Black Celebration
| Depeche Mode
Black Celebration
Black Celebration is the fifth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released on 17 March 1986 by Mute Records. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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The Quietus
Black Celebration is a fine and kinky record that signaled a transition in Depeche Mode's career; they became darker, sonically more adventurous and sweetly subversive.
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Rolling Stone
Black Celebration is certainly this British quartet’s most melodic effort to date: the clanging disco-concrete fusion of early LPs like Construction Time Again has mellowed into a brand of brooding, romantic music only hinted at on last year’s Some Great Reward.
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AllMusic
Whether the band felt it was simply the time to move on from its most explicit industrial-pop fusion days, or whether increased success and concurrently larger venues pushed the music into different avenues, Depeche Mode's fifth studio album, Black Celebration, saw the group embarking on a path that in many ways defined their sound to the present: emotionally extreme lyrics matched with amped-up tunes, as much anthemic rock as they are compelling dance, along with stark, low-key ballads.
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Sputnikmusic
Black Celebration is not a perfect album - far too much reverb, overused sampling, some pithy lyrics - "Death Is Everywhere/There Are Flies On The Windscreen/For A Start" - but overall the album epitomises what Depeche are all about.
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Albumism
Black Celebration transformed me into a lifelong fan, and it’s one of those cherished few LPs in my collection that I know I simply can’t live without.
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Pop Matters
Fanatics will need to own them all, although the greatness of Black Celebration exceeds mere nostalgia and, along with Music for the Masses and Violator, should be on any music lover's CD shelves.
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Rate Your Music
Although I truly like the albums before Black Celebration for me this is where it turned to love. They have such an essence of darkness, sorrow, drama, and yet it's one of the most beautiful albums in existence.
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Bone Rolling Reviews
Black Celebration could possibly have gone down in pop music history as the best synth-rock album ever made if Depeche Mode weren’t fated to consistently out-do themselves with the next two volumes of their unofficial trilogy, the aforementioned Music For The Masses and Violator.
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Fourculture Magazine
After the shitty week at work you’ve had, you deserve better than just a pint or several. Let this be your soundtrack.
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Treble Zine
On Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration, the band covers two of the three things in life outlined above, though it tends more toward the shadowy aspects of said topics. For all the love and sex out there, there’s that desperation for connection; and for all those reminders of how alive you feel, there’s that cold reminder that nothing’s going to last and that death is everywhere. With all its questions of lust and time, the dozen songs on Black Celebration are the dark clouds that overtake the silver lining.
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Doug's Reviews
Black Celebration plays out like the soundtrack to an imminent nuclear war, where all hope is lost and the only minor comfort you can take is in the one you love. It’s definitely a dark and bleak album, but that’s what Depeche Mode does best.
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Post-Punk.com
Indeed, this album started to establish the band’s reputation as one of the best and most successful musical acts ever with the release of Black Celebration, and they were only just getting started…
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