OMD

How important were OMD to the history of music?  A Scottish newspaper once published the following:  " If Kraftwerk were the Elvis Presley of synth-pop, then Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were its Beatles".  And Vince Clarke has cited their first single, "Electricity" and it's b-side "Almost" as his primary motivation for starting Depeche Mode.  (Were Depeche Mode the Rolling Stones of synth-pop?) Though they started making music around the same time as similarly inspired acts Human League and Gary Numan (an inspiration I would perhaps most succinctly describe as attempting to be Kraftwerk with more pop chart success), I consider them as one of the key pioneers in making electronic pop music that not only came to define the sound of the 80s, but eventually the sound of most types of pop music since created.

In celebration of their 40th anniversary this year, OMD recently released a 7 disc box set titled Souvenir.  It contains 2 cds of each of their singles over the past 40 years, including a great brand new one called "Don't Go", 1 cd of never before released studio outtakes - some of which are complete songs (including the never before heard title track of their ninth album "Liberator"), 2 live concert cds, one from 2011 and one from 1985, a dvd with all of their performances from BBC TV (mostly Top Of The Pops), and a dvd with a live show from 1981, a live show from 1985, and the movie Crush, which contains videos from each track from that album.  The set also includes a hardback book that contains at least one page of artwork for each of their singles, an essay by Paul Morley, and something written by Andy about the outtakes Paul collected on cd 3 of the set.

Even though it was a little expensive (though much cheaper from Amazon UK than from Amazon US), I have really been enjoying the material in this set.  It is great to have a complete set of all OMD singles on the first two cds.  I really like a couple of the previously unreleased songs on the third cd, and the live shows are also fun to listen to.  The entire audio contents of the box are available to stream on Apple Music (and I assume also other streaming services) and also 2cd and 3lp collections of just the singles are available for purchase separately.  I highly recommend checking it out!