A-Side: Maid Of Orleans
B-Side: Navigation
Record label: Dindisc DIN 40
Producer: Richard Manwaring
Released: 15/01/82
Purchased: 1982
OMD | Maid Of Orleans | (Dindisc) 1982 | Confusing array of 12″ and 7″ versions with weird track listings . . . But the main theme has that epileptic dingbat ‘singing’ over what sounds like a mutated electronic version of the ‘Skye Boat Song’.
Emotion? Dave Edmunds’ guitar break on Fogerty’s ‘Almost Saturday Night’ says more, faster, better . . . (Sounds, 16/01/82)
Second instalment of OMD’s love affair with Joan Of Arc, this one being in waltz time and, to these ears at least, a better listen than the last.
Top three with no bother, of course. Also available as a 12-inch in one of two gorgeously over the top packages. (Record Mirror, 16/01/82)
Statistics prove that if all the synthesizers and O Level English Literature passes in the world were laid end to end you’d have an OMD double album. It’s one mo’ time for the Principal Boy d’Orleans and forgive them their synthesizers, that modern metaphor for sensitivity and sang-froid.
Sadly, synthesizers became big news when several sociologist sleuths (I stand accused) began reading cleverness into total emptiness and remarking on how refreshing muzak was. The point these anaemic young men missed is that it’s only interesting if the tune being muzaked is an unimpeachable, uncorruptible classic. (NME, 16/01/82)
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