Depeche Mode
World in My Eyes (Sire/Reprise 217352)

If you piled up all of the CD singles/EPs that Depeche Mode has released since the inception of the technology, you'd probably end up with a reasonable facsimile of Mt. McKinley. Seemingly every single of every album has spawned a CD single or five, frequently with several different variations for each single.

I was at one time a semi-fanatical DM fan, but I never got too deeply into the process of visiting "alternative" record stores just to find that rare CD single of "Behind The Wheel" from Sri Lanka or a bootleg of their concert in Budapest. Impatient as I am, I went for immediate gratification, and picked up official U.S. releases when they were easily had.

The album Violator represented the peak of my DM fandom, and the artistic peak of DM's CD-singles, which even now hold up as some of the most intelligently-programmed, thoughtfully-presented, and simply best executed CD-singles ever.

"World In My Eyes" single was the last single to be released off Violator, following "Personal Jesus," "Enjoy The Silence," and "Policy Of Truth." Each single offered several remixes of the title song, and a couple b- sides that were often instrumentals. "World In My Eyes" mostly followed that pattern, with the LP version of the single along with two remixes of it, and a couple b sides, each remixed twice.

Both remixes of "World In My Eyes" (Oil Tank Mix, Mode To Joy Remix) are very good, each keeping the basic soul of the song, but toying with it enough such that they seem individual songs. I prefer the Oil Tank version slightly, but both are excellent.

"Happiest Girl" is also remixed twice (Pulsating Orbital Mix and Jack Mix), and The Pulsating Orbital Mix is better here (it samples Madonna's "Vogue" to a slightly spooky effect), but the Jack Mix is perfectly enjoyable as well.

Then there's two remixes of the delicious "Sea Of Sin," both very good. It's all right in all the places where "Master and Servent" was all wrong. The Sensoria Mix is an instrumental; the Tonal Mix is fantastic, probably the best track on the CD.

Violator was pretty much DM's commercial zenith, as the singles got generous airplay from MTV, and "alternative" music was really just beginning to break out. It was a fertile period for the band creatively, as their b-sides were about as good as their album tracks. "Sea of Sin" and "Happiest Girl" help to make "World In My Eyes" one of the most solid maxi-singles that any band has ever released.

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Mario Speedwagon