Writing in Smash Hits, Peter Silverton observed that A Broken Frame, in contrast to the group's early post-Vince singles which he thought showed "a lack of purpose", "makes a virtue of their tinkly-bonk whimsy". In contrast, Melody Maker wrote that, although "ambitious and bold", "A Broken Frame – as its name suggests – marks the end of a beautiful dream", a comment on the departure of main songwriter and electronics genius Vince Clarke. Reviewer Steve Sutherland considered the songs "daft aspirations to art", the album's musical and thematic "larcenies" sounding like "puerile infatuations papering over anonymity". At the same time, Sutherland acknowledges that the group's increasing complexity "sounds less the result of exterior persuasion than an understandable, natural development", although he finally concludes that Depeche Mode remain "essentially vacuous". The comments of Noise! magazine's 'DH' showed greater prescience. 'DH' said that the album "falls together well and shows we can expect a lot more from the clean cut quartet", adding "t times it reaches high points far exceeding their first album." In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Ned Raggett described A Broken Frame as "a notably more ambitious effort than the pure pop/disco of the band's debut" with much of the album "forsaking earlier sprightliness... for more melancholy reflections about love gone wrong". He adds: "More complex arrangements and juxtaposed sounds, such as the sparkle of breaking glass in "Leave in Silence", help give this underrated album even more of an intriguing, unexpected edge." In 1990, while promoting their album Violator, songwriter Martin Gore lamented parts of the album, saying, "I regret all that sickly boy-next-door stuff of the early days... musically A Broken Frame was a mish-mash".
Cover image
Despite being a photograph, the cover artwork is intended to resemble a painting. It depicts a woman cutting grain in an East Anglian field, near Duxford in Cambridgeshire. It was taken by Brian Griffin using a mixture of natural and artificial lighting. Griffin cited as inspirations the socialist realism of Soviet Russia, especially the work of Kazimir Malevich, and German Romanticism. Griffin has displayed on his website a gallery of alternative images from the same shoot. Later releases of the album on vinyl and compact disc feature slightly different takes of the shot. It was also featured on the cover of Lifes 1990 edition of "World's Best Photographs 1980–1990".
Track listing
Some original US CD copies of the album tacked the intro of "The Sun & the Rainfall" onto the end of "Shouldn't Have Done That", making the duration of "The Sun & the Rainfall" 4:54.
Dave Gahan sings lead vocals on all songs except "Shouldn't Have Done That" which is a duet with Gore. "Nothing to Fear" and "Further Excerpts From: My Secret Garden" are instrumental.
2006 Collectors Edition CD + DVD
Disc one is a hybrid SACD/CD with a multi-channel SACD layer. The track listing is identical to the 1982 UK release, except "Satellite" which is 4:43 long and contains a slight edit, or error, at the beginning of the track.
Disc two is a DVD which includes A Broken Frame in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo plus bonus material.
Additional material
"Depeche Mode 1982 "
Personnel
Credits for adapted from the liner notes of A Broken Frame.
In 2015, Greek synth-pop duo Marsheaux released a complete cover version of A Broken Frame on Undo Records. While the reviewer for Release Magazine wrote that this version was not "anything essential" but well done, other reviews were more detailed. The Electricity Club found influences of And One in the cover of "The Sun & the Rainfall" and concluded that Marsheaux had "used unconventional sounds and vocals to make this record their own". Reviews from Germany noted that Marsheaux had elaborated on the assets and downsides of the original release. According to Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the kitschy sides of the early Depeche Mode album were deliberately uncovered in tracks like "The Meaning of Love", while the Sonic Seducer lauded Marsheaux's darker and slower interpretation of this song.
