Electronic Music NewsCatching up with Depeche Mode’s man behind the scenes Andrew Fletcher
The News Review:
- Catching up with Depeche Mode’s man behind the scenes Andrew Fletcher
- Mobo stars enjoy massive year
- Managing the management
Catching up with Depeche Mode’s man behind the scenes Andrew Fletcher
Creative Loafing Atlanta
The press was very much fixated on rock. These days the writers tend to be nice to us but back in those days they had a lot of fun putting us down didn’t they! They didn?t even think of us as a proper band really. We didn?t use a drummer and we used tape machines but we knew that electronic music was way forward for the time. In some ways it was good and in some ways it was bad but almost all pop music these days is electronic. I?m sure that writers were mean to Kraftwerk before you. No I don?t think they were quite as mean to Kraftwek as they were to us. But indeed Kraftwerk really are our heroes.
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Mobo stars enjoy massive year
BBC News
" In the past big British winners like Amy Winehouse and Corinne Bailey Rae have been rewarded for individual achievements but were far from ushering in exciting new sounds or scenes. In the last 12 months though a movement has centred around acts that rub shoulders and collaborate and it seems Dizzee and Tinchy have cracked the formula of how to take urban music to the masses. They have softened the edges of grime a British genre that emerged from garage drum ‘n’ bass and hip-hop fused it with dance music that appealed to white club crowds and harnessed the power of big pop choruses. The result is a fusion of electronic pop and hip-hop that has broken out of the capital’s insular clubs and has been influenced by the US but does not blindly follow.
Managing the management
Ha'aretz
They sang about being aliens who landed on earth. I was blown away by how well-constructed their pop was. At the time popular electronic music had a tendency to sound cold. Some bands like Radiohead solved that problem by making their songs complex or epic in scale while electro-clash groups were emphasizing their robotic sound. MGMT grounded their electronic music in melodic rock songwriting. They brought it to a human level without being wanky. I remember hearing one song called “Money to Burn” and thinking it must be a cover because it was too sophisticated to be theirs! But it was original.