall Rating: 3.73 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: The Dead Of Night, Dream On, Shine, The Sweetest Condition, When The Body Speaks, Freelove, I Feel Loved, I Am You
Weak tracks: Lovetheme, Easy Tiger

I am totally sur­prised by the res­ult. I love this album, but the two instru­ment­als and some mediocre tracks are pulling down the over­all rating.

12. Construction Time Again

Release: 1983
Overall Rating: 3.78 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Love In Itself, Everything Counts, Two Minute Warning, Shame, And Then …
Weak tracks: (None)

'Construction Time Again' is the first album in the list with no real weak tracks. All in all, Depeche Mode presents 10 songs that were far ahead of their time and still sound also mod­ern today.

11. Music For The Masses

Release: 1987
Overall Rating: 3.85 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Never Let Me Down Again, The Things You Said, Strange Love, Behind The Wheel, Nothing
Weak tracks: Pimpf

The album 'Music For The Masses' lives up to its name. Because for me it is indeed the most radio-friendly Depeche Mode album of all time. All tracks except the Instrumental 'Pimpf' get 4 stars from me.

10. Black Celebration

Release: 1986
Overall Rating: 3.86 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Fly On The Windscreen, New Dress, Black Celebration, A Question Of Lust, A Question Of Time, Stripped, But Not Tonight
Weak tracks: (None)

I know that many die-hard Depeche Mode fans will hate me for this unpop­u­lar decision/rating. But apart from the nos­tal­gic trans­fig­ur­a­tion, the album is not free from blem­ish. There are extremely great songs on this work, but also a lot of mediocrity. Sorry!

9. Delta Machine

Release: 2013
Overall Rating: 3.94 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Angel, Heaven, Soft Touch/Raw Nerve, Should Be Higher, Soothe My Soul, Alone, Secret To The End, Broken, Welcome To My World
Weak tracks: (None)

'Delta Machine' is a fant­ast­ic album. The amount of songs on the album is respons­ible for a rat­ing below 4 stars. Five songs on the album got the highest rat­ing from me. I love this album! Read the full review of the album now.

8. Sounds Of The Universe

Release: 2009
Overall Rating: 4 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: In Chains, Wrong, Hole To Feed, Fragile Tension, Peace, Perfect, Ghost, Come Back
Weak tracks: Spacewalker, Esque

A phe­nom­en­al and extremely cre­at­ive album. Depeche Mode finally dare some­thing and walk on new paths, but stay true to their own style. Namely, to cre­ate a dis­tinct­ive, dark Synthpop. We have rewar­ded 'Sounds Of The Universe' in one of our first reviews with an over­all score of fab­ulous 4 stars. Read the full review of the album now.

7. Some Great Reward

Release: 1984
Overall Rating: 4.05 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: People Are People, Blasphemous Rumors, Something To Do, Lie To Me, Somebody
Weak tracks: (None)

The album 'Some Great Reward' con­tains only 9 songs, but they are all almost flaw­less. With 'People Are People' Depeche Mode made their inter­na­tion­al break­through, the mel­an­choly at the peak with 'Blasphemous Rumors' and 'Master And Servant' was pro­vok­ing in that time and for a long time shaped a sin­ful image for the band.

6. Playing The Angel

Release: 2005
Overall Rating: 4.08 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: A Pain That I Used To, John The Revelator, Suffer Well, The Sinner In Me, Precious, Lilian
Weak tracks: Introspectre

With 6 times a full 5‑star song rat­ing, 'Playing The Angel' is one of my favour­ite Depeche Mode albums. It is one of the most fast-paced and melod­ic albums of their career. Already at first listen­ing, I came dir­ectly into the groove and every Depeche Mode fan knows that this is not always easy.

5. Songs Of Faith And Devotion

Release: 1993
Overall Rating: 4.1 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Walking In My Shoes, In Your Room, Rush, I Feel You, Mercy In You, Higher Love
Weak tracks: (None)

Every Depeche Mode fan knows the story behind the pro­duc­tion of this album. It's one of the most dif­fi­cult and sad­dest record­ings in the band's his­tory leav­ing a lot of scorched earth behind. Then the revolt in the fan com­munity, why Dave Gahan now has long hair. For many fans, the band has died and made the hair­style respons­ible for the sup­posedly poor qual­ity of the songs. Something I nev­er understood.

And at the end of the long SOFAD tour, a shock­ing mes­sage that some fans still have to deal with and left no heal­ing scars. Alan Wilder leaves the band. Personally, I thank the band for this won­der­ful album, which still brings tears to my eyes but is so beau­ti­ful in itself.

4. Memento Mori

Release: 2023
Overall Rating: 4.13 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: My Cosmos Is Mine, Wagging Tongue, Ghosts Again, My Favourite Stranger, Before We Drown, People Are Good, Always You, Never Let Me Go
Weak tracks: (None)

'Memento Mori' is the first album as a duo after the sud­den death in 2022 from 'Andrew Fletcher' (RIP). The album itself is about our own mor­tal­ity and that everything is finite. A taboo sub­ject for many, but an import­ant album them­at­ic­ally, for the band itself and also for the fans (who have also grown older).

I am grate­ful that the 15th stu­dio album comes without an instru­ment­al inter­lude, which always func­tioned as a skip track for me any­way. Sonically, the album is a con­sist­ent fur­ther devel­op­ment of the pre­de­cessors 'Delta Machine' and 'Spirit' and is one of the best, but also darkest albums in the band's his­tory. Read the full track by track album review of 'Memento Mori' now.

3. Ultra

Release: 1997
Overall Rating: 4.18 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Barrel Of A Gun, Home, It's No Good, Useless, Sister Of Night, Insight
Weak tracks: Uselink, Jazz Thieves

'Ultra' is uncom­prom­ising, brute in sound and the darkest Depeche Mode album of all time. For me until today my per­son­al favour­ite album of the band. But also the story behind the album is rather tra­gic. After Dave Gahan had had a near-death exper­i­ence a year earli­er due to a heroin/cocaine over­dose, the future around Depeche Mode was uncer­tain. Everything seemed to break apart.

In a later inter­view with The Guardian, Dave Gahan says, "When I died, there was only dark­ness. In the two minutes my heart stopped, this humung­ous voice inside of me went: 'This is wrong.' Like I don't get to choose when this is over. It scared the shit out of me.". The album 'Ultra' is also part of the art­icle '20 Synth Pop mile­stones and col­lec­tion must-haves'.

2. Spirit

Release: 2017
Overall Rating: 4.33 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Going Backwards, Where's The Revolution, Scum, Poison Heart, So Much Love
Weak tracks: (None)

With the four­teenth album, 'Spirit' Depeche Mode present them­selves after a long time polit­ic­ally. And there is not only lyr­ic­al to hear out. Also ton­ally col­ours the uncom­fort­able polit­ic­al mood on the sound of the band. Dark and unpleas­ant, 'Spirit' by Depeche Mode does not deliv­er an easy listen­ing pop album.

I cel­eb­rate this album every time I hear it. That's exactly what I love the band for. To put your­self in danger again and again in which you try some­thing new and renounced learned habits. After more than 35 years of suc­cess, the guys from England are still close to the times. Read the full review of the album now.

1. Violator

Release: 1990
Overall Rating: 4.5 ★★★★★
Great tracks: World In My Eyes, Halo, Clean, Sweetest Perfection, Personal Jesus, Enjoy The Silence, Policy Of Truth
Weak tracks: (None)

The second res­ult which sur­prised me very much. From the feel­ing, I would nev­er have rated the album as high in the rat­ing. On the album is also in prin­ciple a hit after anoth­er. And with a num­ber of only 9 songs, the chance of a high rat­ing is of course obvi­ous. Even though the album 'Violator' is not one of my per­son­al favour­ites, the indi­vidu­al songs are all very good.

All Depeche Mode albums in a chart overview

What's your opinion?

• Which Depeche Mode album do you like at most?
• Share your albums rank­ing with our visitors.
• Write us your per­son­al story about your favour­ite album by Depeche Mode?

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Bonus – Electrozombies Depeche Mode tribute compilations

To hon­our the band, we have released two trib­ute com­pil­a­tion in 2017. If you might have missed them, go and check them out now: