Some Great Reward is the fourth studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 24 September 1984 by Mute Records. The album peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 51 in the United States, and was supported by the Some Great Reward Tour. Singles "Master and Servant" and "Blasphemous Rumours", which was released as a double A-side with "Somebody", both also charted in Europe. Depeche Mode followed Some Great Reward with the compilation album The Singles 81→85 in October 1985. A companion compilation home video, Some Great Videos, was named after Some Great Reward.
Background and recording
The band had released their previous album, Construction Time Again, in August 1983, and followed up with a supporting tour that lasted through early 1984. The band went into the studio around Christmas 1983 to begin recording tracks for Some Great Reward while still on tour. Mixing of Construction Time Again had taken the band to Hansa Studios in West Berlin, where the band had embraced the city's all-night partying atmosphere. Songwriter Martin Gore, who had recently left his long-term girlfriend in London and started a new relationship with West German Christina Friedrich, found himself taking advantage of Berlin's S&M clubs and nightlife, and started cross-dressing. In a 1984 interview, Gore claimed that "sexual barriers are silly. My girlfriend and I swap clothes, make-up, anything – so what?" Singer Dave Gahan explained to a journalist that "Martin's [Gore] just being the way he always wanted to be. He missed out on his teens, missed out on just going out, seeing different girls every night and getting drunk all the time. He's living that now. It's not a bad thing – everybody should go through that phase!" Overall, Gahan remembered that the band had a great vibe during this time, saying "We really had like a gang mentality then as well. It was us against the world." Like Gore, Gareth Jones, who was now one of the album's producers after being the sound engineer on their previous album, had relocated to Berlin and was living with his new German girlfriend. During their time in Berlin, the band befriended West German artist Annette Humpe, formerly of the band Ideal, and Gore would later play keyboards on two songs from her 1985 album Humpe.
The band's recent album and single reviews had been positive, and they were upbeat on the new material they were recording, with Gore saying "We just want to produce a really fine album which will hopefully establish us as a major act." Jones said that the band wanted to "evolve", shed their "wimpy" sound, and "make powerful, strong records with a lot of atmosphere." The band also liked Hansa, knowing that David Bowie and Iggy Pop had recorded some of their albums there,