Darkest Before The Dawn

01/11/1999 2:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Lyndsey Parker

"This has been, strangely enough, quite good fun," marvels Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark's Andy McCluskey, calling from Virgin Records' Beverly Hills headquarters, as he embarks on yet another phone interview to promote his band's glossy new best-of package and swan song, The OMD Singles. "I'm quite enjoying being able to talk about OMD because it's over--I can be honest, and brutal, and frank, instead of trying to jam some new product down people's throats and saying, 'Oh, this is better than the last one, buy it!'"

Honest, brutal and frank is right. Now that Andy has decided to permanently retire the OMD moniker (under which he has basically recorded solo since 1989, when he and founding partner Paul Humphreys went their separate ways), he feels perfectly comfortable voicing his insightful (and often incisive) opinions on music critics, record companies, '80s band reunions, even his own erratic discography. His stinging comments are much like OMD's classic epics of electronic ennui ("Enola Gay," "So In Love," "Dreaming"), in that the lighthearted delivery often belies the darkness and bitterness beneath the seemingly sunny surface.

"It has been a trait of OMD's that we have had what appear to be sort of cheerful, bouncy little pop songs, which lyrically had some pretty serious or melancholy content. And I think, to be honest, that's part of my natural schizophrenia," Andy remarks, again, laughingly and lightheartedly. "On the outside, I am very bubbly, bouncy and happy; but I'm actually a big worrier, a depressive, miserable bastard on the inside. So it's a balance that I walk in my own life, which probably comes out in the music!"

OMD's frothy dance melodies, quirky synthesizer lines and "bouncy little pop songs" made them one of the most successful groups of the 1980s' MTV-driven British Invasion, but unfortunately and unfairly, this emphasis on the upbeat often prevented OMD from being taken seriously. Though a recent Spin magazine review gave The OMD Singles a nine out of 10 (a higher score than the latest singles collection by Eurodisco peers Depeche Mode received), and one listen to any of the 18 pioneering tracks on The OMD Singles makes it clear that without OMD, '90s electronica gurus like Sash, Moby and the Micronauts (all of whom performed cut-and-paste DJ duties on the best-of's companion EP, The OMD Remixes) would not exist, in the past OMD did not always get the respect they deserved from rock critics and other musical snobs.

"Most critics are very serious boys, who grew up being very serious teenage boys and never grew out of it. They still think that music is going to change the world, they still think that being serious is what it's all about, and they have no truck with shiny bouncy pop music," shrugs the affable Andy. "Therefore, they cannot see that actually writing a brilliantly constructed, can't-get-the-tune-out-of-your-head, great-lyric, dancey, bounce-along pop song is the hardest f--king thing in the world to do! It either takes genius or it takes damn hard work and knowing your craft--or a combination of the two. Believe me, it is damn easier to be experimental and sound tuneless and painful and awful, but pass it off as art!"

OMD's new hits collection serves as an impressive memorial of the band's two-decade recording career--it's almost shocking how wonderful and blissful vintage synth songs like the high-strung "Electricity," heavenly "Souvenir," cheeky "Tesla Girls" and plaintive "(Forever) Live And Die" sound today--and it is winning OMD some long-overdue critical appreciation. Take that into consideration along with the current wave of '80s/ new wave nostalgia, and it seems a shame that Andy has chosen this point in time to silence OMD for good. But Andy is sensible, not sentimental, about his final decision. "I think that, understandably, the band is perceived as a sort of quintessential '80s English synth-pop band," he states matter-of-factly. "The last three albums I've released have not been particularly successful, and in the end, the writing's on the wall. Every band has its time, and I don't want to be some sad f--ker banging my head against that wall." As for the so-called '80s revival (spearheaded by the reunions of Blondie, Culture Club, Bauhaus, etc.), he dismisses that curious pop culture phenomenon with a cluck of his sharp tongue, saying, "It's not a revival, it's a nostalgia boom, which I think will be short-lived. Everybody's doing it for their own reasons. All I can say is I have my reasons for stopping."

Perhaps one of those reasons is the current state of the music business and Andy's relationship with longtime label Virgin Records, neither of which have benefited OMD's fledgling career as of late. "I've been in the business a long time, I'm a big boy, and I have to deal with the realities of the music industry. That's exactly what it is--it's music, and it's industry. One person's art is another person's product," he sighs. "I have to deal with hardcore OMD fans emailing me on the website saying, 'Why hasn't Virgin done this and why haven't they done that?' And it's like, yeah, I'm pissed off as well, but I can't get blood out of a stone; if Virgin doesn't want to promote it, they're not going to promote it. I mean, these interviews I'm doing today, I'm only doing them because I was in town! I phoned them up three weeks ago and said, 'Hey, I'm giving you Monday and Tuesday--get me some interviews!' They wouldn't have asked me to come over and do them. OMD is not a priority for them. What they decide to promote is influenced by the accounting department, not by anybody being particularly in love with the music. You just have to accept that. Virgin is probably still better than most, but it's a painful reality for me to have to accept after all these years, that a label I made millions for in the '80s--on the back of a deal that was just this side of criminal, that I got paid peanuts for whilst they were making millions off of me--now I'm not a priority and they can't be bothered. I understand it, but it makes me increasingly determined to move on. I've made the right decision, I'm moving on."

Andy's inevitable resolution was no doubt foreshadowed on OMD's final studio LP, 1996's Universal, which, contrary to its title and much to the dismay of both Andy and countless American OMD fans, Virgin opted not to put out in the States (though Andy says it may eventually see a U.S. release). One of the album's most soaring and sensational cuts--which many U.S. listeners will finally, thankfully, hear for the first time on The OMD Singles--was "Walking On The Milky Way," a classic example of OMD's jubilant melody/ melancholy lyric dichotomy. Wistful, naked reflections like "I don't believe in miracles, I don't believe in truth/ I don't believe that anything can recreate your youth" and "As time goes by, reality destroys your hope and dignity" stunningly summed up where Andy's head was at the time.

"The whole album, really, was the most obviously autobiographical," he says of the unjustly overlooked Universal. "In some ways, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy: I wrote an album about 'why am I still in the music industry?' and looking back and being a bit nostalgic--in some sense, I was doing my own epitaph! But with 'Walking On The Milky Way'...that's a nice subject for a song, you don't get many songs about growing old, or growing up, and losing all that sort of naïve arrogant energy you have as a teenager, and how you deal with life when you're in a business that still requires you to be eternally juvenile.

"I confidently feel that there was some great stuff on that album," he continues proudly. "'Walking On The Milky Way' is one of the best songs I ever wrote in my life. I am convinced of that. I thought, 'That's it! I can't write a better song than that!' It's as good as 'Enola Gay,' 'Maid Of Orleans,' 'If You Leave'...pick any five from the rest of the [greatest hits] album, it's as good as them. And I can't do any better than that. And that's why I decided that there was nothing wrong with the message, it was the messenger that was being resisted!" (Much like the inappropriately chuckling Dr. Hibbert on The Simpsons, Andy finishes this seemingly sad statement with another bizarrely bemused giggle.) "So all right, f--k it. Either somebody else can sing them, or I'll do it under another name."

Yes, fear not, Andy may be retiring the OMD name, but he is not retiring from music biz altogether. For a long time after original bandmate Paul quit OMD, Andy admits that he "hid behind the band name" because he was "chicken," and he "figured 'Andy McCluskey' wasn't that well-known, and it was a crap name for a pop star, anyway." But now that Andy has finally decided to stop "hiding" behind OMD's "recognizable trademark," he says he feels more creatively galvanized than he has in years. "In many ways it's actually very exciting, because once I've got my head around the fact that I'm moving on, I already have, and it's like one of those 'boy, I wish I'd done this years ago!' kind of revelations," he enthuses. "The shackles, the straitjacket--having to think in one way and keep going down that same road that I'd been going, trying to find something new to say and do--they've all been removed! Now I've got this brand-new piece of paper I can draw on all over again! It's been such good fun to work outside of the limitations of OMD!"

At the moment, working outside said limitations involves a prefabricated all-girl pop band that Andy is masterminding, Malcolm McLaren-style, with fellow OMD mate Stuart Kershaw. ("It's manufactured, but then again, all music is manufactured to one degree or another," Andy reasons.) Stuart and Andy started the ambitious, high-concept project--which will showcase their behind-the-scenes songwriting and production talents--with a prototype group of teen girls dubbed Honeyhead, but that group has since been replaced by an as-yet-unnamed female ensemble that Andy gushingly describes as "mental as toast" (which presumably means "very good"). Judging from his unwavering enthusiasm and continued confidence in his ability to pen perfect pop songs (recently, he was cranking out new girl-group gems at the rapid rate of three or more a week), it's certain that by any other name, Andy's music will still sound just as sweet.

"We have completely embraced the beauty of kitsch, of marketable pop. It suits our purposes entirely!" Andy proclaims of his new teenybop venture. "This is just great fun. I intend at least for a year or two to live vicariously through some young people, and be like a vampire of pop." Obviously, this practiced popcraftsman still knows how to satisfy the record-buying public's thirst for fresh blood.