OMD Gets All Mixed Up

01/04/1999 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Lyndsey Parker

(1/4/99, 1 p.m. PST) - For years, seminal synth-pop act OMD shied away from doing remixes of its material. "We were always very precious with [our songs], and we didn't want other people to inflict their vision upon us, because we felt we had a pretty clear vision of what we wanted," explains OMD leader Andy McCluskey. "There's nothing worse than somebody doing a remix axe-murder of your favorite track!"

But when it came time to release OMD's new best-of collection and swan song, The OMD Singles, McCluskey (who is now officially retiring the OMD name and moving on to new projects) finally decided "not to be too precious and let some hand-picked people have a remix at a few." The result is the three-song companion EP, The OMD Remixes, which features the OMD vs. Sash!! version of perennial favorite "Enola Gay," a haunting Moby mix of "Souvenir," and the Micronauts' radical reconstruction/ deconstruction of "Electricity."

So what changed McCluskey's mind? Well, aside from thinking the remix experiment would be "a bit of fun," he cites the practical reason of promoting the new best-of compilation, without having to resort to slapping an unreleased song on an album that's supposed to contain only actual hits. "You know record companies always want a new tool for marketing," he rationalizes. "The usual thing is, you release a best-of album and you stick a new single on there. Which is a complete and utter f--king conceit: 'Here is our best tracks from 20 years, and oh, here is a new one as well, which qualifies as a best one.' Totally conceited! So we decided not to do that."

This would also explain why McCluskey and former bandmate/ OMD co-founder Paul Humphreys--both of whom re-recorded their vocals for the "Enola Gay" and "Souvenir" remixes, respectively--chose not to include the remixes on The OMD Singles, but to release them on a separate EP. "The album is as you remember [the songs]. Remixes date really quickly; we know in three years' time, the Sash remix of 'Enola Gay' will sound more old-fashioned that the original 'Enola Gay,'" McCluskey reasons.

When choosing the remixers for this project, McCluskey admits, "There was an element of tying this to current musicians and trends that have been directly or indirectly influenced by things we did, so it sort of tied the timeline together. We've noticed that [OMD] has been getting namechecked quite a lot by current trendy mixers and dance people and bands. And so we thought it would be interesting to make that connection, if you like, with current relevance. So we hand-picked a few people that we knew would be interested in doing it because they'd mentioned that they liked us."

Moby was an obvious choice for "Souvenir," McCluskey says, "because Architecture & Morality, the album it came from, is one of his top five albums of all time." As for Sash, McCluskey hears a lot of similarities between Sash's music and OMD's. "Sash--aside from the four-on-the-floor, heavy-techno kickdrum--is four-chord progressions with simple melodies. It's early OMD with a techno kickdrum--he knows it and we know it! His version of 'Enola Gay' sounds just like Sash--I've proved my point!"

The oddest choice has to be the Micronauts, whose "Electricity" mix is getting a very mixed (no pun intended) response from OMD fans. On one OMD website, a fan posted, "A big mistake, in my humble opinion, is the Micro errr thingies' version of 'Electricity'... a mistake if you ask me...a BIG mistake." Such a reaction is probably due to the fact that the remix is so extreme, it barely resembles the original "Electricity" (OMD's first hit, released on the legendary Factory Records label in 1979).

"[The Micronauts' mix is] hardcore slab-industrial stuff that bears virtually no relationship to 'Electricity.' In fact, there are more samples of another song of ours, called 'Bunker Soldiers,' in it than there is of 'Electricity,'" laughs McCluskey, obviously much more at ease with the remix concept that he has been in the past. "But we just thought it was relevant, because we liked what they did; they took a real stab in the dark, and they tried to do something that was as radical in 1998 as perhaps 'Electricity' was in 1979. I actually do genuinely like it; it doesn't have the melody or the words that 'Electricity' has, but that's cool. It's a remix!"

As for The OMD Singles, diehards should be pleased that it includes the sublime "Walking On The Milky Way" (from 1996's little-heard Universal, which was not released in the U.S.) and other later-period OMD tunes, but some may again be dismayed by what's not on the compilation. McCluskey explains it was difficult deciding what to leave on and leave off. "The problem is, I have over 30 singles to choose from, and I didn't want some kind of stick-'em-all-on double-CD which people have to wade through. How many best-of albums have you listened to where the first five are hits and then it starts to get a bit thin...'Oh, don't remember that one,' or 'That was the one the drummer wrote!' They're not really best-ofs; it's five hits and the rest is filler. So I knew I was going to leave out somebody's favorite."

One excluded favorite of this writer's is "Secret," but McCluskey has no regrets about ruling that one out. "I'm sorry, I hate that song," he blurts candidly. "That's one that the Americans know and is not on and they'll probably be pissed off, but I actually find that song a bit cheesy."

Also not included are any songs from 1983's Dazzle Ships, an experimental and somewhat inaccessible album which McCluskey admits was knee-jerk reaction to the hype surrounding its predecessor, the 1981 breakthrough Architecture & Morality. ("Somebody said, 'Oh, you've just got to make Architecture & Morality No. 2, and you'll be the next Genesis.' Which was absolutely not what I needed to hear! I went off in completely the other direction, cut off my nose to spite my face.") Considering that Dazzle Ships was a major commercial letdown that McCluskey describes as "hard to listen to," it's no surprise that it's not represented on The OMD Singles--though again, this might be disappoint some devotees. "The intelligentsia, the hardcore OMD fans, always say they like that one the most. But they would, wouldn't they? Because it's the one everyone else hates!" jokes McCluskey.

Fear not, however: plenty of silky synth songs that we all love, like "Joan Of Arc," "Tesla Girls," "Locomotion," "If You Leave," "(Forever) Live And Die," and "Dreaming," are included on The OMD Singles. "I'm rather proud of the fact that I feel they're all pretty good from beginning to end," McCluskey boasts. "It's not like, 'Well, they peaked in '81 and it was all sh-t after that!'"

Look for a full OMD feature soon on myLAUNCH.

-- Lyndsey Parker, Los Angeles