Album: Architecture & Morality
Artist: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Born: Meols, Wirral Peninsula
Released: November 1981
Genre: Synthpop
Influenced: Pet Shop Boys, Talk Talk, Nine Inch Nails, Saint Etienne, LCD Soundsystem, The xx
Before synthpop became a saturated market and its sound trite and bland, it ruled the UK charts from 1981 to 1983. Vince Clarke, who left Depeche Mode to join Alison Moyet in forming Yazoo, helped set the synthpop template of musical duo consisting of heterosexual man noodling at keyboard with soulful female or homosexual / bisexual male singer. Soft Cell's Tainted Love, the Associates' Party Fears Two, Yazoo's Only You, the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams, all followed this trend but then groups like Duran Duran turned it into something bland and homogenous. While synthpop eventually became tainted by association with the conspicuous consumption of the 80s, it's easy to forget that it also extended the boundaries of pop music and eroded the conservative, rockist mindset of music journalists. I also really like the early, intellectual wave of synthpop bands, like Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Human League, ABC, Japan and others, who weren't afraid to confront new subject matter and explore new sounds. For me, no pop single is more audacious in the early 80s than Joan Of Arc (Maid of Orleans). As OMD's lead singer Andy McCluskey says, it was "written in waltz time, starts with 45 seconds of distortion, has a mellotron playing bagpipes and no chorus". It was a UK Top 5 hit.
The two songs OMD are most associated with, Enola Gay (1980, about the nuclear bomb that fell on Hiroshima) and If You Leave (1985, conventional love song), show the trajectory the band took in the first half of the 80s, finally caving in to record label pressure after the commercial suicide of their fourth LP, Dazzle Ships. Architecture & Morality, OMD's third LP, remains their masterpiece. There was not just one single about Joan of Arc from the album but two; the first, released in late 1981, was also a Top 5 UK hit. Souvenir, which has a melancholy synthesiser hook that would inspire legions of synthpop bands, was another hit single for the band and was also unique for featuring OMD co-founder Paul Humphreys on lead vocals. One criticism that the conservative music press levied at synthpop was that it was cold, mechanical and soulless, but Architecture & Morality showed how electronic music could be invested with warmth and yearning. Like Dare, it bridged the divide between experimental electronic music and New Romantic pop, before the balance got tipped too far in favour of the latter. From dreamy ballads She's Leaving and The Beginning & The End to the ambient Sealand and more experimental New Stone Age, this is an essential 80s LP.
Before synthpop became a saturated market and its sound trite and bland, it ruled the UK charts from 1981 to 1983. Vince Clarke, who left Depeche Mode to join Alison Moyet in forming Yazoo, helped set the synthpop template of musical duo consisting of heterosexual man noodling at keyboard with soulful female or homosexual / bisexual male singer. Soft Cell's Tainted Love, the Associates' Party Fears Two, Yazoo's Only You, the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams, all followed this trend but then groups like Duran Duran turned it into something bland and homogenous. While synthpop eventually became tainted by association with the conspicuous consumption of the 80s, it's easy to forget that it also extended the boundaries of pop music and eroded the conservative, rockist mindset of music journalists. I also really like the early, intellectual wave of synthpop bands, like Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Human League, ABC, Japan and others, who weren't afraid to confront new subject matter and explore new sounds. For me, no pop single is more audacious in the early 80s than Joan Of Arc (Maid of Orleans). As OMD's lead singer Andy McCluskey says, it was "written in waltz time, starts with 45 seconds of distortion, has a mellotron playing bagpipes and no chorus". It was a UK Top 5 hit.
The two songs OMD are most associated with, Enola Gay (1980, about the nuclear bomb that fell on Hiroshima) and If You Leave (1985, conventional love song), show the trajectory the band took in the first half of the 80s, finally caving in to record label pressure after the commercial suicide of their fourth LP, Dazzle Ships. Architecture & Morality, OMD's third LP, remains their masterpiece. There was not just one single about Joan of Arc from the album but two; the first, released in late 1981, was also a Top 5 UK hit. Souvenir, which has a melancholy synthesiser hook that would inspire legions of synthpop bands, was another hit single for the band and was also unique for featuring OMD co-founder Paul Humphreys on lead vocals. One criticism that the conservative music press levied at synthpop was that it was cold, mechanical and soulless, but Architecture & Morality showed how electronic music could be invested with warmth and yearning. Like Dare, it bridged the divide between experimental electronic music and New Romantic pop, before the balance got tipped too far in favour of the latter. From dreamy ballads She's Leaving and The Beginning & The End to the ambient Sealand and more experimental New Stone Age, this is an essential 80s LP.
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