OMD To Celebrate 40 Years Of ‘Crush’ With New Reissue
The new edition includes seven unreleased tracks.
Following the recent 40th anniversary of the band’s Junk Culture, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD) have announced a 40th anniversary celebration of their US breakthrough record, Crush.
The expanded album will be released on October 10 on UMR/Virgin. To celebrate the news, the band has shared “Dirt (B-Side),” which was originally a B-Side to the single “Secret.”
First released on June 17, 1985, the band’s sixth album took OMD across the pond and became their breakthrough record in the United States. Spearheaded by the single “So In Love,” which entered the Billboard Top 40, and radio smash “Secret,” the album received acclaim in the U.S. and also saw success in the UK and Europe. It peaked at No.13 on the UK Official Album Chart.
Working from a batch of demos, bandleaders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, plus multi-instrumentalist Martin Cooper and drummer Malcolm Holmes, began recording Crush in Liverpool’s Amazon Studios in the late winter of 1984. Having laid down what they could in Amazon, they then relocated to the more secluded facilities of The Manor, in the heart of Oxfordshire, where they enlisted US-born producer Stephen Hague to help finish the album.
“We felt for the first time like we needed somebody to help us focus on the production,” McCluskey says. “We were too close to these half-written songs and needed someone who could be a little bit more objective. Stephen had a very slick production sound. Maybe unconsciously, we were also thinking, ‘If we’re going to break America, we need to be a bit more polished.’”
The 40th celebration of Crush will arrive on 2LP black and colored vinyl, as well as 2CD and digital formats. Remastered from the original analog files, the special anniversary release sees a wealth of brand new material including seven unreleased tracks from the album’s multitrack sessions, mixed by Paul Humphreys. The release also comes with two demos, an alternative mix, four never-before-heard songs, plus non-album b-sides and extended or 12” mixes, some of which have never been reissued or issued on CD/digitally. The package is rounded out with rare photos and comprehensive notes by journalist and author Jason Draper in conversation with Andy McCluskey.
Shop OMD’s 40th anniversary edition of Crush on vinyl or CD now.
