They were, in many respects, still seen as an underground band in the eyes of those in the mainstream music industry when it came to an album launch, relying on radio play from local or university radio stations. Until Violator, much of Depeche's exposure to US audiences had come from its commitment to playing shows across the country and plugging those appearances close to the date of each performance.
In 1990 however, the American marketplace for promoting and selling records was one where it was generally still extremely difficult to do so efficiently and effectively. And then they would move on to the next city and the process would start again.
#FLOOD HALO TV#
Dave Gahan and Alan Wilder or Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher, for example, would do the rounds of the radio and TV stations, magazines and newspapers to espouse the virtues of their latest public output. The band would rarely conduct interviews as a four-piece, primarily to save time rather than (at this stage) because they'd fallen out with one another.
#FLOOD HALO PLUS#
Innumerable features would appear in the niche music newspapers (such as the NME in the UK), plus many of the mainstream music and entertainment magazines were on-board by then, such as Rolling Stone and Q.ĭespite their general apathy towards parts of the media, especially in the UK where the music press had often been far from kind in its coverage of the band, Depeche had a system that was exhausting, yet successful. The merry-go-round of PAs (personal appearances) and interviews ensured the band were front and centre in as many markets and channels as possible during the critical single-buying period. Still, such appearances would be planned weeks in advance and would often mean the band and their entourage would head off to a European city somewhere to perform the song and cram in countless numbers of interviews with local media. Interestingly, despite their respective high chart positions (13 and 6), neither the release of ‘Personal Jesus’ or ‘Enjoy The Silence’ led to an appearance by the band on their home turf's high-profile weekly music TV show, Top Of The Pops. Each single would have its associated radio and TV play, with the latter more often than not featuring an accompanying lip-synced performance to a backing track. A single or two, as was the case with Violator, would have preceded the launch of the album, often with the first song hitting the airwaves as far as six to eight months before the album was released. In almost every country where Depeche had a significant fan base, and by 1990 this figure would easily have been pushing into the dozens, preparing for the release of a new album would follow a familiar pattern for the band.
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