When the live version doesn't sound like the single

I was watching a bit of Depeche Mode: M, on Netflix. It’s a Depeche Mode concert film, set in Mexico.

I forwarded through it to find one of my favourite songs of theirs, which is World In My Eyes. And I was disappointed, because it didn’t sound like the single.

Well, it wouldn’t, would it? That’s what you’re thinking. It’s live, it’s not going to sound exactly like the version they did in the studio.

But that's not what I'm on about.

I'm on about the snare.

Here’s the original, in case you don’t know it. Listen to the drums for a few seconds, which start at around 0:15. Listen to the snare.

Do you hear that snare sound? I love it. A really distinctive snare sound. It's like a very early drum machine from the 70s, despite the single coming out in the 90s. I remember it at the time, when I first heard it, and the main thing that caught my attention was that snare.

It is one of the defining characteristics of that song. If you were to do a quiz with a Depeche Mode fan, and ask them to identify a song based on hearing a single snare sound, and you played them that, they’d instantly say “World In My Eyes”.

There are not many songs you can do that with. That’s how intrinsic that snare is to that song. You take that snare out, it’s not the same song.

Like, if you were to perform it live, you'd somehow have to have that snare. You'd either play the drums off a laptop, or if you had a live drummer then you'd use pads that triggered the samples. One way or another, you'd have to have that snare.

You'd have to.

You couldn't just replace it with a bog standard acoustic drum kit, and say “that's good enough”.

You can't just replace a Kraftwerk style snare with a Bon Jovi style snare and say “that’s good enough”.

But they did.

That's exactly what they did.

I switched it off before he even got round to singing.