Greatest Hits (Depeche Mode album)

Greatest Hits
Greatest hits album by Depeche Mode
Released	1987
Recorded	April 1983 – January 1986
Length	49:17
Label	Amiga
Producer	Depeche Mode Daniel Miller Gareth Jones
Depeche Mode chronology
Black Celebration (1986) Greatest Hits (1987) Music for the Masses (1987)

Greatest Hits is a greatest hits album by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released in 1987 by Amiga. It was released exclusively in East Germany on LP and cassette.

Background and release

Depeche Mode had acquired a fanbase in East Germany from illegal recordings and their performances behind the Iron Curtain starting in 1985, ^[1] and Greatest Hits was their first legally available release in the GDR. ^[2] Their UK label, Mute Records, worked with Intercord and Amiga Records in West and East Germany to produce an official release for East Germany. ^[3] There was only an agreement for a single release, and limited funds available, so they jointly decided to release a twelve-track greatest hits LP. ^[4] Only 15,000 copies were pressed, and the cover was a slightly altered version of the cover used for The Singles 81→85 (1985) / Catching Up with Depeche Mode (1985). ^[4]

Amiga released the album on LP (cataluge number 8 56 260) and cassette (0 56 260). ^[5] Specially-printed copies, for exclusive use of VEB Deutsche Schallplatte were also printed. ^[4] The master plates, used to create the initial pressings, were found in a scrapyard in 2006. ^[4]

Track listing

Source for this section: ^[4]

Side 1

1. "Shake the Disease" – 4:45
2. "A Question of Lust" – 4:24
3. "It's Called a Heart" – 3:45
4. "Blasphemous Rumours" – 5:06
5. "Everything Counts" – 3:57
6. "People Are People" – 3:43

Side 2

1. "Master and Servant" – 3:50
2. "Something to Do" – 3:44
3. "Stripped" – 4:13
4. "Here Is the House" – 4:16
5. "It Doesn't Matter" – 4:45
6. "It Doesn't Matter Two" – 2:49

References

1. Deboick, Sophia (16 March 2014). "Western Pop In The Eastern Bloc: Depeche Mode – Monument". The Quietus . Retrieved 3 May 2024.
2. Spice, Anton (21 July 2017). "The making of Marcel Dettmann: 10 records that shaped the techno producer's East German childhood". thevinylfactory.com. The Vinyl Factory . Retrieved 3 May 2024.
3. Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 379.
4. Burmeister & Lange 2017, p. 380.
5. Burmeister & Lange 2017, pp. 380–381.

• Burmeister, Dennis; Lange, Sascha (2017). Depeche Mode: Monument. New York: Akashic Books. ISBN   978-1-61775-593-4.