Politics & Power Quote by Martin Gore

Nostalgia radio has a way of turning a band into a single, endlessly looping idea, and Martin Gore is politely bristling at that trap. "People Are People" isn't just a hit; it's a brand asset for '80s stations, a safe, instantly recognizable ticket to a certain kind of listener comfort. "Gets played to death" carries the weary humor of someone hearing their own past reduced to a jingle for a decade. The line is less complaint than diagnosis: repetition doesn-t honor the song, it embalms it.

The subtext is an artist's double-bind. Gore acknowledges the track as Depeche Mode's first real American breakthrough, a career hinge he can't disown without sounding ungrateful. So he splits the difference: gratitude for the doors it opened, candor about the artistic cost. "It's not exactly my favorite song" is a masterclass in English understatement, a soft phrase that signals a harder truth: the song's public meaning has drifted away from his private relationship to it.

Context matters. "People Are People" is one of Depeche Mode's most direct, almost slogan-like statements - built for mass sing-along, moral clarity, and radio compression. Gore's strongest work often lives in messier terrain: ambiguity, desire, guilt, devotion. The quote reads like a quiet insistence that the band's story is larger than the one track American radio decided to freeze-frame.