Construction Time Again is the third studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 22 August 1983 by Mute Records.[2] This was the first Depeche Mode album with Alan Wilder as a full band member, who wrote the songs "Two Minute Warning" and "The Landscape Is Changing", as well as the B-side "Fools". The title comes from the second line of the first verse of the track "Pipeline". It was supported by the Construction Time Again Tour.
The album was recorded at John Foxx's Garden Studios in London, engineered by Gareth Jones (who had also engineered Foxx's 1980 album Metamatic) and mixed at the Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin.
A 30-second sample of "Pipeline" demonstrating the use of sampled sounds to construct a melody as well as a demonstration of the more socially conscious lyrics the group sang on this album.
This album introduced a transition in lyrical content for the group. Construction Time Again would include a bevy of political themes, sparked by the poverty Gore had seen on a then-recent trip he had taken to Thailand.[3]
NME hailed the album, saying that "Everything Counts" "is Mode's best ever single, and undeniably one of their biggest hits. [...] It sold because it combines edgy and poignant melodies held in thrilling tension; a tough, urgent dancebeat; and a gleamingly modern sound with an element of quirkiness to mark it out in the crowd. And the same goes for every other track on the album." Reviewer Mat Snow qualified Alan Wilder's composition "Two Minute Warning" as "a haunting melody whose transition from verse to chorus explodes in one of those breathtakingly uplifting moments" and concluded that Depeche Mode "have made a bold and lovely pop record. Simple as that."[13]
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Martin Gore, except where noted.
"Depeche Mode: 1983 (Teenagers Growing Up, Bad Government, and All That Stuff)" (written and produced by Roland Brown; directed by Ross Hallard and Phil Michael Lane)
38:56
Construction Time Again (DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo)