OMD's "Dazzle Ships" - C or D ?

Aha! I'm not the only one!

[The similar/related albums thingie is determined by a program. So those are no one's choices.]

so: it's been mentioned elsewhere, but i figured this was the best place to discuss it properly ...

... the remaster finally exists.

and it is astonishing. sure, this is perhaps my favourite album in the world ever (see OMD threads ... hell, see ILM threads passim) but this really does give it ... i dunno, an extra oomph, particularly at the bottom end -- the two-note bass drone at the beginning of "telegraph"! -- that pretty much ensures it'll keep that status for at least the next 25 years.

there are new sounds (new to me, anyway) in there, too: a slight extra interference in "radio prague", a barely perceptibla male voice at the end of "this is helena" ... i dunno, for an album that was, in essence, entirely about using digital technology to recreate analogue experimentalism, the whole remastering concept just makes perfect sense.

it's difficult for me to explain how much i love this album. i first heard it on what i'm pretty sure must have been my 15th birthday, in july 1990, when we were on holiday with my cousins at center fucking parcs in nottingham: i'd got the OMD best-of a year or so previously and worked my way through all the albums they'd done. this, simply because it was the hardest to get hold of in blackpool, was the last one i heard.

i wouldn't be overstating it one iota to say it changed pretty much everything for me.

not sure my obsession with it did much for the holiday atmosphere, mind you.

Heheh. A different kind of holiday. I think 1990 was when I first got an OMD best-of as well...

also: i've never heard the 12" of "telegraph" before.

my god.

this is an unexpected gift from the gods.

(the demo version of same is a fascinating curio, too, but ... THIS IS THE 12"!)

WANT

Fer sure.

I'm excited to hear the remaster as well.

I was a bit underwhelmed with the remaster. I don't really need three versions of Telegraph on the same disc, and the only unreleased track on the CD, "Swiss Radio International", is just a loop of SRI's call sign, which can easily be downloaded here:
http://home.arcor.de/uvolk/curis_eu.htm
Great, great album though. And "66 And Fading" is truly a lost gem. It would be interesting to see them tour this one, after the -ahem- "mixed" artistic success of yast year's A&M shows.

I want the remaster, but at the moment I'm not prepared to pay HMV £15 for it. The problem I find with remastered records which I know and love so much (and as my first album, I've probably played this album more than any other) is that there's not really any surprises there. I've listened closely to "Dazzle ships" for nearly 25 years in such detail that I doubt it'll make much difference to me.

But on the other hand - "Genetic engineering" 12 inch! And the full version of "66 and fading".

Mine was a fiver.

rob: you know it makes sense ;)

Oh, I know I want it really. When I see it for a decent price, it'll be mine.

>>The problem I find with remastered records which I know and love so much (and as my first album, I've probably played this album more than any other) is that there's not really any surprises there. I've listened closely to "Dazzle ships" for nearly 25 years in such detail that I doubt it'll make much difference to me.

RobM OTM again.

heh, yes, but like i say: for me just the tiniest extra bit of crackle in radio prague was enough!

When I get the remaster I'll see if I notice any extra crackle there.

Can I just say it gives me immense pleasure to be told that I'm OTM as invariably I'm wrong about so much. Cheers.

I have been caning this on Spotify recently, and only just understood what all the fuss was about.

Is anything of the rest of OMD even remotely like this? Because my memory of OMD is very much disposable synthpop. Or are the memories of a preteen not to be trusted?

4-Neu just kills me every time, like an icy German stab to the heart and I just want to weep, but in a really good way.

Go backwards from here, if anywhere.

I liked "Locomotion" at the time (a later single), but part of me knew it was all over. And it was.

goodness yes, it is worth going backwards. The first four albums are pretty consistent ("The Messerchmitt Twins" on the s/t!), though you can perceive the dissolution of their songwriting by the time of Dazzle Ships (which works to wonderful effect there: it's one of my favorite albums). I listened through the first four in order yesterday though (revived a thread about them) and Architecture & Morality really stood out: through "Maid of Orleans" it is just one spine-tingling moment after another. And the bonus tracks on its rerelease, some early versions of Dazzle Ships songs, are terrific.

It's really weird, I only know the pop stuff (probably thanks to Pretty In Pink) and *hated* them at the time.

I an remember quite distinctly having an argument about OMD written on a desk at art school with a girl in another class. Funny how that was almost like a precursor of internet messageboards - like bathroom stall arguments, but written by bored art students. She'd written "Andrew McClusky is god!!!" on teh desk and I wrote that OMD sucked so she wrote back asking what I listened to and I wrote probably some dumb list of impeccable super-indie snob bands and she was all "you really should try the early stuff!" and started talking about how they'd influenced half the stuff I listened to. But then some jobsworthy cleaner bleached the whole desk and we never got to finish the conversation.

I should really have been less of a music snob at school. :-/

(looks up what "4-Neu" is) Oh man, a reissue with bonus tracks I do not have? Off to Spotify I go.

No, a few tracks in and I am not really feeling Architecture & Morality. I think Dazzle Ships is just special.

"Sealand"? And then "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans"! like cathedrals

OK, it gets better around Georgia/The Beginning And The End.

But it doesn't seem to have that sense of 80s Soviet nuclear paranoia that I love in so much early synthpop - there's a whole subgenre of that kind of thing with Thomas Dolby and I'm forgetting other examples, but it's definitely a *thing*.

Man, Architecture and Dazzle are both awesome just in different ways. If I see you at Spectrum tonight I will raise one eyebrow at you sternly.

Most of the nuclear fear stuff was at the pretty whack end of synth pop/new pop/new romantic end of things:

Dancing With Tears In Our Eyes, Ultravox; Two Tribes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood; Heaven 17 (who are brilliant natch) 'Let's All Make A Bomb', 'Fascist Groove Thing', 'At The Height Of The Fighting (He La Hu)'...

A&M just not having the immmediacy for me that DS did. It all sounds very conventional so far and not as fractured/art-damaged as DS.

Also, lack of weird radiophonic sounds and foreign voices crackling on ancient radios. (Which is pretty much a "if you put this sound on a record, I will like it" signifier for me.)

Blimey, um, Cabaret Voltaire?

Blimey, um, Cabaret Voltaire?

Sort of... (maybe start with the 12" mixes?).

I suspect a "their weird album" poll with Hot Trip To Heaven, Panorama, etc. is in order though I would stuff the voting with DS if I could.

Wait, Hot Trip To Heaven was L&R's "techno" album, right? I bloody loved that record. I always love the "weird" electronic album it seems. (My fave Dandy Warhols album is Monkey House, too. Do we spot a trend here?)

What about Neil Young's communicating with his son/electro album? (Trans Am?)

Just Trans.

Classic, of course!

The vocal at the end of 'International' is such a great moment.

Good times here.

Four years on and I've still yet to buy this remaster, because HMV still refuse to sell it around here for less than £15. Think I should look on Amazon sometime. But "Dazzle ships" will always be a special record for me - not only a great album, but the first album I ever bought so very special.

So buy one already..

Been listening to "Crush" a lot lately. Sort of amazed the lovely "Hold You" was neither a single nor a hit. I like it a lot more than Human League's "Human" as far as mawkish stuff goes.

Wait, I guess there was a video? From sort of an album-length movie?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo4m5GSojLE

Reunited band was soooo good earlier this year. But yeah, sorry, "Dazzle Ships." Great album. I wonder if OMD is the band with the most disproportionate number of awesome albums and songs vs. the one huge non-album single that most people know.

Yeah, they released a video of Crush alongside the album itself - imaginatively entitled Crush: The Movie. It's basically made up of interviews to do with the album and its songs, shows the making of the 'So In Love' video (if I remember correctly), and has videos for several songs - both 'proper' videos (like the 'Hold You' video above) and 'in the studio' type of things (although they seem to be miming in those clips). All members of the band get interviewed, plus producer Stephen Hague. It's interesting watching it and seeing McCluskey talk up the album, especially since he's been VERY critical about its content and Stephen Hague's work on the album since. I think 'Hold You' was destined to be a single, but was pulled. Can't remember the specifics on that one.

I wonder if OMD is the band with the most disproportionate number of awesome albums and songs vs. the one huge non-album single that most people know.

Maybe in America - definitely not in the UK. 'Electricity', 'Enola Gay', 'Joan Of Arc (Maid Of Orleans)', 'Messages' and 'Souvenir' to name just five early songs that were bigger and more well-known than 'If You Leave' here.

(whither genetic engineering?)

(electricity got to 99 on 3rd release, didn't chart the first time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestral_Manoeuvres_in_the_Dark_discography#Singles )

Joint-biggest hit was Sailing On The Seven Seas hahaha

You're right about "Crush - The movie", there were a number of videos filmed in Spain iirc which seemed to be destined to be singles and "Hold you" would have been a better single than "Secret" imo. The whole 'movie' was interesting, they were obviously miming a lot of the stuff in the studio - the drums at the start of "88 seconds..." are from a Linn drum, and Malcolm Holmes only comes in about halfway through. But that's an aside. There was also a BBC in concert show from 85 which is very good, and has interviews with members of the band, and the Id, and all sorts - sure that was on youtube as well. So put the two together and you have a band trying not to admit they are in crisis and being forced to make commercial records to recoup what was lost on "Dazzle ships". I think if they'd split at the end of 83 they'd be better regarded now. On the other hand, I love a lot of what they did after 83 too, but it was mainly album tracks and b-sides where they could be odder.

Apparently 'Hold You' originally had a different set of lyrics but Stephen Hague made Andy McCluskey change them because he didn't like them. McCluskey has went on record as saying the new set of lyrics he was forced to write for the song were "crap" :P

(electricity got to 99 on 3rd release, didn't chart the first time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestral_Manoeuvres_in_the_Dark_discography#Singles )

― koogs, Friday, November 23, 2012 3:17 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup. Still more well-known in the UK than 'If You Leave', though! :)

Always liked the Peel version of Genetic Engineering for it's unnecessarily bombastic bass drum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-ng6lWwo0

Never mind all that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6k-teIKSus

also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLwm3djyTwY

Is Genetic Engineering a little nod to YMO? There are elements of Taiso and La Femme Chinoise in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTcAtMX0v4A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZ9v2t67aQ

Brilliant and bonkers too! Thanks Mark.

Been wanting to see those again for years! Someone eventually uploaded them!

I'd never seen them before. My interest in OMD was sparked by seeing them doing "Genetic engineering" on TOTP around the same time as those Tube performances.

"Genetic Engineering" is such an early Eno jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76qPMv1tCfI

Been getting into this one lately. Time will tell but it's my favorite OMD album so far. I agree with someone above that only Thomas Dolby really captures the neat radio wave vibes that this album has. And Maresnest is right - Genetic Engineering is clearly YMO.

The recent activity on the main thread has sent me back to Dazzle Ships, a record i've been listening to for close to 25 years now and I just feel that it is a perfect artefact, I wouldn't want to change a note.

I love every slightly out of tune keyboard sound, every poorly tracked vocal harmony, even the rather queasy This Is Helena is totally charming.

I was just thinking the other day that while it is great that Dazzle Ships is getting its due, and Architecture & Morality has always been seen as OMD's early '80s classic, that it is Organisation that's perhaps their most underrated early '80s record now. I mean, while it has one of OMD's classic singles on it in 'Enola Gay', and it has two certified OMD classics on it in 'Statues' and 'Stanlow', it also has plenty of underrated stuff: the deliciously bizarre 'VCL XI', the krautrock-ish '2nd Thought', an electro-swing(!) track ('Motion and Heart'), the powerful 'The Misunderstanding' and Paul Humphreys' 'Promise'.

Not to mention the original copies of the album came with that free 7" single with 'Introducing Radios', 'Distance Fades Between Us', 'Progress' and 'Once When I Was Six' on it which blatantly foreshadowed Dazzle Ships to the point where I often wonder why a whole lot of people found Dazzle Ships such a surprise.

Just got this on vinyl at Goodwill for $1.00!!

I think Junk Culture is a highly misunderstood album too. Sure, it's not as obviously experimental as Dazzle Ships is, but it's still experimental in its own way, and there's no other OMD album that sounds quite like it in its mixture of then-contemporary electronics and Latin/Caribbean influence. The B-sides and additional tracks from the era give a broader picture too, with stuff like the brooding 'The Avenue' and '(The Angels Keep Turning) The Wheels Of The Universe' on one hand, and Linndrum fests like 'Her Body In My Soul' on the other.

40th anniversary release on the way: https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/omd-dazzle-ships-reissue/

Nice interview:

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/omd-we-became-fascinated-with-the-cold-war-4081006