Depeche Mode sang about ghosts, Linkin Park returned with the sound of the past

The most notable releases of this week could cause a wave of nostalgic feelings. Depeche Mode remembered their classic sound, Linkin Park released a song from the times when their music thundered all over the planet, and Limp Bizkit freshened up nu-metal with political satire.

Before the March release of the Memento Mori album and the start of the world tour, the members of Depeche Mode unveiled the single Ghosts Again and probably left fans with mixed emotions. It seems that this song, after a series of very sluggish albums, seemed to return to the fans a group capable of composing choruses. But the surroundings of the track turned out to be creepy. In the video for this song, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore are wrapped in all black and roam the streets like two ghosts. And right now it is very clearly felt that exactly half of the group remained.

The self-elimination of Alan Wilder in the early nineties was perceived as something more or less predictable. After a dramatic tour in support of the Songs of Faith and Devotion album, the quartet fled to psychotherapists and rehabilitators, the future of the group was in big doubt, and the resurrection of the band, at least as a trio, already looked like a happy ending. In addition, Mr. Wilder is still alive and well and sometimes even shows musical activity.

The death of Andy Fletcher gives both the new songs and the upcoming tour a very different flavor. The musician died in May last year from aortic dissection. He took part in the recording of tracks for Memento Mori, but did not have time to listen to any of them in finished form. And it just so happened that the whole album, one way or another, is dedicated to death. It’s too early to say how much this turn of songwriting will permeate the aesthetic of other videos and the live show, but Ghosts Again’s visuals are both chilling and delightful.

Director and photographer Anton Corbijn has been working with the band since the mid-eighties and it was he who created the visual style of Depeche Mode. Black and white picture, gloomy and solemn symbols, musicians with the charisma of celestials. Corbijn hasn’t filmed for the band often lately, and his return is reminiscent of the golden age of music videos. Dave and Martin are playing chess in front of skyscrapers in what looks like an echo of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. The scenes in the cemetery are the best fit for the gloomy song about ghosts, the musicians themselves look appropriate. Corbijn is not at all flattering to Gahan and Gor – the faces of musicians who are in their early sixties are covered with wrinkles, and life itself, both in the video and in the song, is presented as something elusive.

The best videos for Depeche Mode songs rarely reflected the spirit of the time and resembled rather gloomy museum installations. But Ghosts Again is exactly what musicians are going through right now. And as a result, seemingly classic Depeche Mode turned out to be what they have never been seen before.

For the army of Russian fans of the group, the Ghosts Again single, as well as the new album, will become a return to the distant past, when you had to look for records of your favorite team bypassing civilized rules, and only dream of touring. Or, as now, to remember as if about amazing events.

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Linkin Park’s album Meteora turns 20 this year. In the spring, a re-release is planned with all the events accompanying such an event, and the other day the musicians released a track that was not included in the record at one time. The song is called Lost and it perfectly captures the musical mood of the heyday of new guitar music. Linkin Park proudly bore the title of rock reformers for some time and, apparently, to maintain such a reputation for a retro song, they made a very advanced video. Emily Pppllesr Yan and Mitsa Kuchara, who are commonly called NFT artists, worked on the anime created using neural networks.

In general, everything is nowhere more fashionable, but there is, however, one detail that is disappointing for lovers of progress. There are quite a few such anime now, frankly, but there are almost no songs that clearly stand out in the musical stream as if created by some kind of neural networks. Lost is a classic Linkin Park from the time when this band meant a lot to teenagers all over the world. The song might well be considered a hit single today, but back then Meteora had Somewhere I Belong, Breaking the Habit and Numb. Against their background, she really was a passing one and did not get into the album.

The resurrection of a twenty-year-old track can be not only a gift for the band’s fans, but also an occasion to rant about how sincere rock music sounded then. Linkin Park was reputed to be the savior of daring teenage souls and a group whose commercial success made it impossible to admit sympathy for these musicians to older people.

A lot changed when the band’s leader Chester Bennington committed suicide in 2017 after failing to overcome his depression. Chester’s colleagues took a long break (it hasn’t ended yet) and critics got the opportunity to evaluate Linkin Park’s music apart from platinum sales and world tours. And it was in this situation that it became clear how important these songs and albums were for millions of people. Linkin Park hardly occupies a prominent place in the musical hierarchy, but continues to be a group that is remembered for lines, melodies and intonations that remain in hearts, not in encyclopedias.

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Americans Limp Bizkit presented the video for the song Out of Style as a kind of political satire. With the help of deepfake technology, which allows using the faces of any people with quite believable facial expressions, the musicians have turned into the first persons of Russia, the USA, Ukraine, China and North Korea.

LB frontman Fred Durst played the role of President Putin, DJ Leors Dimants was turned into Zelensky, drummer John Otto got the image of Kim Jong-un, guitarists Wes Borland and Sam Rivers “played” Biden and Xi Jinping, respectively. The song itself is about the need to play in one team to make tomorrow better. The picture turned out to be not the most naturalistic by the standards of modern technologies, which probably hints at the modest budget of the undertaking. In general, the very situation in which famous politicians play nu-metal in the garage turns everything into a joke rather than a manifesto.

In general, Limp Bizkit are great masters of various provocations. Established at the turn of the century as a gang of musical outrageous people capable of mixing a variety of styles and playing concerts leading to fainting, Fred Durst and Co decided to tickle the nerves with their statements.

After several tours of Russia, Fred Durst in 2015 said that he was not opposed to obtaining a Russian passport and would even like to live in Crimea for a while, where his wife comes from. This kind of activity predictably led to the inclusion of the musician’s name in the black list of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.

Now passions have calmed down a bit and talk is more about songs. Here, the musicians of the band should be complimented for their skillful attitude to the track, on which there were no special stakes. Out of Style was released on the album Still Sucks (2021). The release received good critical acclaim but was not a chart success. As a single, the composition had not been released before and, in fact, was more like junk. But the clip again drew attention to the group and the album. Not bad at all, given that the band is going to tour extensively this year. The truth is still far from Russia.