OMD

It is quite fascinating OMD were once considered one of the truest alternative pop-bands (for both, music and comissioned artworks by Peter Saville which became inevitable trademark surrounding their image) - on other occasion they wasted their potential in favour of the Eurovision-contest type of songs. Not to mention Andy McCluskey's recents involvements with Atomic Kitten, a bimbo-threesome whcih has been for quite sometime pompously announced a pop-revolutionary thing...

A group of synth enthusiasts once confident enough to race with Kraftwerk on equal level, turned into a rock-band and it was certainly not by accident; it is the synth that might be part of the problem - once you exhaust it, what is there left to turn to but real instruments... early OMD were often given flattering epithets of combining ABBA and Joy Division influences. In case of their first five albums (experimentally fascinating 'OMD' and 'Organisation', confusingly subversive masterpieces 'Architecture & Morality' and 'Dazzle Ships'...), it is certainly true; from early minimal excursions into electronic extremes to their finest studio product ironically given the title 'Junk Culture' (1984), their name justifies every note - as the 80s progressed, many bands sacrificed patience and creativity for ambitious projects where egos outgrew frames of modesty - lush production doesn't always mean the goods are delivered in honest fashion; songs became too pretentious and embarrasingly sweet to listen to - while later on OMD managed to deliver a decent single (excellent 'So In Love' and 'Forever Live and Die'), the albums have long lost their course; 'Crush' is boring, 'The Pacific Age' is pointless, 'The Best of OMD' decently summarizes their pop-career up to 1988 while 90s' comeback attempts like 'Sugar Tax' (echoing tiny bits of 'Architecture & Morality' with wonderfully catchy 'Sailing on the Seven Seas' and 'Pandora's Box'), 'Liberator' or 'Universal' all sound more like frozen ideas from where the original line-up fell apart, trying desperately to catch up with trends of the moment - far better are their b-sides; from their earliest experiments to later superficiality, 'Navigation - The OMD B-sides' (2001) does offer the other side fully continued with technological efforts. Occasional retrospectives like the excellent 'Peel Sessions' collecting their broadcasted material from the most popular period of 1979 - 83 is also well worth a check.

Remastered anthology is finally added singles and rarities as chronological counterparts which are not recommended only to fans but to anyone interested in hearing OMD as once true to their ideals.