But as far as the music, the 1995 departure of Alan Wilder had a much more significant impact. Gahan’s 1997 recovery is critical to that year’s Ultra because, without the recovery, the album would not exist. The travails of the 1993-94 Songs of Faith and Devotion tour, and of singer Dave Gahan’s subsequent heroin addiction, have been well-documented. The course of events simply dictated they do so. But in many ways, Depeche Mode in 1997 had no choice but to put the success of Violator and the excess of Songs of Faith and Devotion into perspective.

True, maybe perspective comes easy when you’re a multi-millionaire with a sizable worldwide fan base. In the late ’90s, you could hear Depeche Mode comfortably talking about their “peak” in past tense, with more a sense of relief than frustration. Thus, they were able to re-adjust successfully and avoid some of the internal and external difficulties that slowly kill many bands. The uniqueness of Depeche Mode’s situation is they were able to pinpoint and accept their popular pinnacle within just a couple years of its occurrence. For example, at the time, did Smashing Pumpkins know that Machina would come to be viewed as a desperate grab at the alchemical combination of rock energy and eccentric whimsy they had concocted on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness? Usually this trajectory can be seen clearly only in hindsight. Then the rest of their careers are spent in denouement, either re-adjusting to a less massive but more manageable popularity, or fruitlessly and embarrassingly chasing the past. Over the course of a few years, one or two albums place them at the pinnacle of public, and often critical, acceptance. Most bands that reach worldwide superstardom follow a fairly predictable trajectory. And if you’re successful on a massive, world-beating scale, you’re going to have the potential for massive fallout.

If you’re going to achieve it, you have to deal with it. In popular media especially, success brings with it one big caveat.

Depeche mode album