Depeche Mode "Music For The Masses" Mute STUMM 47 A1/B1 DAMONT + inner 1987

	£		15
	$		20

Depeche Mode ?"Music For The Masses" Mute ?STUMM 47 UK Reissue Vinyl, LP, (DAMONT  press) released in 1987, with a printed inner sleeve and embossed cover. 
The vinyl appears to have been lightly played and is in great condition. It played through beautifully on my elderly stereo - no hop, stick or jump. It is housed in its original printed inner sleeve, which has some slight damage to the top edge (see photo), but which is otherwise in good order, with o rips or writing. The sleeve, shows some signs of use, but, again, is intact with no rips or writing. The spine is intact and legible. Matrix / Runout  Side 1 : ? Stumm-47 - A-1 ? z MT.1 The Exchange L 19137 ? Matrix / Runout  Side 2 : ? Stumm-47 - B-1 ? MT.1 o L Jonz L.19138 ?
"Music for the Masses" is Depeche Mode's sixth studio album released on 28 September 1987 by Mute Records. The album was supported by the Music for the Masses Tour.
Daniel Miller, who had produced Depeche Mode's previous album, voluntarily stepped away from production duties for this album, citing the growing tension in the studio that they had experienced during the recording of "Black Celebration". With Miller's approval, the band co-produced the album with David Bascombe, who had previously worked as a recording engineer with Tears for Fears and Peter Gabriel.
Band members Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore both explained the album's title was conceived as a joke. Fletcher said, "The title's ... a bit tongue-in-cheek, really. Everyone is telling us we should make more commercial music, so that's the reason we chose that title." According to Gore, the title "was a joke on the uncommerciality of [the album]. It was anything but music for the masses!"
The megaphone (or its iconic representation) on the album's cover was used during the breadth of the album's release: at press events, on the covers of the album's singles, and during the tour. Alan Wilder gave credit to Martyn Atkins, who had been a longtime Depeche Mode collaborator, for the use of the megaphone. "[Martyn came] up with this idea of a speaker, but, to give the kind of ironic element which the title has, to put this speaker in a setting which wasn't really to do with the masses at all. It was, in fact, the opposite. So you end up with this kind of eerie thing where you get these speakers or megaphones in the middle of a setting that doesn't suit it at all, like a desert or whatever." The deserted natural setting in question was Peak District.
The album mostly received favourable reviews upon release. Robert Christgau complimented the abnormal road symbolism of the lyrics, particularly on "Little 15", and believed that apart from the sadomasochistic metaphors, Depeche Mode succeeded in turning "adolescent Weltschmerz into something catchy, sexy and seemingly significant". NME's Jane Solanas felt Gore was "at his obsessive best" on "Music for the Masses", particularly on "Never Let Me Down Again", which she called "an intriguing masterpiece, combining homo-eroticism with drug euphoria."
In a retrospective review, Q magazine found the narratives on "Music for the Masses" to be among Depeche Mode's most uncertain and contemplative, and that most of its songs were "real diamonds in the darkness ... this was the point at which Depeche Mode were first taken seriously." Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani said that "Music for the Masses" showed the gloomier side of the "post-punk synthpop" scene during the 1980s and was a success with both critics and consumers. Alternative Press called the record "articulate, intricate electronic music that lacked the tinny feel of DM's early synth pop". "Music for the Masses" was listed by Slant Magazine at number 75 on their list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".