The reason the album "Speak and Spell" had a more technopop sound to it than DM's subsequent material was that Vince Clarke, a founding member of DM, was their main songwriter; he wrote all the tracks on "Speak and Spell", including "New Life". Then he left the band (bummer, IMHO) to work on other musical projects: the duo, Yazoo, with torch jazz singer, Alison Moyet (she went by the handle, Alf, on the 2 albums they did: "Upstairs at Eric's" and "You and Me Both"); then in the mid-'80s, made the bigtime worldwide with the band, Erasure.
That left the major songwriting duties to Martin Gore, who took DM on a more industrial, edgier style that has kept them going strong for over 20 yrs. , playing to a wide-ranged fanbase of gothics and others into metal, industrial, techno, electronica, & alternative rock--whew!
The reason the album "Speak and Spell" had a more technopop sound to it than DM's subsequent material was that Vince Clarke, a founding member of DM, was their main songwriter; he wrote all the tracks on "Speak and Spell", including "New Life". Then he left the band (bummer, IMHO) to work on other musical projects: the duo, Yazoo, with torch jazz singer, Alison Moyet (she went by the handle, Alf, on the 2 albums they did: "Upstairs at Eric's" and "You and Me Both"); then in the mid-'80s, made the bigtime worldwide with the band, Erasure. That left the major songwriting duties to Martin Gore, who took DM on a more industrial, edgier style that has kept them going strong for over 20 yrs. , playing to a wide-ranged fanbase of gothics and others into metal, industrial, techno, electronica, & alternative rock--whew!