A Broken Frame

(Album bio adapted from Wikipedia)

A Broken Frame is the second studio album by the British group Depeche Mode, released in 1982. The album was written entirely by Martin Gore and recorded after the departure of Vince Clarke, who had left the band to form Yazoo with singer Alison Moyet. Alan Wilder was part of a second tour in the United Kingdom occurring prior to the release of this album, but he had not officially joined the band yet, and thus, does not appear on the album.

The cover is a photograph, but is intended to resemble a painting. It depicts a woman cutting grain in an East Anglian field, near Duxford in Cambridgeshire. It was taken by Brian Griffin (who had previously done the cover photograph for Speak & Spell and press photos for the band) using a mixture of natural and artificial lighting. Griffin cited as inspirations Ukrainian and Russian art, especially the work of Kazimir Malevich, and German romantic art.

It was featured on the cover of Life Magazine’s 1990 edition of “World’s Best Photographs 1980 – 1990”.