Back in the day, it would've been a much bigger deal if a Dischord band covered Depeche Mode. These days, boundaries between musical universes are a whole lot looser, and it feels completely natural — especially given that the Dischord band in question is the art-punk crew Shudder To Think, who were always glammier than their peers.
Last year, the reunited Shudder To Think released a two-song single, their first new songs in 27 years. On Friday, they'll follow that release with Who Sent You?, a three-track EP. We've already posted the title track, and now Shudder To Think have shared an urgently splintered take on "Something To Do," a track from Depeche Mode's 1984 album Some Great Reward. They make it sound a whole lot like a Shudder To Think track. Here's what the band says about it:
For some of us, the album Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode represents the pinnacle of their brilliance and creativity.
Not that they didn’t make insanely wonderful music — singles and albums both — after that, but SGR was the crescendo of their first phase, where indelible pop hooks collided with kid-in-candy-store synth experiments and impossible yearning fumbled with the bra clasps of the blackest bedroom malaise. After that, their albums became more mature and refined, less messy.
There’s a garish audacity to Some Great Reward that perfectly soundtracked a kind of suburban teenager, wild on the inside, about to burst, misunderstoooood, romantic as fuck.
The song “Something To Do” kicks off the album, and it’s a semi-forgotten (relative to other DM singles), under-appreciated banger about being young, angsty, bored, and horny (“put your leather boots on”) in an old, run-down industrial town. It’s about being miserable and making your own fun — dangerous and thrilling, but in that young way where consequences haven’t yet revealed themselves (those would come on later DM records).
When we were making the new Shudder album, “Something To Do” came on the (satellite) radio and jogged Craig’s sense-memory back to 16, on a family trip to Israel, in love and hate with everyone and everything, candy-flipping the cassette in his Walkman from Some Great Reward to XTC’s English Settlement and the great Dukes Of Stratosphear. A girl named Robin and a girl named Julie..
Anyway, we HAD to cover it.
So, minutes after finishing basic tracks for the final song on the album, we quickly learned its structure and let it rip, maybe three takes, no corrections.
Our pal (and Craig’s brother-in-law), the great Thomas Lennon, happened to be visiting and stood in a circle with us while we threw it down. Tom’s a big Depeche Mode fan and a big Shudder To Think fan, so his energy and enthusiasm completed the circuit and gave us just the energy we needed.
Often at the end of a project, there’s magic gunk left at the bottom of the fuel tank, like potent resin at the bottom of the bowl. This was that.
Check out Shudder To Think's "Something To Do" cover and Depeche Mode's original below.
The Who Sent You? EP is out 9/11 on Dischord.
