This record has a few great tunes. Leave in Silence is masterpiece. The Sun and the Rainfall is lovely. Nothing to Fear is one of the best instrumentals I've heard. Monument is goofy but enjoyable. The same thing is true for Satellite which is a better track. See You starts well, but then transforms into bad pop.

The weak points are the attempts to imitate Speak and Spell (My Secret Garden, The Meaning of Love, A Photograph of You) and the treacly Shouldn't Have Done That (foreshadowing the generally banal Construction Time Again).

This should have been broken up into two EPs, because there are two distinct Depeche Modes at work: the introspective mode of Sun/Rainfall, Leave in Silence, Nothing to Fear, Satellite, and Monument in contrast with the poor-quality attempt to continue in the mode of Speak and Spell, a far superior example of bubblegum pop DM. The pop EP could have been a gift for fans, or a live show bonus. It really isn't good enough to be offered commercially in my opinion.

this album, for being obviously dated, is still fantastic. i don't understand all of the 'for collectors and completists only' comments, but we are all special unique snowflakes, so we can all have differing opinions. Meaning of Love and Photograph of You kinda get on my nerves, but the rest of the album is oddly wonderful.

ok for all the people who criticize this cd... Remember this was released originally in the early 80's. So judging it by todays standards isn't fair. The music is quite fitting to the time the originally record was released. OK it's not as good as a lot of their other albums but the cover artwork is wonderful, you should see it on the original 12 inch LP which I own. :) That's what I miss about records, cover artwork like this one. There are a few good tracks on there and for $11 what do you want... the cover, completing the collection and the few songs are surely worth that, right? Just remember when the album was released before judging it.

I remember buying this with hope & anticipation after their first album; and then I remember not buying another Depeche Mode album again until Music for the Masses. A Broken Frame was that bad. So I punished the band for 5 or 6 albums. Did I mention how bad this album is? The lyrics are simpy. The melodies are facile. "The Meaning of Love" is such an amatuerish effort. Only the first song (Leave in Silence) has merit. I believe this is also the album with a faked child's voice on one of the tracks intoning "around... and around... and around." Although that might have been on Construction Time Again. At any rate, it's so unbearably treacly that it's still stuck in my head, and it still makes me cringe even now. At this point the band also looked like "a bunch of seven-year-olds with giant heads," to quote a friend.

Later one Mode reviewer described the boys as "soccer hooligans posing as sensitive dweebs." I shouted "Amen to that!" thinking of this disk. This is not one of the finer moments for the band. It really did not look like our heros would recover from this simpering schlock.

Eventually DM showed their mastery of image and sound with both Music for the Masses and Violator. But it was a long journey from here.

Well, there are reasons why "A Broken Frame" is worth owning (see the cover art?) and at the same time, reasons why you may not want to buy the album. It all depends on what you go for. This is my least favorite DM album, but it's not really that bad. It's good, but not consistently great. If you prefer the early synth-pop sound, you might like this one. If you like DM's more sophisticated and complex works, I'd avoid this one like the plague. I also don't know if a fan of the more rock-style "Songs of Faith and Devotion" would be big on this.

That being said, it's neither as catchy as the work that had Vince Clarke on "Speak & Spell" and it was before classics like "Some Great Reward," "Black Celebration," and "Violator." I try giving the band the benefit of the doubt since this was before they fully realized their potential. That being said, "ABF" is kind of a weird DM album. I used to not get why people laughed at DM, but with more "experimental" tracks like "Monument", I sort of get it. It's not that bad however. The worst stuff on here is either bland or not that memorable, the best stuff has qualities that make DM worth it. Some of it is unexplored DM territory. Other than the aforementioned song there is also the dub beats of "Sattellite" and songs like "My Secret Garden" are not very DM-like at all. But that's all that Gore's forefront to DM had changed in them.

The album's two best songs are the last two. "Shouldn't Have Done That" is a great track with Dave and Martin singing in unison, beautiful and with interesting lyrics. "The Sun and the Rainfall" is a fan favorite and once I hear that Alan Wilder (not with the band during the recording, but by the time touring came for the album) wanted to perform with DM at one fo the tours. The synths are great on that one and are more timeless than most others. "Nothing to Fear" is a nice instrumental track, much better than the boring one on "Speak." Buy this if you love DM or prefer a more early-80's synth sound.

However, if you're new to the band, I'd buy "Catching Up"/"The Singles 81>85" in favor before checking this thing out. The cassette and vinyl versions of the album don't have the filler "Further Excerpts from: My Secret Garden" or the extended "Leave in Silence" (the original version is on instead). Those two were actually B-sides that ended up on the CD version of the album.