OMD - Dazzle Ships

This much maligned album was always a Guilty Pleasure of mine but it seems to have been reappraised my the critic community on its 25th anniversary re-release in 2008. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark were the first band I was ever a fan of. In 1981 they released of 'Architecture & Morality' which included the hits 'Souvenir', 'Joan Of Arc' & 'Joan Of Arc (Maid Of Orleans)' and sold by the bucket load. It took the band 2 years to produce a follow and when 'Dazzle Ships' was released in 1983 to say their audience was a tad confused is probably an understatement. Gone were the choral loops and heavily melodic Mellotron-laden tracks of 'Architecture & Morality' and their singles, replaced by far more chaotic singles such as 'Genetic Engineering':

and 'Radio Waves':

If that wasn't enough for most of their fans to start scratching their heads, interspersed amongst the songs on the album were tracks of musique concrete and short wave radio tape collages such as 'ABC Auto Industry' - check this live performance from 'The Tube' and note the audience not quite sure what to do at the end (and the misspelling of Frankenstein's monster!):

and 'Time Zones':

'Dazzle Ships' was a critical and commercial failure at the time and OMD reverted to a far poppier sound with 1984's 'Junk Culture' and the likes of 'Locomotion'. Although the inclusion of 'If You Leave' on the soundtrack to 'Pretty In Pink' gave the band their biggest US hit, the band would not have another Top 5 entry until 1991 and by then OMD just consisted of Andy McCluskey, the rest of the band long since departed. Recently, the original lineup has reformed, toured the entire 'Architecture & Morality' album and performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic!

Bonus Clips: Here's Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy performing the first 4 tracks of 'Dazzle Ships' on solo violin!

and here's a new video created to accompany the unreleased track 'Dazzle Ships (Parts I, IV, V & VI) from 2014 (Parts II, III & VII were included on the album as the 1st track on Side 2).