Enjoy the Silence

"Enjoy the Silence" is Depeche Mode's twenty-fourth UK single, released on 16 January 1990, and the second single from the then upcoming album Violator.

As it is one of Depeche Mode's most well-known songs to date, it has been recorded as a cover version by many other artists, including Breaking Benjamin, Keane, Tori Amos, Lacuna Coil, Nada Surf, Scala, Entwine, Failure, It Dies Today, Evergreen Terrace, Tanghetto, Anberlin, HIM, Matthew Good, Bell X1, Apoptygma Berzerk, No Use for a Name and Susan Boyle. Today, many people consider this as Depeche Mode's signature song.

"Enjoy the Silence" was re-released as a single in 2004 for the Depeche Mode remix project Remixes 81 - 04, and was titled "Enjoy the Silence (Reinterpreted)" or, more simply, "Enjoy the Silence 04". The "Reinterpreted" version was remixed by Mike Shinoda, the rapper and producer for the American band Linkin Park.

The single is Gold certificated in the US and Germany.^[1]

The song won Best British Single at the 1991 BRIT Awards.^[2]

1 Background
2 Chart success
3 Song versions
4 B-sides
5 Music videos
6 Track listing
7 Charts
8 Covers
- 8.1 Lacuna Coil version
9 External links
10 References

Background

When "Enjoy the Silence" was written by Martin Gore, it was intended to be a slow-paced ballad in C minor; the demo featured a harmonium with Gore singing. Alan Wilder saw hit potential in the track, and composed an upbeat tempo and structure for the song. Despite initial resistance from songwriter Gore, who felt the spirit of the song was not suited to an upbeat track, the rest of the group liked it. After some self-described "sulking", Gore came around and added more to the embryonic fast version together with producer Mark "Flood" Ellis, notably the guitar riff heard throughout. Depeche Mode lead singer David Gahan contributed his distinctive lead vocals to the track and within hours the band was convinced they had a hit single on their hands. At Gore's insistence, the demo would later be remade into the "Harmonium" version (available on the limited edition 12" vinyl and Maxi CD releases), featuring Gore on vocals.

Chart success

"Enjoy the Silence" became one of the band's most successful singles, and its first UK Top 10 hit since 1984. The single rocketed up the UK Singles Chart to #6, remaining there for three weeks. This was the band's highest-charting single since "People Are People" peaked at #4 in 1984. Additionally, other than "People Are People", only two other singles released by the band had reached as high as #6: 1982's "See You" and 1983's "Everything Counts".

The song reached #8 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in July 1990 making it the first and to date the only Depeche Mode single to achieve top 10 status and their second top twenty hit. At the time, the only other Depeche Mode single to hit the US Top 20 was "People Are People", which hit #13. The single also topped the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, another first for the band (as this chart had been created in 1988). The chart measures radio airplay on US modern rock stations.

"Enjoy the Silence 04" was almost equally successful in the UK, peaking at #7 on the UK Singles Chart. In the US, it reached #25 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play. In addition, the limited edition vinyl releases also charted, but due to the fact that their lead track was not "Enjoy the Silence", these releases charted separately. As a result, "Something to Do", the A-side to the L12 release, spent one week at #75 on the UK Singles Chart.

Song versions

The original release of the single included a wide variety of remixes. The standard 12" version of the song is the "Hands and Feet Mix", while the B-side of the 12" version included a dub mix called the "Ecstatic Dub". The limited edition 12" release included three more remixes: the aforementioned "Harmonium" version which follows the structure of the original demo, the "Bass Line" version, and the "Ricki Tik Tik Mix." The latter one is actually an edit omitting a synth part in the middle because Mute had to fit everything on a 3" CD. The boxed rerelease finally had the full version. One of the more unusual mixes is "The Quad: Final Mix" which expands the song to over fifteen minutes in length, making it the longest commercially available Depeche Mode track.

In addition to the "reinterpretation" by Mike Shinoda, there were several more remixes of the song released in 2004. The 12" version of the release included remixes by Timo Maas and Ewan Pearson, while one of the limited edition CDs included a remix from Richard X.

"Enjoy the Silence 04" also included a variety of remixes of other Depeche Mode songs, including a Goldfrapp remix of the Violator track "Halo", a Black Strobe remix of the Some Great Reward track "Something to Do", a Cicada remix of the single "World in My Eyes", and a Rex the Dog remix of the Speak & Spell track "Photographic".

The album version on Violator contains a hidden track called "Crucified", which has Andrew Fletcher on vocals, albeit highly distorted.

B-sides

There are two instrumental B-sides to "Enjoy the Silence". "Sibeling" (the 12" B-side) is a soft piano-tune while "Memphisto" (the 7" B-side) is a darker, eerier track. The title of "Sibeling" refers to Finnish classical composer Jean Sibelius. Regarding "Memphisto", according to Martin Gore, "Memphisto is the name of an imaginary film about Elvis as a Devil, that I created in my mind".^[3] As such, the title is a portmanteau of Memphis and Mephisto. "Sibeling" was produced by the combination of the band and Flood, who produced much of Depeche Mode's work from 1990 to 1993, while "Memphisto" was produced by the band alone.

Music videos

Original version

The Anton Corbijn-directed music video for "Enjoy the Silence" references the themes and storyline of the philosophical children's book The Little Prince. Footage of Gahan dressed as a stereotypical king wandering the hillsides of the Scottish Highlands, the coast of Portugal and finally the Swiss Alps with a deck chair is intercut with black-and-white footage of the band posing. Brief flashes of a single rose (which is also on the album cover of Violator) appear throughout the scenes.

When Corbijn presented the concept of the video to the band, which at the time was simply "Dave dressed up as a king, walking around with a deck chair", they initially rejected it. They changed their minds, when he explained that the idea was that the King (Dave) was represented "a man with everything in the world, just looking for a quiet place to sit"; a king of no kingdom. Andy Fletcher jokes that he favoured the video because "[he] only had to do about an hour's worth of work".

The video uses a slightly different mix of the song (the most notable difference being a new and extended introduction) that has not been released in any audio format. The final long shots of the king walking through the snow are not Gahan but rather the video's producer, Richard Bell. Gahan had left the set, tiring of the cold in Switzerland (recounted by Gahan in the intro to The Videos (86-98)).

World Trade Center Promo Video

In 1990 a promotional video for Enjoy the Silence was shot by French TV featuring Depeche Mode lip-syncing the song while standing atop the World Trade Center at the WTC rooftop World observatory.^[4]

Homages

One of the two videos for Coldplay's 2008 song "Viva La Vida" is a homage/tribute to the "Enjoy the Silence" video (it was also directed by Corbijn and features Coldplay singer Chris Martin walking around dressed as a king).

Mike Shinoda's "Enjoy the Silence 04" was a distortion guitar-driven version of the song, in which he imprinted Linkin Park's distinctive nu metal sound. Uwe Flade directed an animated music video for "Enjoy the Silence 04". Monitors in the animation show performances of "Enjoy the Silence" excerpted from Devotional and One Night in Paris, as well as footage from a concert from The Singles Tour filmed in Cologne in 1998 for MTV.

A version of the song by Anberlin, from the album Punk Goes 90s, was used in the Vampire Diaries episode "Lost Girls" (episode 1.06).

Track listing