Counterfeit e.p by Martin Gore

Counterfeit e.p., released on Mute on 12 June 1989, was Martin Gore's first recording under his own name, and the title is a sly joke: the man who writes most of Depeche Mode's songs wrote none of these six. It's a covers set, cut while the band took a breather after making and touring Music for the Masses, the same window in which bandmate Alan Wilder slipped out Hydrology as Recoil.

Without Dave Gahan's baritone out front, Gore's lighter tenor gets the spotlight, and he wraps other people's songs in chilly, glistening synth-pop that sounds like it was made at 3 a.m. in an empty studio. "Compulsion" is the one the countdowns latched onto, and "In a Manner of Speaking" went out as a promo single in France and Germany. It may say e.p. on the cover, but Mute filed it under an album catalogue number. Counterfeit² followed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.