MY PLAYLIST: ANDY FROM ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK
It’s time to listen to Andy McCluskey’s playlist for Liverpool Music City. The OMD co-founder takes us on a journey through his personal soundtrack, sharing the songs that shaped his life and career.
From childhood memories to game-changing musical moments, Andy’s playlist is a blend of nostalgia and discovery, offering a unique insight into the influences behind one of Liverpool’s most iconic musicians.
1. Telstar by the Tornadoes
Released in 1962 when I was a baby. My amazing mother had this single in her record collection along with the Beatles and the Kinks. She had cool taste whilst raising a family. I grew up listening to my mum’s 45rpm records on an old mono Dansette record player. I had no idea at the time that Telstar was the first hit single using a synthesiser. We played a cover of it at our early OMD gigs in 1978 and ’79.
2. Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks
Another of my mother’s singles. I love this song even more now than I did as a child because I appreciate the incredible juggling act that Ray Davies achieved in combining a stunning guitar and vocal melody, backing vocals, and such beautiful but simple lyrics of classic working class urban poetry.
3. Five Years by David Bowie
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was the fist album that I ever bought. What an incredible song to start with. The drum fade in gets your attention immediately. Then the lyrics! Bowie really kicked my little suburban life into another place entirely with this tale of cold cruel surreal despair. But without poncy poetry. He is using short punchy street language to take you on this crazy journey that ends with his screaming desperation over the lush orchestration.
4. Autobahn by Kraftwerk
THE SONG that changed my life. I first heard this on the radio in summer 1975. It was everything that the 16 year old Andrew needed. Alternative. Not cliched. Intelligent. Musical but radical. I went to see the band play at the Liverpool Empire on September 11th later that year and I had never witnessed anything like it. At the height of long haired denim clad lead guitar solos… these guys looked like 1950s professors playing tea trays with electronic knitting needles. I wanted to do this but had no idea how a kid with no money from a Liverpool suburb could ever make that happen.
5. Warm Leatherette by The Normal
I first heard this slab of uncompromising electro brutalism in Eric’s Club in the summer of 1978. An aggressive alien manifesto fired out into a dark sub basement shook me to the core. Someone in England had heeded Kraftwerk’s call and taken it further than just a hidden homage in a Merseyside back room. Now was the time for Paul Humphreys and I to play live. This we did for the first time on October 12th 1978 in Eric’s dark sub basement. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was born.
6. Transmission by Joy Division
Our Factory Records label mates in 1979. Producer Martin Hannett took the primitive pieces of a remarkable young band and moulded them into a deeper darker sum of the parts.Propelled by Peter Hook’s pulsing bass and Stephen Morris’s metronomic drum pattern. This recording is the calling card. The manifesto. Bernard Sumner reimagined his role as colour effect on guitar and synth to anchor Ian Curtis’s dark poetry to the core beat below of Hook and Morris.
7. I’ve Seen that Face Before by Grace Jones
What a combination? Sly and Robbie’s slow slinking skank propelling the track forward. Jean-Paul Goude’s now iconic video. And all a reworking of Astor Piazolla’s accordion based Libertango. Grace’s albums were the soundtracks of our early 80s tours. Always playing in our little custom American tour bus as we roamed around Europe.
8. Version 2.0 by Hannah V featuring Ama Schreyer
I adore the metronomic simplicity of this track. Hannah’s programming is so tight and punchy. The minimal drum and synth parts are just an addicting repetitive glitch as Ama’s butchered vocals so beautifully and redactively represent the “new improved” version 2.0. This kicks hard from the tiniest tinniest speakers to the largest arena PA. I know this as I have heard it on both.
9. Habits (Stay High) by Tove Lo Hippy Sabotage Remix
This remix has more than twice as many views on Youtube as the original. Over one billion. The reduced programming and pitched up vocals take it to an incredible sonic higher plane. More fragile and poignant. This was just what I needed to hear when looking for a new way to distill my own band’s musical direction.
10 Ghetto Story by Cham featuring Alecia Keys
I am visiting my eldest daughter in London. Standing on a street corner in Hackney and a guy wreathed in dreads comes down the road with this blaring from the speakers on his bicycle. I just had enough time to Shazam it. I have no idea why this track wasn’t a bigger international smash hit. It’s such a tune!
