"Policy of Truth" has a tempo of 114 beats per minute (BPM). If it were 115 BPM - or 113 BPM - I don't think this song would arrest me or anyone else the way it does at 114. This song was recorded at the perfect tempo, letting the drums and bass trot. Listen to how happy that hi-hat is, clip-clopping at its ideal pace, like a person who has reached actualization. You cannot underestimate how integral tempo is to the success of a song. The duration of beats decides the durations of the notes placed over them, which decides the nature of their attack, their intensity, their sustain, their decay; it decides the number of notes the measure will accommodate, their configuration, and therefore their emotive quality. I can almost assure you they tried this song at 115, but in the end decided it couldn't be anything but 114.

This song came out in 1990, but I think I'm safe in considering it part of the '80s synth pop movement. In fact, this and the entire album to which it belongs probably stand as the apex of that movement - elders, feel free to correct me. I think every throwback '80s synth texture you hear in a song these days, from indie dance music to chart pop to even a lot of hip-hop, found its inspiration in the original (let me say that again: original) ideas of Depeche Mode more than about anyone else.

Whatever imitation we hear today, there will be no singers who will have the creepy-low-calm of Dave Gahan's vocals. That dark anti-croon is exactly as important as the 114 BMP.

I put this song over any other Depeche Mode song due to its cooler-than-cool synth/guitar refrain, the outstanding escalating series of chords and harmonies in the pre-chorus, and its overall feeling of a dark, inward journey. Honesty, of course, is a dark choice.