Violator

Miller suggested Flood in early 1989. Flood had remixed the B-side of Shake the Disease and had produced two Erasure albums. After three weeks of pre-production in London, the band flew to Logic Studios in Milan for seven weeks. Gore had been asked to bring simpler, less finished demos so the band could work more in the studio. Flood and Wilder formed a working pair, with Flood supplying technical know-how and Wilder arrangements and textures. Fletcher said Flood told them their preconceived ideas were nonsense and that a guitar could be used if a song wanted one.

Personal Jesus came out of the Milan sessions and was released as a single before the album. The band moved to Puk Recording Studios in Denmark in the middle of 1989 and had recorded most of the remaining tracks there by the end of August. In September they went to The Church Studios in London, owned at the time by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, with eight of the nine tracks already recorded. François Kevorkian mixed the album, although Miller did the final mix of Enjoy the Silence. Most of the percussion was sampled and looped from live playing to avoid a machine feel.

Songs

World in My Eyes was the first track worked on at Puk. It was started over when Flood and Wilder spent half a day jamming out its bass line and melody, and Gore called it a positive song about love, sex and pleasure. Waiting for the Night has both Gore and Gahan singing, and Wilder said he and Flood had been listening to Tangerine Dream when they built its sequence on an ARP 2600. Clean was inspired by Pink Floyd's One of These Days. Between Enjoy the Silence and Policy of Truth sits a hidden segue, Interlude #2 (Crucified), with guitar by Gahan, a first for him on a Depeche Mode album. Wilder named Halo his favorite, citing its string arrangement and drum loops.

Title, release and reception

Gore said the title was a joke, the most extreme heavy metal title they could think of. Anton Corbijn designed the sleeve, a red rose on black. On 18 March 1990, the day before release, a record signing at a store in downtown Los Angeles drew more than 15,000 people, and riot police were called. The album reached number 2 in the UK, Germany and Switzerland, number 1 in France and Spain, and number 7 on the Billboard 200, where it stayed 74 weeks. It was their first album to sell a million copies in the United States.

Contemporary reactions varied. Melody Maker's Paul Lester called it their most arresting work to date, while NME's Helen Mead found it cleaner, sparser and more clinical than Music for the Masses. Later, Blender's Dennis Lim called it their career peak, and Q's John Aizlewood credited Flood's production with letting the album age gracefully. Pitchfork's review of the reissue said the record "needs no particular context to appreciate". Rolling Stone placed it at number 167 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums. Fletcher recalled that with Violator they inexplicably went huge. The World Violation Tour followed from May to November 1990.