Paper Monsters

DAVE GAHAN - Paper Monsters

Paper Monsters
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CD Details

Artist: DAVE GAHAN
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2011-10-28
Music Label: Reprise Records
Soundtracks:
  1. Dirty Sticky Floors
  2. Hold On
  3. A Little Piece
  4. Bottle Living
  5. Black & Blue Again
  6. Stay
  7. I Need You
  8. Bitter Apple
  9. Hidden Houses
  10. Goodbye

Music reviews of Paper Monsters

Music Review: Did You Really Want Another Depeche Mode Album?
Rating: 5 Stars

The fact that this album was made is awesome. To recall some of the outlandish things that happened to David Gahan during his career as a musican, it is a wonder he is still around. After all, it was only yesterday that he was addicted to drugs and overdosed on a speedball of smack and coke. Does anyone remember that he was legally dead for like three minutes?

Then he arose from the ashes and made three more Depeche Mode albums (to date) Ultra, Exciter and Playing the Angel. In between the latter two, David Gahan recorded his first solo album, Paper Monsters.

It appears that the Paper Monster album has been twenty plus years in the making. As the front man of the alternative electronic-rock band Depeche Mode, David Gahan has paid his dues. However the one endeavor that he had never done was pen any of the songs that he sung. It seemed strange that the (main) voice of the Depeche Mode, didn't write any of the words he sang. The job of song writing belongs to Martin L. Gore, or at least it did. This solo effort is what proved David Gahan could write and allowed him to compose three songs for the next Depeche Mode album, Playing the Angel.

As for Paper Monsters itself, it is a bit of a departure from the idealism that is Depeche Mode. Which is good, why not a toss it up a bit. The content isn't quite as enigmatically as Depeche Mode, but does offer some dark and moody elements, as in Black and Blue Again. Yet there are other songs that are paradox. For instance, Dirty Stick Floors is about David Gahan being an addict and the cause and effect it had on his life. Now with that type of foundation, it would seem that this song would be malicious and/or sullen. In fact, Dirty Stick Floors is a satire and is poppy and jovial in nature. Many of the other songs appear to have a blues, jazz, and rock `n' roll feel to them. The only song that really seems like it could be a Depeche Mode song is I Need You. So yes one could say that this album sounds like Depeche Mode, but perhaps David Gahan has been "typed-cast". After all, Depeche Mode is all he had done until the recording of Paper Monsters.

As for the debate: David Gahan isn't a better writer than Martin L. Gore. Well David Gahan is no Martin L. Gore and vice versa. Martin L. Gore is an amazing songwriter and has been writing songs for like twenty-five years. However, there were many people quizzical of Martin L. Gore writing songs for Depeche Mode after Vince Clark left the group in 1982. For those of you that aren't aware, Vince Clark did all the writing for Depeche Mode's first album Speak and Spell. He then quit the band to form Easure. As for David Gahan's writing, it isn't Martin L. Gore style, it is different. But it should be noted that different doesn't equal bad.

I found Paper Monsters to be a very enjoyable album and I am pleased to see David Gahan writing songs. I believe that this album, if nothing else, is a great foundation for future songs, regardless if it is with Depeche Mode or solo. Two of my favorite songs on Playing the Angel are Suffer Well and I Want it All. Both tracks written by Gahan, with Depeche Mode, after Paper Monsters was recorded.

Overall, I think David Gahan is super cool and I have always liked his voice. Which brings a powerful, soulful, robust and mystical quality that many contemporary male vocalists do not possess.
More Paper Monsters free music reviews:
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Description of Paper Monsters

Paper Monsters by GAHAN, DAVE

This product is manufactured on demand using CD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.


The solo debut of Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan has been a long time coming, so you'd expect the album to be brimming with messy ideas formulated while Gahan was forced to sing Vince Clarke and Martin Gore songs while his own were filed away. Yet Paper Monsters is not the wild work of someone newly liberated. These songs feel as if they were written over a short period, rather than plucked from 20-year-worth of unrecorded tunes. There are basically three types of track here: powerful Depeche-style glam ("Dirty Sticky Floors," "Bottle Living"); quiet, urban mood music ("A Little Piece," "Bitter Apple," "Stay"); and rumbling industrial tracks ("Black and Blue Again," "Hidden Houses," "Goodbye"). Lyrically autobiographical, songs deal with Gahan's trouble with relationships and intoxicants and, though they lack Gore's sense of drama and perversity, they do have a maudlin charm. --Dominic Wills

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