OMD were always the most reasonable of electropoppers, and much of their eponymous 1980 debut album resembles a sixth-form music project with songs ranging from the endearingly daft ("Red Frame/White Light") to the accidentally profound ("Messages"). Organisation, released six months later, is what they turned into after they had listened to Joy Division; few hit singles have been as darkly ironic as "Enola Gay". But 1981's Architecture And Morality was a commercial and artistic peak, a luxuriously bleak collage of avant-garde lullabies ("Souvenir") and proto-ambient soundscapes ("Sealand") culminating in the end of the world ("Georgia"). How the hell did singer Andy McCluskey end up inventing Atomic Kitten?
OMD were always the most reasonable of electropoppers, and much of their eponymous 1980 debut album resembles a sixth-form music project with songs ranging from the endearingly daft (“Red Frame/White Light”) to the accidentally profound (“Messages”). Organisation, released six months later, is what they turned into after they had listened to Joy Division; few hit singles have been as darkly ironic as “Enola Gay”. But 1981’s Architecture And Morality was a commercial and artistic peak, a luxuriously bleak collage of avant-garde lullabies (“Souvenir”) and proto-ambient soundscapes (“Sealand”) culminating in the end of the world (“Georgia”). How the hell did singer Andy McCluskey end up inventing Atomic Kitten?
