My Favourite Record is a new weekly feature where we ask musicians we rate from across the spectrum to pick their most cherished album – a development of our occasional On Record feature, and a chance to take a peek at the albums that maketh the artist. Today’s entry:

DEPECHE MODE
Songs of Faith and Devotion
(Mute, 1993)

Picked by: Synth-pop pioneer Gary Numan. 

“This album came along at a time when my own career was all but dead and buried.

I had lost all direction musically and I was floundering. I had no idea how to fix things, how to get my spark back, and then, in 1993, I heard Songs Of Faith And Devotion.

“It had a darkness to it that that took me to places I found fascinating and exciting, and more than a little disturbing. The melodies were beautifully constructed, the lyrics thought provoking and intriguing and the performances, on every level, still send shivers up my spine. The production itself is a work of genius, so multilayered that even after a hundred listens you were still hearing things you hadn’t heard before.

The epic ‘Walking In My Shoes’ I thought for a long time – incorrectly as it turned out – was about a man whose light had faded, someone going through exactly what I was going through in ’93. I felt that song very deeply and it sucked me in to the rest of the album which, along with some others, helped me reshape the type of music I was making and so led to the music I have made for the last 20 years.”

Numan’s new single ‘I Am Dust’, from last year’s album Splinter, is out now. For more information and Numan’s forthcoming tour dates, head here.