OMD’s ‘Crush’ Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary

In 1988, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark served as the opening act for Depeche Mode‘s American tour. At one show, at Poplar Creek Music Theatre in Chicago, OMD’s singer Andy McCluskey lamented, “America is the only place we’re still cool.” This turn of events couldn’t have come as a complete surprise, though. In many ways, it was by design.

OMD’s third album, Architecture & Morality (1981), had been a worldwide smash. Since then, though, the synthpop pioneers had grown frustrated that they couldn’t maintain their level of commercial success. Furthermore, they were deeply indebted to their record label, Virgin. So, they set their sights on the US, where they were still very much an underground act. In the memoir Pretending to See the Future, McCluskey and bandmate Paul Humphreys make no bones about the fact that they wanted to “break America”.  

The first step was to recruit an American producer, someone who could help finesse their sound for Top 40 radio. McCluskey and Humphreys chose Stephen Hague. Hague would soon enough become a synthpop Svengali, helping lead Pet Shop Boys, New Order, and Erasure to the promised land of American airplay and sales. At the time, however, he was relatively unknown, a former member of Jules Shear’s power pop band, Jules and the Polar Bears, whose biggest production client was the former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren.

The result of Hague’s and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s collaboration was Crush. Indeed, in terms of America, the mission was accomplished. The first single, “So in Love”, made the Top 40, as did Crush itself. Both were firsts for the band, but there was a significant trade-off. For many fans, especially in the UK, who were transfixed by Architecture & Morality and its forward-thinking predecessors, Crush was the beginning of OMD’s nadir. To them, it was a melodic yet vapid, catchy yet pandering sellout. Crush was the first OMD album since their 1980 debut to miss the UK Top Ten. It was their lowest-selling record to date there, as well.

Now, though, McCluskey and Humphreys can reintroduce Crush from a position of strength. Their reunion in 2006 has yielded a run of new material that, in large part, has righted the pop/art balance, leaving no question about OMD’s legacy as one of the most significant and groundbreaking bands of the last half-century. Among the titans in their catalog, Crush remains a junior proposition.

However, 40 years on, from the wonderful Edward Hopper-inspired cover art to the effortlessly melodic, surprisingly timeless music within, it is a self-contained, ultra-romantic package that both encapsulates and transcends the 1980s. Indeed, OMD had never sounded this sleek, this sexy, this cool before, nor would they again.

“So in Love” is a perfect representation of what Crush is all about. The driving beat, inside-out bassline, and luxuriously ethereal string synths set the stage for McCluskey’s mournfully wide-eyed baritone. It’s super-sleek, yes, but far from vapid. Instead, it is the rare 1980s pop single that is actually as debonair as it claims to be.

Similarly, each of the other nine songs on Crush unfolds like a vignette, with different stylistic approaches coming together to form a cohesive whole. That is where Hague is a strength. “Bloc Bloc Bloc” is jazzy and irresistibly hedonistic and nonsensical, while “Women III” examines the conflicted existence of a suburban housewife in biting yet sympathetic fashion: “One day she thinks of leaving him / The next she treats him like a king… / It’s a long way home / From where she’s come.” The music is suitably chilly and ambivalent—is that synth chorus defiant or mocking?

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark expand some boundaries on Crush, just not in the way most fans expected or hoped for. “88 Seconds in Greensboro”, about a deadly Ku Klux Klan attack in 1979, continues McCluskey’s penchant for history, but it also does away with the synths almost entirely, opting for a New Order-ish, guitar-bass-drums feel. “Hold You” is the most tender thing the band have ever recorded, nearly but not quite a straight-up love song. “La Femme Accident” is whimsical yet lovely chamber pop.

Even the remnants of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s early experimental days are evident on Crush. The title track, built on a sequence of samples from Japanese television, is odd and mesmerizing, as a down-on-love McCluskey curses the “fucking rain”.

This 40th anniversary reissue features some dated remixes, a handful of B-sides, and studio outtakes, all annotated by McCluskey. Hardcore fans will be curious, but only the even more tender demo version of “Hold You” is worth more than a listen. The vinyl version omits three outtakes from the CD, but that’s not a significant issue.  

Especially in the 1980s, there were more than a few UK acts that aspired to “break America”, only to find themselves broken in the end. In the years following Crush, this fate would also befall OMD. Crush, though, takes on America in true world-class fashion.