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Likely the band’s most recognized and iconic song, this is a great introduction to the dual nature of so many OMD songs: a danceable and poppy synthesizer sound, but married to much darker lyrics…this time about the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Track 1: Enola Gay (from the 1980 album Organisation) I was lucky enough to catch them live in July 2013 in Toronto, on my birthday no less, at one of their last live shows to date before, three days later (and also in Toronto) band member Malcolm Holmes had a heart incident in mid-show, and the band was forced to take an unforeseen break from live gigs.īut the show I got to see was fantastic, sweaty, and packed, and I danced like such a maniac stage-side that singer Andy McCluskey gave me a huge grin and a thumbs-up (though he is known himself for his energetic, unusual and sometimes gawky moves!). The band itself laughs off the success of this song, by the way, noting that it was written literally over night when the record label asked them for a “hit” (to break through in the lucrative American market) and at the request of film maker John Hughes, who asked them for a new song fast to fit the revised ending of his film (after a last-minute script change owing to negative test market reactions to his original planned ending).Īnd of course, some may not even be aware that the band is still a going concern, both touring worldwide, and releasing two new albums and a third in the works, all in the last five years. Yes, I figure some TVV readers will say that is putting the case a little strongly, but I really think it would be a dreadful shame if people limited their listening to the first few “experimental” singles that date from the period of their Kraftwerkesque sound and the days of their Peter Saville and Factory Records association, and write the band off as having “sold out” around the time the film Pretty In Pink came out with its chart-topping If You Leave single. Rhetor has been back in touch again from Canada with what I think is a great piece on a band that were much better in their day than many have given them credit….and a band that was the firsy ‘synth’ act I ever caught live at the Glasgow Apollo on 10 November 1980.Īccording to good old Wikipedia, “The Quietus magazine editor John Doran once remarked: “Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are not one of the best synth bands ever: they are one of the best bands ever.”