[8] In Germany, "Personal Jesus" is one of the band's longest-charting songs, staying on the West German Singles Chart for 23 weeks.
The song has been covered by numerous artists, including Johnny Cash, Marilyn Manson, Def Leppard, and Iggy Pop.
The result of this session was the single "Personal Jesus", which featured a catchy bluesy riff and drum-based sound, radically different from anything the band had released thus far.
[10] "Personal Jesus" is written in the key of F♯ minor with a tempo of 130 beats per minute in 128 time.
The single was particularly successful commercially thanks to the fact that it was released six months prior to the album it would later appear on.
The back-cover of "Personal Jesus" features one of the band members and the back-side of a naked woman.
David Giles from Music Week wrote: "Their first release for over two years, and hardly a radical style departure.
"[14] In 2011, Slant Magazine listed the song at number 81 in their ranking of "The 100 Best Singles of the 1990s", writing: "Depeche Mode's gimmick is one that, after years of repetition, seems ingeniously flimsy, bundling angst and spiritual frustration with sex and pouty gloom.
Bolstered by Dave Gahan's repeated imprecation to 'reach out and touch faith', the vocals seem perched on a neutral point between the completely earnest and the bitterly sarcastic, turning what could have been another flat religious diatribe into a thinly dual-tiered assessment of devotion and self-absorption.
"[15] In 2017, Billboard ranked "Personal Jesus" second behind only "Enjoy the Silence" on a list of their "20 Best Depeche Mode Songs".
[17] Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd singer John Lydon commented on the track: "it's a serious problem for me, all this technology.
It features the band on a ranch (suggested to appear as a brothel), filmed in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, in Spain.
MTV edited out some suggestive mouth movements of Martin Gore during the bridge and replaced it with some other footage from the video.
CD (Bong43) 12" vinyl Digital download Beatport Exclusive digital download Promo CD (PCDBong43) iTunes Store In 2002, American country singer Johnny Cash covered "Personal Jesus" for his album American IV: The Man Comes Around.
“That’s probably the most evangelical song [I’ve] ever recorded,” said Cash, “I don’t know that the writer ever meant it to be that, but that’s what it is.”[72] In 2017, Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan said about Cash covering the song, "I was in the studio recording a solo album, Hourglass, and Martin [Gore] rang me because he’d heard news that Johnny Cash wanted to cover it, and he was kind of umming and ahhing about it, whether to give permission, and I was like 'What are you, crazy?
And you can do a lot with it because it’s a great rock & roll song.”[70] Marilyn Manson released their cover version of the track as the only previously unreleased recording included on their 2004 greatest hits album Lest We Forget: The Best Of.
"[77] He additionally described the original song and Depeche Mode's music in general as hypnotic, sexy and inspirational.
[81] As of 2020, the track has sold over 78,000 physical and digital copies in the United Kingdom, where it was also streamed over 4 million times.
Also American singer and actress Hilary Duff used a "Personal Jesus" sample as the basis of her 2008 single "Reach Out".