Customer Reviews

Crush

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the OMD most people are familiar with. The big songs "So In Love" and "Secret" were chart singles and they both had videos that MTV played in their heyday. But I think this album started OMD on their short up and coming road to stardom. I like the tracks "The Native Daughters Of The Golden West", "Women III" and the title track "Crush" in which Andy McCluskey curses out the rain. OMD continued to have a couple more hits after this. They had the theme song in the movie PRETTY IN PINK (If You Leave) and the single only "Dreaming" which was the new track on the BEST OF collection. My favorite album by OMD came out after CRUSH and was entitled "The Pacific Age" which is now unfortunately nearly impossible to find on CD. CRUSH definitely put Andy McCluskey, Paul Humphreys, Martin Cooper and Malcolm Holmes on the 80's New Wave map.

I've been listening to a variety of music for many-a-year. This album was a fav in the hay-day mid 80's and to this day it remains without dust on my shelf. This is certainly a one of a kind album that no-one has tried to duplicate. Ironicaly, the best songs were the least popular, thus the are always fresh because they are never overplayed on the radio (free or satellite). I did not like much after this, Pacific age had 2-3 songs that I liked but nothing, but nothing, touches 'Crush'...

If you get this album plus one of their many greatest hits
you have completed your obligation to this band. 1986
was the height of the futuristic pop progressive movement
and OMD had been waiting for this moment since 1979.
The album reaches into glorious nostalgic riffs and exotic
synth only seen in the 86-87 window of time.

The album artwork is even nostalgic to a sort of
re-enlightenment of good sound before the dark times,
before the days of grundge.

This was the follow up to "Junk Culture." It was made popular by the release of the made-for-soundtrack tune "If You Leave," and if that's what you expect from OMD, you will not be disappointed. The singles "So In Love" and "Secret" show that when they were on ther game, they had the pop styulings down. They still stayed strange in a "Dazzle Ships" sort of way with the song "Crush," with the sampled voices between Andrew McCluskeys breathy complaints about the "f****** rain.." It is completely redeemed by the gentle tune "Hold You." It's hard to say that OMD is a must have, but if you are going to pick one that isn't their Greatest Hits CD, this is definitely the one.

This is a good album to get if you want to see what OMD is about. So In Love and Secret are well-known songs off this album. Some other really good songs off this album are Crush, Hold You, and 88 Seconds in Greensboro.

In many ways Crush was one final creative burst for the original lineup of OMD. Crush succeeds not only because it avoids gratuitous disco numbers, but because it taps into what made OMD great in the past; a balance between expirementation and pop appeal, moods of ironic melancholy, and the ability to combine music, lyrics, and cover art into one cohesive artistic presentation. "Bloc Bloc Bloc" manages to graft a rockabilly Elvis style onto an 80's keyboard pop song (no easy feat), and "88 Seconds in Greensboro' and "Native Daughters of the Golden West" take an unexpected turn with electric guitars and heavy drums. The expirementation continues with "The Lights are Going Out" and "Crush," which is built on samples of television commercials that Andy McCluskey recorded while in Japan. Lyrics are generally about dysfunctional relationships, though "88 Seconds" takes a stab at social consciousness (it's about a racially motivated massacre). Overall, the OMD sound has matured and warmed, there are some nice sax parts and drummer Malcolm Holmes serves up some tasty organic sounding grooves too. "Hold You" is the only filler track here, the rest is an engaging listen and refreshingly creative.

MELODY IS THE KEY HERE. GREAT TUNES, AND EXCELLENT ARRANGING TO GO ALONG. THIS ALBUM IS OMD'S STRONGEST OF THEIR 80'S RELEASES. HOWEVER AT LEAST ONE EXCELLENT OMD SONG CAN BE FOUND ON NEARLY EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR OTHER RELEASES. AT THE TIME OF THE RELEASE OF THIS CD, THE GROUP HAD FINALY DEVELOPED THEIR SIGNATURE SOUND.

This album has a bizarre dichotomy of songs; so much so that it's almost like it's actually two totally different EPs mixed together.

There's the über-saccharine, extremely fluffy pop album comprised of "So in Love", "Secret", and "Hold You", the latter two of which are so sweet as to be almost unlistenable.

Happily, there's also the complex, genre-defying (and sometimes downright creepy) artistic album comprised of "Bloc Bloc Bloc", "Women III", "Crush", "88 Seconds in Greensboro", "The Native Daughters of the Golden West", "La Femme Accident", and "The Lights Are Going Out". Thankfully, this "album" has more than twice as many tracks as the other.

So stark is the contrast here that I'm almost tempted to think that what this really represents is three attempts at commercial viability, and seven actual songs; this theory is strengthened by the fact that "So in Love" and "Secret" did end up being released as singles.

OMD always suffered from inconsistency in album sales, and have admitted that in order to keep making music they have had to make many concessions to their record companies for the sake of marketability. So while I certainly don't blame them for making the decisions they were forced to make (and some of the songs they were forced to create), I wish I could recommend this album without having to say "but skip tracks 1, 2, and 9."

"Especially 9."

[confession - when I was 14 I really liked "Hold You"]

Back in the day, this was the last of my OMD albums. I thought they were becoming too "pop-ish" as they progressed in years. But Women III is one of my all time OMD favorites. Especially when I saw them perform this live with the horn section dancing in the background. If you really want to hear what I feel is raw, moody and idiosyncratic OMD, try their first 3 releases: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Organisation and Architecture & Morality. They were playing tracks from these albums (like Electricity & Enola Gay)in the clubs way before Crush was released.

Covers a lot of different styles. Grows on you with repeated listens.

The hit "So In Love" of course gets it off to a great start.

"Crush" is a very strange but vividly effective stream of conciousness about someone losing his mind during a spell of bad weather and bad times. We can all relate. It's sure not a dance tune--but it's a goofy masterpiece!

"Hold On" is a sleeper you might pass over on first listen. But it's a fine love lament. I can't help feeling these songs would sound best with vocals in French, lol. It's just the attitude and the vocal style.