Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark '(Forever) Live And Die'

Chart Peak: 11
YouTube

Charted at No. 52 on 2nd September, had reached No. 11 by 30th September. This is the Liverpool group's 9th Top 20 hit in Britain.

Yep, it's another video with grainy monochrome footage of people in jeans and jackets with no ties miming the song! And it's another track where a real live brass section sounds cheap and fake. No mistaking when this is from then. '(Forever) Live And Die' is, though, an unusual entry in the OMD catalogue in that it features the less famous member of the duo, Paul Humphreys, on lead vocal. Indeed, it proved to be his last major hit as part of the act before he left Andy McCluskey to go effectively solo a couple of years later.

Considering the pop-oriented direction into which McCluskey took OMD, one might expect a Humphreys-fronted single to be the opposite, but in fact this is one of their most commercial tracks. Not only is it a straightforward song with a directly emotional lyric, it's actually rather melodic and charming in a way that a lot of their attempts to be crowdpleasing aren't. Although it sounds dated now there's a warmth I can't resist.

Also appearing on: Now 3, 4, 20, 25, 34
Available on: The Pacific Age

OMD 'Sailing The Seven Seas'

Chart Peak:
YouTube

I have to admit I've not been giving as much time to this album as I'd expected. Partly that's for practical reasons but also I find that the music isn't catching my attention so much - South Africans seem to have been subjected to the very blandest music Britain had to offer in the early 1990s. OMD were, by now, past the inventive stage they seem now to be trying to revive, and were now a just a vehicle for Andy McCluskey to release the sort of yuppie pop he'd later try to sell on to other acts. Unfortunately, in keeping with the times even the potentially interesting parts of the track (the unusual rhythm, the slightly nautical countermelody) are buried in the production to avoid waking up the listener.

Possibly the most interesting thing I can say is that the word "on" from the song title seems not to have made it to SA.

Available on: Pure 90s Pop

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 'Locomotion'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

You can tell we're back in the mid-80s here, because this track features a synthesised steel-drum solo, something that could only have been countenanced in a hit single for a fairly brief period. Still, it was an acceptable thing to do in 1984, and scored the duo their fourth Top 5 single, though only their second not about Joan Of Arc. That's a cute little fact anyway, but it does point to the move they were making at this point to slightly less arty, slightly more directly pop-focused material.

They're clearly trying to play the old trick of setting a downbeat lyric to chirpier music here, but that's a difficult thing to get right and whilst the latter is pretty much sorted they fall down somewhat on the former. As Andy McCluskey sings of "crossing every ocean for the sake of locomotion" the song is obviously supposed to be about restlessness, but the finished track is just too smooth and orderly to convey that sentiment - whether that's an intentional commercial decision or just a result of synths in that era not being able to cope with complex rhythms I'm not sure, but either way the meaning is lost beneath the gloss. Even the brass section, apparently arranged by no less than Tony Visconti and played by real people in the Netherlands, sounds like a cheap keyboard preset. Still, it does at least work as a pop song, with that low backing vocal of the "crossing every ocean" lyric an indelible hook. And the shaped picture disc does look pretty cool.

On a side-note, this was also the opening track on the Now 3 VHS tape, and one of only six tracks common to the video and audio versions of the title.

Also appearing on: Now 4, 8, 20, 25, 34
Available on: The OMD Singles