Architecture & Morality

Background

During the initial sessions for Architecture & Morality, OMD were looking for a new musical direction. Frontman Andy McCluskey, a longtime atheist, told how the band "found a lot of influence in the emotional power of religious music". McCluskey informed Melody Maker at the time, "I haven't gone and 'got God'... It's just trying to understand why people need religion and believe in it." The group spent two months recording at The Manor Studio, Shipton-on-Cherwell, with additional recording completed at the band's own Gramophone Suite in Liverpool. Mixing took place at Mayfair Studios, London. Instrumentalist Martin Cooper left and re-joined the group during the making of the album, missing the bulk of the sessions. During his absence he formed Godot with former OMD session musician David Hughes.

A catalyst in the development of OMD's new sound was Hughes' use of the band's studio to manipulate choral samples he had recorded; the album is noted for making liberal use of those samples, as well as of the Mellotron, a mechanical tape-replay keyboard. The group introduced other new instruments, including prominent guitars on opening track "The New Stone Age", whose sound was intended to startle the OMD audience. All of these measures combined to produce a more naturalistic, emotive sound than on previous OMD releases.

According to the album's credits, its title was suggested to the band by Martha Ladly (formerly of Martha and the Muffins), who had read the 1977 book Morality and Architecture by David Watkin. Ladly, who was also a designer, was at the time the girlfriend of Peter Saville, the album's sleeve designer. McCluskey felt the title Architecture & Morality represented the interplay between the human and mechanical aspects of OMD: "We had the 'architecture', which was the technology, the drum machines, the rigid playing, the attempt to break out of the box by playing specifically crafted sounds, and the 'morality', the organic, the human, the emotional touch, which we brought naturally."

"Souvenir" was the first track to be written for the album. "Sealand" was named after the Royal Air Force's Sealand base on the Wirral; it is also a nod to the Neu! song "Seeland". The sample-heavy title track was compiled in the studio over a three-day period. "The Beginning and the End" was an older composition that the band had previously attempted to record but had shelved due to being unsatisfied with the results. The songs avoided the verse-chorus-verse format, utilising lengthy instrumental passages and substituting choruses with synthesizer lines. Lyrics were largely inspired by historical figures and events, including Joan of Arc, after whom two songs were named. The tenth-through-sixteenth tracks of the remastered edition are bonus tracks and were B-sides from the album's three singles – except for "Gravity Never Failed", which was an out-take from the Architecture & Morality sessions (its original title, "Georgia", was transferred to another song on the record). This track was envisaged as a single, but was not released until it featured as the B-side of "Dreaming" (1988). "Of All the Things We've Made", and a completed version of "The Romance of the Telescope (Unfinished)", would appear on OMD's next album, Dazzle Ships (1983).

The cover artwork was produced by Peter Saville and associate Brett Wickens. Inspirations included "art movements like The Circle, and... mid-century iconic furniture like [Le] Corbusier and [Alvar] Aalto".

Singles

Architecture & Morality yielded three singles, all of which reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart: "Souvenir" (number three), "Joan of Arc" (number five), and "Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)" (number four), a retitled "Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)". Two singles were also successful in a variety of territories, with "Souvenir" and "Maid of Orleans" each charting at number one in various European countries; the latter became Germany's biggest-selling single of 1982. "Joan of Arc" was only released in the UK. The three singles sold eight million copies combined.

Dindisc proposed "She's Leaving" as a fourth single, but the group refused, believing this would over-exploit the album; the label did proceed with a small-scale release in the Benelux region. OMD later regretted their decision, attributing it to being young and pretentious. Classic Pop described "She's Leaving" as "the great OMD single that never was".

Critical reception

Architecture & Morality was met with a lukewarm critical response. Lynden Barber of Melody Maker wrote: "I don't believe the Orchs even care about this record... the style is the same, the content profoundly different, the onslaught of emptiness, frivolity disguised by furrowed brows, a new brand of meaninglessness." Rolling Stone journalist David Fricke observed an "awkward mix of dreamy romanticism and spatial, Pink Floyd-ian abstractions", concluding that "too much sincerity and not enough spunk... make for attractive but dull fare." Paul Morley of NME said the album contains some "beautiful moments, melodically and structurally", but is "too polite to assault, excite or disturb the intellect. Too many meditative passages, too few climaxes of assertion." Record Mirrors Daniela Soave cautioned that the record "requires more effort on the listener's part", adding, "Although I had misgivings initially, Architecture & Morality is no disappointment."

Other critics were unapologetically favourable. Dave McCullough of Sounds gave a five-star review in which he referred to Architecture & Morality as OMD's "best album yet" and a "classic in the making", while the Belfast Telegraphs Jim Cusack called it an "excellent album" by a band with "higher interests and concepts in music than most others of their genre." Ian Cranna of Smash Hits noted "varied and imaginative arrangements" that enhance the group's "wonderful melodies and intelligent lyrics", summarising the record as OMD's "most impressive achievement to date". Architecture & Morality was included in Billboards "Recommended LPs".

"We didn't think it got the respect it deserved", said McCluskey in 1983. "We put a lot into it and we really loved it... anything which undermines our own unstable balance creates a problem for us." Sean O'Neal of The A.V. Club told how OMD responded to lacklustre reviews of the album by "pursu[ing] a darker, more defiantly experimental direction on its 1983 follow-up, Dazzle Ships—only to have the critics belatedly declare [Architecture & Morality] a masterpiece." In particular, a 1984 Melody Maker article, in which Helen Fitzgerald labelled the record "the first true masterpiece of the Eighties", offset the unflattering contemporary review printed in the magazine.

In the All Music Guide to Rock (2002), Ned Raggett wrote: "Combining everything from design and presentation to even the title into an overall artistic effort, this album showed that OMD was arguably the first Liverpool band since the later Beatles to make such a sweeping, all-bases-covered achievement." Mark Lindores of Classic Pop asserted that "Merging the machinations of German electronica with warm Merseyside melodies and otherworldly choral samples... OMD struck the perfect balance between experimentalism and commercial appeal." In Record Collector, John Doran observed an "astonishing record" whose content ranges from atmospheric love songs to the "propulsive and [Gary] Numanesque 'The New Stone Age'" and the sample-heavy "Georgia"; Doran also had praise for Saville's "austere and iconic" cover art. Author Lori Majewski said, "Architecture and Morality is so original, so special, so sublime, that if there were no other new wave bands to speak of, the entire genre could still hang its hat solely on that record."

Legacy

Architecture & Morality has appeared in several lists of 1981's best albums. The Morning News placed the record at no. 1, adding that "it's stood as the blueprint for synth-pop; few have approached an improvement upon its design." Critics Tomasz Beksiński and Pieter Steinz each ranked the album among the five most important of the New Romantic era. Architecture & Morality has been recognised as one of the great records of the 1980s by outlets such as Uncut, Mojo and the St. Petersburg Times, and was voted 13th in Classic Pops "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s" reader poll. Laut.de named it the seventh-best synth-pop album of the decade, while Ultimate Classic Rock declared it the 35th-greatest new wave album and "a crucial connecting point in synth-pop's MTV-era transformation from wrist-slashing industrial-town dirges to sleek, love-struck modern pop music."

Architecture & Morality has featured in various "all-time" lists, including those compiled by Classic Pop, Phantom FM, The Guardian, music journalist Fredrik Strage, and author Robert Dimery (in the book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die). It was also named as one of the Quietus favourite albums, and received a spot in critic Mark Fisher's "Top 100 British Albums". Architecture & Morality has appeared in rankings of the best synth-pop albums ever made; Paste numbered it fifth, noting the "brilliance" of a record whose prominence within the genre "was earned and has only grown" since 1981. Louder Than War included the "timeless classic" in their "Perfect 9", a celebration of the great nine-track albums in history.

Architecture & Morality has been named as a personal favourite by artists such as Frost, The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, Front Line Assembly's Rhys Fulber, and Low's Alan Sparhawk. Moby remarked, "It's a perfect album, so cohesive, and every song perfectly speaks to the other song, the unapologetic emotional quality of it is really inspiring. Even the artwork by Peter Saville, everything about it is perfectly crafted." Tanita Tikaram found the record's melodies to be "so strong" and its commercial success "heartening... because it's really taking risks: in the sequencing, in the songwriting, it's very special." Tor Lundvall said in 2019, "Architecture & Morality captured my heart and imagination back in high school and still does... I've rarely heard synths and other electronics sound more human, elegant, and organic." Lundvall also noted the cover artwork as an all-time favourite.

Musicians Anohni, Spacemen 3's Peter Kember, and X Marks the Pedwalk's Sevren Ni-Arb have cited Architecture & Morality as an important album in their lives. Underground Lovers credit their career to the record: "It pervaded our lives as teenagers... we were drawn in by the ticking drum machines, the gorgeous gothic synth sounds, the emotive vocals and the array of mysterious industrial sounds and voices that permeated the album." Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu called Architecture & Morality a "masterpiece", while Charlatans vocalist Tim Burgess staged a Twitter listening party of the record, describing it as "genius" and "absolutely beautiful". The album has received further endorsements from Kevin Hearn of Barenaked Ladies, Alex Naidus of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Jon Campbell of The Time Frequency, and Jonn Penney of Ned's Atomic Dustbin, who selected it as the record he would place on a Christmas wish list.

The subject of multiple "classic album" analyses, Architecture & Morality is recognised as a seminal record of both the synth-pop genre, and the 1980s. Fact labelled it "a key influence on the 80s synth-wave [sic] explosion", while Rolling Stone en Español listed the record among "The 20 Key Synth-Pop Albums", further describing it as one of the decade's most influential releases. The Edinburgh Evening News said the record secured OMD a "reputation as one of the most influential bands of a generation". Architecture & Morality has been the focus of three tours: as well as touring in support of the album upon its release, OMD included all of its songs in the main set of their 2007 comeback tour (which spawned the 2008 live album and DVD, OMD Live: Architecture & Morality & More), and also staged a 40th anniversary tour in 2021. The record has sold more than four million copies worldwide.

Track listing

All songs by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, except where noted

Notes

• "Navigation" is edited some 30 seconds shorter at the end; the full original length version (3:26) is available on Navigation: The OMD B-Sides.
• Disc one of the 2007 collector's edition is the same as the 2003 remastered CD.

Personnel

• Paul Humphreys – synthesisers, piano, Mellotron, acoustic and electronic percussion, organ, rhythm programming, radios, melodica and vocals
• Andy McCluskey – synthesisers, Mellotron, guitar, bass, rhythm programming, acoustic and electronic percussion, reed horns, organ and vocals
• Malcolm Holmes – drums, electronic and acoustic percussion, bass synthesiser
• Martin Cooper – saxophone
• Michael Douglas – synthesisers, piano, organ

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

Notes

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