'Behind The Wheel' is quite similar to
Never Let Me Down Again in 'feel', but it's not
quite as powerful; perhaps a bit more dancey; this remix even more so.
Ask yourself this question: if you were in the greatest, most
successful synth band in the music history, what would you choose to do
as your first cover? Did I hear you say 'Route 66'? No, I thought not.
However, Depeche Mode pulls this off very successfully, and rather amusing as well.
It starts off as a faster version of 'Behind The Wheel', the same
instrumentation and everything. After a bit of the intro you hear some
dist guitar chords, and Martin starts singing this ancient American hymn
to a highway. Pretty darn funny, IMHO. Then, in the musical break, the
references to 'Behind The Wheel' are even more apparent with those cold
synthetic bell sounds, playing that same melody as in that song, only
faster.
As for the Shep remix: what did he do with it, really? Just added
some occasional percussion to the other remix and extended it a bit?
Sounds like it to me, anyway. I'm not too impressed.
I have yet to figure out the reason for putting the
album version on this single;
I guess there's some sort of very clever reason for it. Actually,
I like the bassline a lot more in this version. It blends well with the
bassdrum. I don't really know why they replaced it for the remix.
