“Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode is from the Nineties. The single was released on 5 February 1990 and became one of the English electronic band’s defining songs.
The track appeared on Violator, Depeche Mode’s seventh studio album, released in 1990. Martin Gore wrote the song, originally imagining it as a slow, sparse ballad. Producer Flood and bandmate Alan Wilder helped transform the demo into the dramatic synth-pop and synth-rock recording that became a major international hit.
A common mix-up is the recording date: much of the song was recorded in 1989, but its commercial release—and the decade normally associated with the hit single—was 1990. It reached number eight on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, making it the band’s highest-charting American single. Its famous video features singer Dave Gahan as a wandering king carrying a deck chair through striking landscapes.