“I do love a lot of ‘80s pop, and I think some of those bands might have gotten a little lost over the years. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, at the time, were so uncool in England, because they were basically seen to be a watered-down, wannabe Kraftwerk, wannabe Joy Division. Plus, they didn’t look cool. Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys sort of looked like your dads. They didn’t have the kind of charisma that Ian Curtis or Robert Smith or Morrissey had.
“But they were two guys who were basically experimenting with electronic music. They were obviously influenced by Kraftwerk and sort of krautrock, but like a lot of people at that time – Gary Numan, who I could have included on my list, and he was considered pretty uncool then, too – they were taking on board this idea of futurism: 'We’re not going to look back. We’re not going to be retro.' It’s a shame in the 21st Century that we don’t have people like that anymore.
“At the time, in the early ‘80s, there was this post-Industrial futurism, and it manifested itself beautiful in bands like Joy Division, of course, but also in bands like OMD, who had a stronger pop sensibility. I think they were as much in love with the idea of being ABBA as they were of being Kraftwerk and Joy Division. They were like a wonderful collision of ideas.
“Their records stand up very, very well as experimental pop records with the most enjoyable kind of songwriting. Organisation is their second album. It’s not their biggest record, but I think it’s probably their best. It’s got that Teutonic, Germanic kind of cold wave thing going on, which I’ve always been a sucker for.”