Post-Punk Monk

[…continued from last post]

The rest of disc two offers a large [but not complete] sampling of the various B-sides and remixes that accompanied the original album release campaign but as usual, the devils [or in this case, the angels] are in the details. It’s true that the odd live track which accompanied the original singles of “So In Love” on 2×7” and “La Femme Accident” on 2×12” [“White Trash” and “Locomotion” respectively] are not here, their absence was compensated for in other ways.

OMD: Crush DLX RM – UK – 2xCD [2025]

CD 1 – 1985 album

1. So In Love
2. Secret
3. Bloc Bloc Bloc
4. Women III
5. Crush
6. 88 Seconds In Greensboro
7. The Native Daughters Of The Golden West
8. La Femme Accident
9. Hold You
10. The Lights Are Going Out

CD 2 – singles + rarities

1. Wheels of Steel
2. Lana Turner v.1
3. Hold You (Rough)
4. Choral
5. Lana Turner v.2
6. Drift (Demo)
7. All or Nothing (Demo)
8. Concrete Hands
9. Firegun [extended version]
10. Maria Gallante
11. Drift
12. Secret (Version Remix)
13. So In Love (Special American Dance Remix)
14. So In Love (Extended)
15. La Femme Accident (12″ Mix)
16. Concrete Hands (Extended)

“Concrete Hands” was the B-side from “So In Love” which featured a loose-limbed vibe married with synth bass and a lonesome trail whistle sample over what felt like a dub rhythm track. It seemed more like OMD than a few of the tracks on the “Crush” album. But the same could not be said for “Firegun.”

The B-side to “La Femme Accident” gave fans who bought it the two best tracks recorded that year in a tidy package. “Firegun” was almost like Gothic New Order; electro loops, jangly rhythm guitar, cowbell and growling Fairlight attaining a menace only enhanced by the lyrics as intoned by Andy McCluskey for the entire song in split octave vocals to emphasize the sense of distraught unease. Best of all was the fact that this greatest of 1985 songs by the band was here in a new, extended length edit! The 4:37 track had been put here in a previously unreleased 5:44 edit. With what seemed like an extended intro that built up to the vocal portion of the song.

“Hear us pray
Sisters, slay your brothers
Mothers, slay your sons
Heaven isn’t waiting any more”

“Firegun”

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“Maria Gallante” was a trifle singsong and seemed like a nursery rhyme so that the under three minute song felt much longer. An example of an OMD B-side that felt like a B-side. Usually their flipsides were something to treasure. “Drift” was a rare, and pithy, OMD B-side instrumental; why should Simple Minds have all of the fun?

Speaking of fun, the rest of the program was the 12” versions of the various A/B-sides. We got maximum fun right up front with a rare French promo 12” mix of “Secret” that this OMD fan had no idea about until now. The more familiar 12” mix is on the silver disc elsewhere, so I was happy to have this alternate, beatbox heavy, almost dub mix of the track. I love the synth bass emphasis given to the hook here. It’s great that I had no idea of this record before hand since I could not have afforded a copy. Kudos to whomever made the decision to include this instead of the typical 12” mix.

Next both 12” mixes of “So In Love” were included. The US mix [the stronger of the two] came first and I wish they had started with the more tentative UK remix first to allow the cut to blossom. All the beatboxing made the treacly track seem a little tougher, but the US mix was cut much hotter and more aggressive.

Even though I dearly loved the elegant poise of the LP mix of “La Femme Accident,” there was something bold and maybe even endearingly crass about the 12” mix that I’ve always loved as well; albeit in a different way. James Brown samples and all. Again, the transformation of the track via aggressive beatboxing completely remade the track into something entirely different.

Finally, the song “Concrete Hands” was a rare 12” extended B-side by the band; given that the first UK 12” single for “So In Love” didn’t have an extended A-side at first, the notion was to remix the B-side in that case. I liked the grinding Fairlight samples in the funky train intro. Even so an extended 12” track at 4:15 instead of 3:47 wasn’t going to give us time for boredom. Though in all honesty, this was a dub mix of the track instead of an extended 12” mix. And I thought it worked well in dub.

This was not a DLX RM that I had been clamoring for, but I have to admit that OMD have hit the very sweet spot of quality, content and even price with this desirable version of “Crush” that fully justified the effort. The mastering by Miles Showell avoids brickwalling and that’s always a treat. Now it’s making me wonder what we might get with a DLX RM of the weakest original OMD phase one album, “The Pacific Age?” I say they should go all the way! As for Phase Two [Andy only] OMD albums of the 90s, I’ll adopt a wait and see posture. Though “Sugar Tax” was certainly a top seller, I feel that one at the least is inevitable. And given OMDs renewed popularity of late, maybe the other two will ultimately follow.

It’s been interesting to see OMD avoiding the ultrabox syndrome of 5-7 discs in an elaborate box that their peers Ultravox and Simple Minds have proffered. They only have done one of those, 2019’s “Souvenir,” and while I passed on it initially, I eventually bought it and found it to be worth the effort, even paying a slight premium in the aftermarket for my copy. While I collect all three bands, there are big boxes of the latter two that I will never ever own. I can’t say that I would pass up a 2xCD of ”The Pacific Age” at this point as long as they lob it in our direction at low cost. This cost me $17.50! A no-brainer by my reckoning. And it’s still out there for the taking. DJ hit that button!

-30-

In 1985, OMD finally managed to gain a foothold in the American Top 40 with their single “So In Love,” which matched the Top 30 performance of the song in the UK charts almost to a number. Number 27 in the UK and 26 [!] in the US. I enthusiastically bought the album on CD in 1985. But as with many favorite acts, I felt that it was a weak showing on the new CD format from a formerly top ranked band I loved, and I grew disenchanted with it and my opinion of it ebbed over the decades.

But when I listened…hard, to the OMD canon for the Rock G.P.A. thread it swapped positions with “The Pacific Age” which I had liked better for many years. Hearing it freshly after a long period, I was surprised to find that I felt that the ratio of wheat to chaff had changed over time and my esteem for “Crush” rose a few points.

When the band finally relented and planned an expanded issue that many fans [particularly the US ones, for which this had been their point of entry with OMD] had been clamoring for, I found myself much more interested in the effort than I would have been, let’s say, twenty years earlier. What I think of the album hasn’t changed since I covered it here. So let’s turn the spotlight on to the reason why we purchased a second copy of the album; the bonus material on disc two.

OMD: Crush DLX RM – UK – 2xCD [2025]

CD 1 – 1985 album

1. So In Love
2. Secret
3. Bloc Bloc Bloc
4. Women III
5. Crush
6. 88 Seconds In Greensboro
7. The Native Daughters Of The Golden West
8. La Femme Accident
9. Hold You
10. The Lights Are Going Out

CD 2 – singles + rarities

1. Wheels of Steel
2. Lana Turner v.1
3. Hold You (Rough)
4. Choral
5. Lana Turner v.2
6. Drift (Demo)
7. All or Nothing (Demo)
8. Concrete Hands
9. Firegun [extended version]
10. Maria Gallante
11. Drift
12. Secret (Version Remix)
13. So In Love (Special American Dance Remix)
14. So In Love (Extended)
15. La Femme Accident (12″ Mix)
16. Concrete Hands (Extended)

The main Monk-bait here were the previously unreleased tracks one through seven on the second disc. The unreleased tracks on the “Souvenir” boxed set were surprisingly good. The remaining nine tracks technically resided int he Record Cell on one various single or another for 40 years, but that was only in theory, as we shall see. The unreleased tracks were taken from the multitracks for the album and recently mixed by Paul Humphreys.

“Wheels Of Steel” was already legendary for being the start point to a song that eventually got released a quarter century later as “The Future, The Past, And Forever After.” I had expected more connective tissue than what we got here, as only the train rhythms of the drum track and the title phrase were common between the tracks. This was a compelling track though. I liked it’s elegance and poise better than much of “Crush” but the band and producer thought otherwise.

There were two versions here of the song “Lana Turner!” Andy claimed to have heard a band opening up for a show in the Liverpool Stadium called Burlesque, perform a song called “Lana Turner” and became smitten with the idea of revisiting that to the point of taking the existing song [not very good, from the band’s 1977 live album “Acupuncture”] and running with it. Or most likely, hobbling with it.

The melody is similar as was the titular focus of the song, and a few of the lyrics remained in place. But hearing the first, better, version here, the best that could be said for it was that it played like a lost cut from the “Junk Culture” album. They were using the same Synclavier steel drum and bass samples as on that earlier album, but I would deem the effort for naught.

Shockingly, McCluskey revealed in the liner notes that he gave it to Murray Head to record and “Lana Turner” ended up as a cassette bonus track on the Canadian edition of Head’s 1987 “Sooner Or Later” album! The less said about version two the better. Suffice to say replacing the steel drum sample with one fingered piano and tremolo guitar only ended up taking the track down the path to Chas + Dave territory! Oh dear.

Much better was “Hold You [Rough]” wherein my least favorite track from “Crush” got the synths removed completely for something close to jazz where the live drums and piano made the vibe much more humane than the cold-blooded professionalism of the same song on “Crush.” The lyrics here were the only straightforward love song from the McCluskey pen, and he regretted listening to producer Stephen Hague and re-writing it into the [very typical for him] embittered love song I know and dread. I never would have imagined any version of this song working for me, but I had to admit, that the lack of slick sax and synths made a huge difference in vibe here that I responded positively to.

The intro to “Choral” featured a familiar sample fans of “Goddess Of Love” would recognize. It was the result of the band building a collage up of Fairlight samples and trying to hammer it into a song structure. I liked the slightly portentous vibe and the darkness would have been a good addition to the “Crush” program, but they never finished it off. Until now. It’s at least strong B-side material.

The demo of the instrumental “Drift” [“Secret” B-side] sounded very much like the final version, though its length here was about half of that of the final version. It’s still a great glimpse of Paul Humphreys and Martin Cooper coming up with a strong instrumental. Finally, “All Or Nothing” was another brief instrumental that had originally been recorded on the “Junk Culture” sessions and revisited at the time of “Crush.” It had previously been issued on the 2015 DLX RM of “Junk Culture” and the version here was sans vocals and with a more sprightly tempo, which I think helped the song.

Next: …Not The Same As It Ever Was