Depeche Mode - 101

My latest surround sound music acquisition is 101, the live album by Depeche Mode. The 101 project was primarily a documentary of the band's For The Masses tour in 1988 and called 101 because the tour ended with their 101st gig of the run at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in front of 75,000 fans.

The film was recently re-released on 2 disc DVD with the film on one disc and concert footage and interviews on disc 2. The soundtrack album, also called 101, was originally released in 1989 and was a top 10 hit. This has been a fans favourite for many years.

In 2004, Mute decided to release a multi channel version on SACD. This included a remastered PCM stereo mix, a remastered SACD stereo mix and a 5.1 remastered SACD mix. Sadly, after a few weeks it became apparent that Disc 1 had authoring faults that made the multi channel layer unplayable. Mute responded by replacing all faulty discs at their own cost.

Trying to find a new copy of this album is quite hard. I decided to go straight to the source and bought my copy from Mutebank, the Mute Records online store, but even they were out of stock. I eventually tracked one down via an Amazon 3rd party seller and it arrived today. The first thing I checked was for the fault that appears at about 1:21 on track 4 and makes the rest of the disc unplayable. Thankfully, mine was ok :o)

Due to kids and stuff, I haven't had time to listen fully, but I know the original album well, and this should be nothing short of awesome in 5.1 :o)

I also managed to track down the 2 disc DVD release in HMV this week for £7 !! (albeit the plastic cased version, not the "luxury" card sleeve). Bargain !