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📅 1977 🌍 Liverpool, England, UK 🎵 Synthpop

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic music group formed in Wirral, Merseyside in 1978. Spawned by earlier band The Id, the outfit originally functioned as a duo composed of founding members Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals), before other personnel were enlisted. As a group, OMD gained popularity throughout Europe with the 1980 single "Enola Gay", and achieved broader recognition via Architecture & Morality (1981) and its singles. Steadily resistant to "pop star" status, the band garnered acclaim for their experimental recordings, which were noted for their intellectual depth. Although retrospectively lauded, the challenging Dazzle Ships (1983) eroded European support during the mid 1980s; the group shifted toward more pop-oriented songwriting on Junk Culture (1984), while continuing to experiment with sounds via newly acquired digital samplers. Concurrently, the band reached their peak in the United States and had a major hit with 1986's "If You Leave", written for the film Pretty in Pink. Humphreys departed with the other members in 1989 to form The Listening Pool, leaving McCluskey to lead the outfit: Sugar Tax (1991) and its initial singles were sizeable hits in Europe. By the mid 1990s, however, synthpop had been supplanted by alternative rock, and McCluskey dissolved OMD in 1996. In 2006 the group reformed with Humphreys back in the fold, and new material followed in 2009. Their European fanbase remained steadfast: History of Modern (2010) became the band's biggest hit on the German chart; English Electric (2013) their largest in the UK since Sugar Tax. The group have sold over 40 million records and have cultivated a legacy as innovators within popular music. An influence on many artists in diverse genres, OMD's songs have been covered, remixed and sampled by numerous chart acts, and the band are the subject of two tribute albums.