Depeche Mode “Shake the Disease” 1985, Mute Records. 12″ single, special edition, UK import. This past weekend the subject of Depeche Mode came up with an old friend who shares a mutual enthusiasm for the band and who is currently re-collecting the band’s catalog on vinyl. I commented how grateful I was that I’ve pretty much hung onto all of my records since I started buying them in the 80′s. This 12″ extended version of “Shake the Disease (Edit the Shake)” is one i’m still very fond of: I purchased this soon after its release in 1985 while on a visit to Los Angeles. While there I heard “Shake the Disease” on KROQ and was thrilled to be hearing the new Depeche Mode single before my friends back in the Midwest – radio stations in small-market Wisconsin cities did not play such dark gothy synthpop in the 80′s.

“Shake the Disease” was Depeche Mode’s 13th single, a stand-alone that DM would include on their 1985 comp album The Singles 81-85 (UK) and Catching Up with Depeche Mode (US). It went to #18 in the UK and into the Hot Dance Club chart top 40 in the US. It’s super-dark, melodically minor: a great bridge from the moving-darker synthpop of Some Great Reward (1984) to the industrial goth Black Celebration (1986). “Alan Wilder felt this song captured the essence of the band, saying that ‘there’s a certain edge to what we do that can make people think twice about things. If we’ve got a choice between calling a song ‘Understand Me’ or ‘Shake the Disease’, we’ll call it ‘Shake the Disease’. There’s a lot of perversity and innuendo in our lyrics, but nothing direct.’” (DM website/Wiki)

Also on the 12″ is a live version of “Master and Servant” (originally on Some Great Reward), recorded at their performance in Switzerland in November 1984, as well as upbeat synthpoppy “Flexible (Pre-deportation Mix)” and “Something to Do (Metalmix)” (Some Great Reward).