I have often said to any who would listen to me that one of my favourite songs ever to come out from the ‘80’s was O.M.D.’s ‘Souvenir’. Now that I come to think about it, this is quite probably one of my earliest musical memories. I recall being inside my father’s car when I was very young, and listening to this song on the radio. It stayed with me for a long time, but somewhere in the early ‘90’s, I guess, it just faded away from my memory, and only some four, maybe five years ago did I start listening to it again. A while ago it struck me that, while I had listened to this song hundreds of times, I knew nothing about the album in which it originally appeared. I had downloaded some time ago a file with the complete O.M.D. discography, and immediately sought out which album contained it. Seeing as it was included on their third album, I then had to make a choice : I’d either listen to their albums chronologically… or I’d take the lazy way out, which was just listening to the album straight away. So I did, and for the past few weeks I have been listening to it almost on a daily basis.
The tracklisting is as follows :
1 – The new stone age
2 – She’s leaving
3 – Souvenir
4 – Sealand
5 – Joan of Arc
6 – Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)
7 – Architecture & Morality
8 – Georgia
9 – The beginning and the end
The version I have is the 2003 remastered reissue that contains a number of remixes, B sides from the album’s singles and outtakes for songs would appear in following albums. They are :
10 – Extended Souvenir
11 – Motion and heart
12 – Sacred heart
13 – The romance of the telescope
14 – Navigation
15 – Of all the things we’ve made
16 - Gravity never failed
So, going in to the original version of the record, the 1981 edition, once you first listen to it you can see that this is very much a two-sided record, if you’ll pardon the now semi-anachronistic pun. On the A side, things begin in quite frantic manner with the first couple of tracks. There’s a dark element there that’s highly reminiscent of some Joy Division, and the band seem eager to have their music reach you, and take hold of you. So these first two songs do that just fine, setting up the wonderful ‘Souvenir’ quite nicely, to be followed by the majestic ‘Sealand’, the album’s best song, alongside ‘Souvenir’. As we move on to the B side, and following the cue set by ‘Sealand’, the next few tracks seem to fizz out a bit when it comes to their energy and relevance. It struck me as odd that I didn’t find myself able to like what are considered to be some of their best songs, though not at all famous, like the ‘Joan of Arc’ suite, and ‘Georgia’. Don’t get me wrong, they are fine songs, yes, but nowhere near as good as the songs found on the other side of the record. The song that lends its name to the album’s title is a drab little instrumental that seemed more like an experiment with sound and noise than a proper piece of music. The last song, ‘The beginning and the end’, though, kicks things up a notch, and sort of redeems what I considered to be a less than stellar B side. But, and at least for my part, the real gems are the songs found on the 2003 reissue. Here you’ll find songs that are just as good as any of the best in the original issue, and actually better than most of the album’s songs. You’ll also find a not really necessary extended mix of ‘Souvenir’, wherein you only find minimal changes to the original version. But songs like ‘The Romance of the telescope’ and ‘Of all the things we’ve made’, the video to which can be seen below, are real gems worthy of repeated listening. In truth, these days when I listen to the album, it’s always looking forward to the last few songs. Sure, I could just play them outright, and forget about the others, but for the moment I’m still willing to give them a chance to grow on me.
When all’s said and done, I’m sure this won’t be the O.M.D. album that I’ll like the most, but it’s worth it for the handful of songs I mentioned. Apparently, this has been their most successful album ever, both commercially and critically, but I wouldn’t rate it overall more than maybe 3.5 out of 5, though some songs here are absolute gold.
To want this,
Of everything we've made.
The times it's worked before.
Of all the things we've said,
Times that worked before today.
Of all the things we've said,
They've always worked before today.
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