Popularity
Fletcher is often teased by the media and fans for apparently not contributing much to songs. He did play more during the early days and plays much more today. He plays bass for "A Pain That I'm Used To" on Playing the Angel according to the album's producer Ben Hillier, and is seen playing bass for "The Sinner in Me" on his own Fletchcam. He's also seen playing bass in the "bare" rendition videos of Clean and Surrender from the Playing the Angel sessions, seen on the Playing the Angel bonus disc and the Depeche Mode Receiver respectively.
Despite the barracking, Fletcher is said to be an integral component of modern day Depeche, and plays a number of major synthesised chords during live shows, the more complex arrangements being assigned to Peter Gordeno, who has been with the band ever since keyboardist Alan Wilder departed in 1995. When Wilder joined the band in early 1982, Fletcher had begun to take on the role of a manager and in the convening years, his musical input has been limited to contributing generic ideas to preformulated Gore/Gahan songs.
Read more about this topic: Andy Fletcher (musician), Career, Depeche Mode
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)