Depeche Mode - Speak & Spell

Absolutely essential album of the early synthpop era. Though the release of this LP in 1981 was marked by the success of the more well-known singles (such as "Just Can't Get Enough" and "New Life"), the value of this long play is made by their less known tunes: the sequence of the emotional strings and atmospheres of "Photographic", the unusual synths of the bombastic "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (whose title was a reference to the japanese air attacks during World War II) and the spacey timbres of Big Muff is priceless. There are also some synth patterns that suggest clearly an Electro-Disco influence, like "Nodisco" and "Boys Say Go!", but Depeche Mode really had their way to make music, for the result of their compositions was different than anything else.
At that time, Vince Clarke (which later became the producer of the massive Yazoo and, after that, Erasure) was part of the band with Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Dave Gahan. The pictures in the back side of the cover show how young they were at the period of the creation of these tunes.
About nine years after the release of this album, Dave declared something about Martin Gore's impressions concerning these early tracks. For Gore, they sounded like really strange.

Even these godz of stadium-rock had to start somewhere. In this case, a modest synthpop album. This import version contains a few more tracks than it's domestic counterpart and adds the contents of the group's first single 'Dreaming Of Me' as well. In comparison with other early groups on the Mute label such as Fad Gadget, The Normal, etc., these guys had a bit of a more cheerful and accessible sound ('Just Can't Get Enough', 'What's Your Name', 'New Life'). Some potential for greater things is evident on tracks like 'Nodisco', and 'Puppets'. Either of those wouldn't sound out of place on any recent electro release.

'Speak & Spell' serves as an excellent launch pad for the group and between this release through 1984's 'Some Great Reward', Depeche Mode's music (not to mention popularity) would continue to noticeably evolve with every subsequent release.