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Organisation feels very much like an LP in one tone, more so with the addition of 'Enola Gay's b-side 'Annex', though the other bonus tracks feel different. There was obviously something in the air, that bleak zeitgeist (the Cold War, the after effect of Cambodia, the invasion of Afghanistan, the end of the dire Labour era/the rise of Thatcher etc), and OMD had also absorbed some influence from Joy Division (having played live with them and put out 'Electricity' as a single on Factory). I guess the title and the lyrics are quite dark, nodding to the atom bomb and the plane that delivered Little Boy to Hiroshima? The remainder of Organisation, tracks 2 -6 & tracks 8 - 9 are much darker. The LP opens with the other sore thumb, the hit single 'Enola Gay', which is a breezy, melodic slice of synthpop that would later be referenced on the great 'Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits' by the Magnetic Fields. Organisation was the second LP released by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, a rapid follow-up to their eponymous debut also released in 1980 and it's their darkest record (with the exception of their cover of 'The More I See You', which sticks out like a sore thumb and should be viewed alongside cover versions like the rock'n'roll standards the Silicon Teens recorded for Music for Parties (also 1980), Soft Cell's 'Hendrix Medley', & Devo's 'Satisfaction'). The cover art - from Peter Saville's iconic front cover to the monochrome shots of Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey - give away the dark tone of this LP. I guess the bonus tracks more than make up for this however.Īll in all, this is a solid album that has some wonderful raw qualities to it. They are sincerely beautiful tracks.Ĭontrary to other fans, I actually find the cover of 'The More I See You' to be cringey at best, and feels almost like a filler. Nothing needs to be said about the title track 'Enola Gay', but 'Statues' and 'Stanlow' are worthy enough to purchase this album alone. Perhaps he was just being modest, but I think it offers a fair share of wonderful tracks, if not as consistent as say 'Architecture and Morality'. I've met Andy McCluskey a few times (he lives near by) and it was surprising that he doesn't rate this album highly. Have they 'corrected' anything? It doesn't sound so, although the synth pads used for 'Statues' sound so much cleaner. It was also nice to hear some sounds in the mix that were not present on the vinyl, and therefore provides better definition of the original recordings. The dynamics are absolutely superb and give a real warmth for the synthesisers that swirl around in every track. Getting straight to the release, this is a major step-up out, admittedly, ageing vinyl. Perhaps his maturing did the experience justice, and my own excitement with new wave/electronic music playing a part, but we both enjoyed the vinyl so much so that I decided to order this remastered edition on CD. I've been a big OMD fan for many years, but this is one album that for some reason I have never come across (the CD is surprisingly hard to track down elsewhere). I was initially skeptical when I approached this vinyl and set it up, especially as my old man was so disappointed after listening to it upon its release. The bonus tracks include 'Annex' (the B-side to 'Enola Gay') and the post-Factory version of 'Electricity', as well as the four tracks from a 7-inch EP included with early copies of the LP (I think it was released with a brown background rather than black), consisting of very early live and experimental tapes. Only the downer version of 'The More I See You' seems out of place, but it's redeemed by its ironic stance. 'Second Thought', 'Statues', and especially 'Stanlow' (dedicated as it is to the power plant where the father of singer Andy McCluskey worked) achieve a stateliness that few of the band's contemporaries could even approach. Other tracks barely rise to the energy-level of the single, but this is not a bad thing. Even the single, 'Enola Gay', is in wry memoriam of the atomic bomb-dropping airplane of World War II. It's mostly rather pretty, but its prettiness is undermined by a pervasive melancholy.
As melodic as many of its like-minded contemporaries were musically angular-ironic, considering the Kraftwerk reference of the title-this second album by OMD transcends its immediate predecessor and most of its contemporaries by miles.