Conference marvin::uk_music

    
    Hello Paul,
    
    I've liked OMD since Enola Gay (Even before, I guess, with Red Frame,
    White light). I've never seen them live and I'm a bit suprised that 
    you thought they were better live than Simple Minds (although I think
    they're better on plastic) given their style of music, but I'm pleased
    to hear it.
    
    I thought Sugar Tax was a good album, but it isn't as good as The
    Pacific Age or Junk Culture (IMO). The early stuff is good too, but
    I definitely feel they are a group who progressed. I hope the split
    doesn't mean they'll (he'll?) stagnate, but I fear that may be just
    what happens.
    
    I suspect there's 1 album missing, but I can't think what it would be.
    I've got all their 'real' albums (except Dazzle Ships which I thought
    was TERRIBLE! I took it back to the shop and got my money back!!!!),
    so I'll have a look and see if there's another one not on your list.
    
    Mark

The missing album is `Crush', which in my opinion was when they really started
to pong.  I remember my foolish youth, being blinded by their blippy technology
sound, thinking `Messages' was the best song ever made.  Looking back I guess
some of it's not bad, `Junk Culture' was, well, charming I suppose...

Lee

    I liked "Souvenier" but whenever Andy McCluskey sang I cringed. They
    could have been so good but ended up like a second hand irrelevant
    Tears for Fears . The current stuff is more "poppy" than even SAW could
    manage. I read an interview with Andy McCluskey and he more or less
    said that commercial success was far more important to him than
    producing good music.
    
          Niall
    

    Never been overly keen on this lot 'cept for the odd song. There's 
    one particular fave, although as usual the name escapes me, I think
    it came off "Pacific Age" (?) 1986 and had a chorus along the lines
    of "I wanna know (repeat several times) why...you make me wanna cry."
    Saw THEM get "blown out of the water" by Crowded House a few years back.
    Good double bill eh?
    
    Barry   
    
    
    

    The song you're thinking of is "Forever Live and Die"...
    
    
    Does anybody know any background to the group ?
    

[reprinted]

Moving from electronic tape experiments to highly polished synthesizer pop
and beyond, Liverpudlians Andy McCluskey (bass/vocals/keyboards) and
sythesist Paul Humphreys (with other full-time members, including - very
significantly - a corporeal acoustic drummer) are among the most successful
practitioners of electro-pop, as first demonstrated by a delightful string
of singles. Abandoning their formula after two albums, however, OMD proved
capable of far more ambitious creations not tied to the apron strings of
technology.

"Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark" exhibits stylish electro-pop comparable
to Ultravox's music. Aided by Dalek I's Andy Gill, McCluskey and Humphreys
build the songs up from computer-generated rhythms and, while the album does
not create any new forms, it polishes the synthesizer song into a
full-bodied medium. Thanks to a knack for melodies and hooks, notable
attractions are the catchy "Electricity" and "Messages".

"Organisation" (which originally included an excellent bonus single of early
tape experiments and live tracks) introduces drummer Malcolm Holmes and
ethereal synthesizer techniques that suit the depressive subject matter of
"Enola Gay" and the like. It also pays attention to ensure variation in the
tunes, a problem that mars the first LP. With nods to John Foxx and David
Bowie, OMD overlays melodies to dramatic effect; the performances are
excellent.

"O.M.D." is an American compilation of songs from the two British albums,
including both catchy OMD standards, "Enola Gay" and "Electricity".
Recommended.

"Architecture & Morality" struggles with new techniques, and includes two
magnificent, ethereal hit singles: "Souvenir" and "Joan of Arc". OMD is
again experimenting with sound and much of the album sounds more
naturalistic than electronic. An intriguing and highly inventive use of the
technology.

The conceptual "Dazzle Ships" overreaches by a mile, succumbing to excessive
found-tape gimmickry in lieu of adequate songwriting. It does contain the
striking "Genetic Engineering" (which integrates a Speak and Spell toy to
make a point) and "Radio Waves", as well as some amazing sounds and a
powerful atomosphere to recommend it. Impressive but not satisfying.

"Junk Culture" is much stronger, pulling away further from sparkling pop
while retaining smart melodies in far denser and newly dance-based styles.
"Tesla Girls" employs scratch production to great effect while fixing on
science as a clever lyrical base (shades of Sparks); the rhythm-heavy
"Locomotion" and the mroe fanciful "Talking Loud and Clear" are likewise ace
tracks.

Despite its easygoing ambience and a shortage of really memorable songs,
"Crush" - OMD's least stylized, most mainstream album - isn't half bad. "So
in Love" and "Secret" are the obvious romantic singles, but the record has
more serious moments as well: the topical "88 Seconds in Greensboro", "Women
III" (an ambiguous consideration of feminism) and "Bloc Bloc Bloc", wherein
McCluskey sings some truly stupid lyrics with only a trace of embarassment.

OMD's international commercial breakthrough began with "Crush" but exploded
when "If You Leave", a dull ballad from the "Pretty in Pink" soundtrack,
became a Top 10 American single.

That song was thankfully omitted from OMD's subsequent albums, "The Pacific
Age", but so was anything that might have prevented the record from being
dull, ponderous and self-important. (Typical of the band's well-meaning
absurdity is "Southern", an instrumental bed over which excerpts of Martin
Luther King speeches are played.) OMD's expansion from a duo to a sextet -
the three recent additions play horns, guitars and more keyboards - has cost
the group focus and clarity, its singleminded creative vision. Except for
the smoothly contrived hit "(Forever) Live and Die" and the catchy "We Love
You", this dilettanish mess is less a set of songs than a meaningless
collection of sounds.

"The Best of OMD" is the ideal remedy for "The Pacific Age". Not only does
it concisely recapitulate the band's artistic development - via 14 A-sides,
from clever synth-based pop to well-realized audio experiments to
increasingly bland chart fodder - but it ends with a promisingly new pert
bonus single, "Dreaming". The CD adds two bonus tracks.

-----

Phew! That goes as far as 1989.

Ed (saw 'em in '81 and '84)

    What's this man doing in Digital when he could so easily have been
    writing press releases?
    
    Piers

Stop talking about yourself, P!

Piers, I copied it. What's this man doing in Digital? Typing fast!

Ed

   More about the early days, taken from Pete Frame's book of Rock Family
   Trees:

   According to Andy McCluskey, he and Paul Humphreys started playing together
   in 1975, but they didn't appear in a group until 1977 when they were both
   in The Id. At the same time McCluskey played with Dalek I Love You and in
   August '78 left The Id to become a permanent member of Dalek...

   He lasted less than a month and OMD were formed in September '78. Their first 
   album also credits David Fairbairn, Martin Cooper (from Dalek...), and
   Julia Kneale (ex The Id) for writing the lyrics to "Julia's Song". This
   track was previously recorded by The Id.

   In January '80 McCluskey and Humphreys were joined in OMD by Malcolm Holmes
   (ex The Id) and Dave Hughes (ex Dalek I Love You).

   Dalek I Love You also included David Balfe who went via Big In Japan and
   Lori & The Chameleons to The Teardrop Explodes. Also in Big In Japan and
   L&TC was Bill Drummond; am I right in thinking that Balfe and Drummond are
   now The KLF??

   I saw OMD at Hammersmith at the time of the Dazzle Ships tour (what a turkey
   of an album!), and Architecture & Morality is still one of my all-time 
   favourites...

   �Paul�   

    Two bits of OMD trivia:
    
    I believe in their early days, McCluskey and Humphreys were
    supplemented on stage by a tape recorder called Winston...
    
    I'm not a great OMD buff, but one of my favourite pieces by them is an
    instrumental called 'Navigation' which is the B-side of Maid of Orleans
    (The Waltz Joan Of Arc).  Like the A-side, it features the Mellotron
    strongly (the only time they used one?), but I don't think I've ever
    seen Navigation listed on an LP.
                                
    Ian
    

    re .11
    
    Do I sense a reprise of the bout of Mellotron nostalgia which recently
    attacked this conference?
    
    Balders