Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
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 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark facts

• Spawned by earlier group The Id, the outfit was founded by Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals); amid rotating line-ups, Martin Cooper (various instruments) and Malcolm Holmes (drums) are the longest-serving additional members
• OMD released their influential debut single, "Electricity", in 1979, and gained popularity throughout Europe with the 1980 anti-war song "Enola Gay"
• The band achieved broader recognition via their seminal album Architecture & Morality (1981) and its three singles, all of which were international hits
• Steadily resistant to celebrity status, the group earned acclaim for their adventurous recordings, which combined sonic experimentation and atypical subject matter with musical hooks
• Although retrospectively described as a challenging masterpiece, the avant-garde Dazzle Ships (1983) eroded European support: the band embraced a more straightforward pop sound on Junk Culture (1984), while continuing to experiment via newly acquired digital samplers
• This change in direction led to greater success in the United States, and yielded the 1986 hit, "If You Leave"
• A year after the release of The Best of OMD (1988), creative differences rendered McCluskey the only remaining member of the group as Humphreys formed spin-off band The Listening Pool
• OMD would return with a new line-up and explore the dance-pop genre: Sugar Tax (1991) and its initial singles were sizeable hits in Europe
• By the mid 1990s, however, electronic music had been supplanted by alternative rock, and both OMD and The Listening Pool disbanded in 1996
• McCluskey went on to found, and write multiple hits for girl group Atomic Kitten, while Humphreys performed as half of the duo Onetwo