Other than the clumsy intro, the tune did pop like a great single with the many repeats of the title reverberating in the choruses like a hall of mirrors. His overly boisterous mien being clearly fraudulent to anyone with a passing familiarity with Andy McCluskey. Only the intro rubbed me the wrong way with the overly jaunty arrangement perhaps contributing to McCluskey’s decision to oversing in the intro like a Muppet version of himself. This song was not without its weaknesses, but put next to “If You Leave” in the PPM comparator, it revealed a robust pop song miles better than what eventually became their calling card in America. Then came a big uptick of energy with “Goddess Of Love,” the song originally written for “Pretty In Pink” before the re-write put the kibosh on that. His work there was right “in the zone” so the sometimes strident tone he’d adopt was unheard this time. The latter evoking those from the Gizmotron® used by Godley + Creme on 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love.” One of my all-time favorite sounds. “Flame Of Hope” was a brief but compelling song with some of the best McCluskey vocal leads on the whole album. The track began with a revisit of the Japanese ad samples looped to make an abstract rhythm pattern while the sampled strings added dignity along with the sampled leads. I concur, and commenter Richard Anvil had yesterday mentioned that “This Town” was originally slated for the album with “Flame Of Hope” earmarked as the B-side for “ Live + Die.” Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and the more interesting and typical “Flame Of Hope” found it way on the album. The next song actually was intended as B-side material, but in the recording of the demo, the band quickly realized that “Flame Of Hope” was too good to be lost to a B-side. Of course, OMD being OMD, there was second, questioning narrative voice included on the end of the track as an announcer spoke words wondering if the history of black America was so awful, that casual prejudice instead of overt strife and despair was as good as it would ever be. It really didn’t feel at home on the album to these ears. It had the feel of a B-side rather than an LP deep cut. This was nothing of the sort, and truth be told. It was surprising to hear this track placed first on side two normally the place for a hit single. They had some of the heft that one could find in John Cale’s “Helen Of Troy.” I’d go as far as saying that they were the height of OMD dalliance with a horn section. The best thing about this track were the heraldic horns from the Weir Brothers. I can’t shake the feeling that Paul Hardcastle’s “19” set the stage for this track, though King’s speech was thankfully not scratched to the beat. How appropriate that on the day following Martin Luther King Day that we turn our attention to “Southern.” This was another scarce OMD instrumental or would have been had it not had excerpts from Martin Luther King’s final speech in Memphis on behalf of the striking sanitation workers in April of 1968. Orchestral Manœuvres In The Dark – The Pacific Age | 1986 – 2.5
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