OMD RELEASE ARCHITECTURE & MORALITY
6 NOVEMBER 1981
CLASSIC POP MOMENTS
© Getty
When Architecture & Morality was released in November 1981, it was Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s third LP in just under two years. By now a four-piece (drummer Malcolm Holmes and saxophonist Martin Cooper had joined as full-time members in 1980), they’d entered the studio with aims of broadening their sound. As Andy McCluskey told the BBC in 2006: “Having done a first album of sort of garage/punk/electronic and the second album that was a lot more dark and gothic and inspired by Joy Division, I think we were looking for a new direction and found a lot of influence in the emotional power of religious music.” Recording took place over two months at The Manor Studio at Shipton-on-Cherwell, with additional sessions completed at the band’s own Gramophone Suite in Liverpool. The album’s title was suggested by sleeve designer Peter Saville’s girlfriend Martha Ladly (of Martha And The Muffins fame), and inspired by architectural historian David Watkin’s 1977 book Morality And Architecture. McCluskey was sold on the idea, saying: “We had the ‘architecture’, which was the technology, the drum machines, the rigid playing, the attempt to break out of the box by playing specifically crafted sounds, and the ‘morality’, the organic, the human, the emotional touch, which we brought naturally.” Despite three of its singles – Souvenir, Joan Of Arc and Maid Of Orleans (The Waltz Joan Of Arc) – going Top 5 in the UK, Architecture & Morality received lukewarm reviews on its release, proving that sometimes even critics can get it wrong. In the years since, it’s been rightly celebrated as one of the greatest synth-pop albums of all time.