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Enjoy the Silence › Released

2006

Enjoy the Silence" is a song by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode. Written by Martin Gore and recorded in 1989, it was released as the second single from their seventh studio album, Violator (1990), on 5 February 1990 by Mute Records. The song topped the charts of Denmark and Spain and is the band's highest-charting single in the United States, peaking at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100. It won an award in the category of Best British Single at the Brit Awards 1991.[10] The music video for the song was directed by Anton Corbijn and references The Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In the video, Dave Gahan appears, dressed as a king, wandering in the hillsides with a deck chair.

"Enjoy the Silence"

Single by Depeche Mode
from the album Violator
B-side
"Memphisto"
"Sibeling"
Released
5 February 1990[1]
Recorded
1989
Studio
Puk (Gjerlev)
Logic (Milan)[2]
Genre
Synth-pop[3][4][5][6]synth-rock[7]alternative rock[8][9]
Length
6:12 (album version)
4:15 (single version)
7:18 (12-inch version)
Label
Mute
Songwriter(s)
Martin Gore
Producer(s)
Depeche ModeFlood
Depeche Mode singles chronology
"Personal Jesus"
(1989) "Enjoy the Silence"
(1990) "Policy of Truth"
(1990)

Music video
"Enjoy the Silence" on YouTube
"Enjoy the Silence" was re-released as a single in 2004 for the Depeche Mode remix project Remixes 81–04, and was titled "Enjoy the Silence (Reinterpreted)" or, more simply, "Enjoy the Silence 04".

Background and recording

Enjoy the Silence" was recorded in 1989, part of the Violator sessions.[11] Typical for a Depeche Mode album, songwriter Martin Gore brought in demos of several songs for the band to hear, and had created a ballad-like demo of "Enjoy the Silence", which, at band member Alan Wilder's insistence, was re-worked into the up-tempo version of the song that was released.[12]

Music videos
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Original versions
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The Anton Corbijn-directed music video for "Enjoy the Silence" references the themes and storyline of the philosophical children's book The Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Footage of Dave Gahan dressed as a stereotypical king wandering the hillsides of the Scottish Highlands, the coast of the Algarve in Portugal and finally the Swiss Alps with a deck chair is intercut with black-and-white footage of the band posing. Brief flashes of a single rose (which is also on the album cover of Violator) appear throughout the scenes.

When Corbijn presented the concept of the video to the band, which at the time was simply "Dave dressed up as a king, walking around with a deck chair", they initially rejected it. They changed their minds, when he explained that the idea was that the King (Dave) represented "a man with everything in the world, just looking for a quiet place to sit"; a king of no kingdom. Andy Fletcher joked that he favoured the video because "[he] only had to do about an hour's worth of work".
Impact and legacy
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Pitchfork Media ranked "Enjoy the Silence" number 15 in their list of "Top 200 Tracks of the 90s".[29] Rolling Stone included it in their list of the "500 Best Songs of All Time" in 2021 at No. 415.[30]