Memento Mori (Depeche Mode album)
Memento Mori (stylised on cover as Memento|Mori) is the fifteenth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 24 March 2023[2] through Columbia.Gore said the songs were too good to be a side project, and so Depeche Mode put them on the album although Butler was never going to join the band.Gore said that the loss of their bandmate had brought them closer together, saying, "I think that the one thing that's come out of Andy's dying that's possibly, you know, positive....On Volt Magazin's website, it was confirmed that "Dave Gahan and Martin Gore said there were five finished tracks that didn't make it onto the long player."[20][21] On 24 May 2023, the official music video was released for "Wagging Tongue" directed by the Sacred Egg, with Anton Corbijn acting as the creative director.[22] On 25 May 2023, during the SmartLess Apple Podcast, Gore stated that an unreleased song from the Memento Mori sessions titled "Life 2.0" will be released later in the year.[24] On 7 July 2023, remixes of "Wagging Tongue" were released on streaming platforms, the song featuring as the third single from the album.[29] On 29 January 2024, an official music video was released for "Before We Drown",[30] in which Corbijn "directs a moody seafront visual for the Memento Mori track".[35] On 23 March 2023, the eve of the album's release, "My Cosmos Is Mine", "Speak to Me" and "Soul with Me" were performed live for the first time at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California.14, selling 32,000 equivalent album units in its opening week, marking the first time since 1987's Music for the Masses that the band failed to break into the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart.[42] The Guardian gave it four out of five stars, writing "Gore's say-what-you-see lyrics are always best on the essentials of life—sex and death—and 'Ghosts Again' is the pair's best single in aeons, a singalong meditation on mortality that's concise and powerful.Gore's choirboy trills have never been richer than on 'Soul with Me', while Gahan ranges ever-restlessly from operatic to reptilian, the electro-pop Freddie Mercury.There's warmth in the album's fusion of industrial grind with delicate melody, and producer James Ford sparks a revivifying weirdness in songs such as 'My Cosmos Is Mine'."[53] Kory Grow of Rolling Stone praised the message of the album, stating "Acknowledging mortality defines much of Memento Mori, but it never feels heavy handed or even all that sullen.For the most part, this is classic band territory—moody goth draped in familiar lyrical subjects, now also informed by a world-stopping pandemic", but was critical on some tracks saying "'Don't Say You Love Me' comes off like the result of a ChatGPT quest to write a Depeche Mode song, and 'Caroline's Monkey' unsuccessfully juggles too many sounds and metaphors during its four-plus minutes."[56] Roisin O'Connor of The Independent observed, "They can't unlearn their decades of experience, so instead they adopt a kind of back-to-basics approach.Still, 'Soul with Me' is the only true miss, less mid-album fermata than full-on slog: a slow dance of shuffling drums, tremolo guitars, and elementary end-rhyme.Its maudlin sense of self-pity runs counter to the unlikely endurance tale that is Memento Mori, an album that almost died with Fletcher in London.
Studio albumDepeche ModeShangri-LaSynth-popelectronic rockdark waveColumbiaProducerJames FordSpiritSinglesGhosts AgainMy Cosmos Is MineWagging TongueSpeak to MeMy Favourite StrangerBefore We DrownPeople Are Goodelectronic musicAndy FletcherMemento Mori World Touraortic dissectionDave GahanMartin GoreRichard ButlerLive Nation EntertainmentCOVID-19 pandemicRussia invaded UkraineSuicideAlan VegaNew York70s punk vibeMarta SalogniEMS Synthi ABerlinparanoiacatharsisSanremo Music FestivalLa Plaine-Saint-DenisMunichGolden 1 CenterSacramento, Californiathe O2 ArenaMusic for the MassesGold certificationMetacriticAllMusicThe Arts DeskThe GuardianThe IndependentThe Line of Best FitPitchforkRecord CollectorRolling Stonereptilianelectro-popFreddie MercuryindustrialABC NewsgrungeUltimate Classic RockpoliticalChatGPTMartin L. GorePeter Gordenoprogrammingpedal steel guitarDavide RossiproductionmixingengineeringMatt ColtonmasteringAnton CorbijnÖ3 AustriaUltratopCanadian AlbumsBillboardČNS IFPIHitlistenAlbum Top 100Suomen virallinen listaOffizielle Top 100MAHASZOriconBillboard JapanVG-listaScottish AlbumsPROMUSICAESverigetopplistanSchweizer HitparadeUK AlbumsBillboard 200Top Alternative AlbumsTop Rock AlbumsCertified unitsVarietyFar OutLos Angeles TimesTwitterMusiikkituottajat – IFPI FinlandGfK Entertainment ChartsOfficial Charts CompanyFederazione Industria Musicale ItalianaRecorded Music NZPolish Society of the Phonographic IndustryInternational Federation of the Phonographic IndustryÖ3 Austria Top 40Syndicat National de l'Édition PhonographiqueBundesverband MusikindustrieDiscogsVince ClarkeAlan WilderSpeak & SpellA Broken FrameConstruction Time AgainSome Great RewardBlack CelebrationViolatorSongs of Faith and DevotionExciterPlaying the AngelSounds of the UniverseDelta MachineSongs of Faith and Devotion LiveRecording the Angel