“Master and Servant” by Depeche Mode

"Master and Servant" was the second single from Some Great Reward, Depeche Mode's fourth album, released in 1984, and it's the English electronic band at their most mischievous. Martin L. Gore wrote the words and the music, Dave Gahan sings lead, and the band produced it with Gareth Jones and Daniel Miller.

The sound is industrial-strength synth-pop: clanking, whip-crack percussion, hard metallic hits and a bouncing, relentless groove, with Gahan leering his way through a lyric whose frankly sexual subject is barely disguised. It's pop music with the lights turned down and the door locked, and it still manages to sound like a party.

That subject matter stirred up controversy, and some radio stations flatly refused to play it. It made the top 10 in the UK anyway, and in America it showed up on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Dance Club Songs chart.

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