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Universal (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark Album)
''Universal'' is the tenth studio album by English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), released on 2 September 1996 by Virgin Records. Frontman Andy McCluskey opted for a more organic, acoustic sound on the record, which peaked at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart. It was generally well received by music critics, although the British media's overall resistance to OMD – who had been rendered unfashionable by the prevalence of grunge and indie rock – prompted McCluskey to dissolve the group. ''Universal'' was their last album until 2010's '' History of Modern''. The album spawned the singles " Walking on the Milky Way" (a number 17 hit in the UK) and "Universal". Background McCluskey opted for a more organic sound on ''Universal'', while looking to capture an "epic" feel. He explained, "I'd abandoned techno/house; it was like an old man dying his hair jet-black: ridiculous. I decided to follow the current trend of getting more acoustic, using real drums and ...
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Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic music, electronic band formed in Meols, Merseyside in 1978 by Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals). Regarded as pioneers of electronic music, OMD combined an Experimental music, experimental, Minimal music, minimalist ethos with pop sensibilities, becoming key figures in the emergence of synth-pop; McCluskey and Humphreys also introduced the "synth duo" format to British popular music. In the United States, the band were an early presence in the MTV-driven Second British Invasion. McCluskey and Humphreys led The Id (band), the Id, a precursor group, from 1977 to 1978 and re-recorded their track "Electricity (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark song), Electricity" as OMD's debut single in 1979. Weathering an "uncool" image and a degree of hostility from music critics, the band achieved popularity throughout Europe with the 1980 List of anti-war songs, anti-war song "Enola Gay (s ...
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Indie Rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced. The sound of indie rock has its origins in the New Zealand Dunedin sound of the Chills, Tall Dwarfs, the Clean and the Verlaines, and early 1980s college rock radio stations who would frequently play jangle pop bands like the Smiths and R.E.M. The genre solidified itself during the mid–1980s with ''NME''s ''C86'' cassette in the United Kingdom and the underground success of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Unrest (band), Unrest in the United States. During the 1990s, indie rock bands like Sonic Youth, the Pixies and Radiohead all released albums on major labels and subgenres like slowcore, Midwest emo, slacker rock and space rock began. By this time ...
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Chuck Sabo
Chuck Sabo is an American drummer, musical director, songwriter, and producer who has performed and recorded with prominent artists including XTC, Natalie Imbruglia, Elton John, Tom Jones, Chaka Khan, Bryan Adams, Cher, Tina Turner, Pet Shop Boys, Billy Preston, Roy Orbison, Terence Trent D'Arby, Seal, Right Said Fred, Shakespear's Sister, Take That, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), 808 State, Tashan, Belinda Carlisle, Kiki Dee, Étienne Daho, Axel Bauer and Michel Polnareff. Early life Chuck Sabo (Charles Edward Sabo Jr.) was born August 22, 1958, and grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in a family of non-musicians. His parents supported his interest in and aptitude for playing the drums, and he began his career playing in cover bands in the Allentown area. Career 1980s Sabo moved to New York City in 1980 at age 21. While taking drum lessons with Sonny Igoe he worked moving furniture to subsidize his music career. In the early part of the decade he made his first sig ...
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Phil Spalding
Philip Trevor Spalding (19 November 1957 – 5 February 2023) was an English bass player. He was best known as a session musician and player of Fender Precision Bass guitars. He played and appeared with performing artists such as Mike Oldfield, Mick Jagger, Seal, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Elton John, Heaven 17 and Randy Crawford. At an early age, he was a successful child model and appeared in a television advertisement for Smiths Crisps. Spalding was a computer operator for a high street bank, before joining rock artist Bernie Tormé in 1976. Later he joined Original Mirrors before beginning a collaboration with Toyah, in December 1980. Whilst with The Toyah band, he recorded and co-wrote songs for studio albums and toured with the band, until 1983. Later he was a member of GTR and Mike Oldfield's band. He later appeared on albums by Michel Polnareff, Suggs, Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. Spalding also recorded all bass tracks on ''The Lion King'' soundtr ...
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String Section
The string section of an orchestra is composed of bowed instruments belonging to the violin family. It normally consists of first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. It is the most numerous group in the standard orchestra. In discussions of the Orchestration, instrumentation of a musical work, the phrase "the strings" or "and strings" is used to indicate a string section as just defined. An orchestra consisting solely of a string section is called a string orchestra. Smaller string sections are sometimes used in jazz, pop, and rock music and in the pit orchestras of musical theatre. Seating arrangement The most common seating arrangement in the 2000s is with first violins, second violins, violas, and cello sections arrayed clockwise around the Conductor (music), conductor, with basses behind the cellos on the right. The first violins are led by the concertmaster (leader in the UK); each of the other string sections also has a principal player (principal secon ...
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Art Of Noise
Art of Noise (also the Art of Noise) were a British avant-garde synth-rock group formed in early 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn, and music journalist Paul Morley. The group had international Top 20 hits with its interpretations of "Kiss", featuring Tom Jones, and the instrumental "Peter Gunn", which won a 1986 Grammy Award. The group's mostly instrumental compositions were novel melodic sound collages based on digital sampler technology, which was new at the time. Inspired by turn-of-the-20th-century revolutions in music, the Art of Noise were initially packaged as a faceless anti- or non-group, blurring the distinction between the art and its creators. The band is noted for innovative use of electronics and computers in pop music, particularly its innovative use of sampling. History Beginnings The technological impetus for the Art of Noise was the advent of the F ...
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Anne Dudley
Anne Jennifer Dudley (née Beckingham; born 7 May 1956) is an English composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in the classical and pop genres, as a film composer, and was one of the core members of the synth-pop band Art of Noise. In 1998, Dudley won an Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for ''The Full Monty''. In addition to over twenty other film scores, in 2012 she served as music producer for the film version of ''Les Misérables'', also acting as arranger and composing some new additional music. Career Dudley was born in Chatham, Kent. She attended Eltham Hill Grammar School for Girls. She graduated with a master's in music from King's College London in 1978. Trained as a classical performer, she moved into the competitive commercial field as a session musician, where her professional relationship with Trevor Horn began. In 1982, Dudley contributed to the ...
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Paul Humphreys
Paul David Humphreys (born 27 February 1960) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He is best known as the keyboardist and secondary vocalist of the Electronic music, electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), which he founded alongside lead singer and bassist Andy McCluskey in 1978. ''The Quietus'' remarked, "If, roughly speaking, McCluskey is the intellect and inquisitive nature in the group, then Humphreys is the heart." The pair have been recognised as pioneers of electronic music. Humphreys played with OMD until 1989, seven years before the band's dissolution, and returned for their 2006 reformation. His songwriting contribution features on all of the group's studio albums, save for 1991's ''Sugar Tax (album), Sugar Tax''. Humphreys sang lead vocals on several OMD tracks, including the singles "Electricity (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark song), Electricity", "Souvenir (song), Souvenir", "Never Turn Away", "Secret (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark ...
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Different Class
''Different Class'' (released in Japan as ''Common People'') is the fifth studio album by English rock band Pulp, released on 30 October 1995 by Island Records. The album was a critical and commercial success, entering the UK Albums Chart at number one and winning the 1996 Mercury Music Prize. It included four top-ten singles in the UK, "Common People", "Sorted for E's & Wizz", " Disco 2000" and " Something Changed". ''Different Class'' has been certified four times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), and had sold 1.33 million copies in the United Kingdom as of 2020. Widely acclaimed as among the greatest albums of the Britpop era, in 2013, ''NME'' ranked the album at number six in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time while ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it number 162 in their 2020 revised version of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Background and release The album was released in the UK at the height of Britpop. It followed from the success of their b ...
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Roxy Music
Roxy Music are an English rock music, rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry (lead vocals/keyboards/principal songwriter) and Graham Simpson (musician), Graham Simpson (bass). By the time the band recorded their Roxy Music (album), first album in 1972, Ferry and Simpson were joined by Andy Mackay (saxophone/oboe), Phil Manzanera (guitar), Paul Thompson (musician), Paul Thompson (drums) and Brian Eno (synthesizer). Other members during the band's history include Eddie Jobson (synthesizer/keyboards/violin) and John Gustafson (musician), John Gustafson (bass). Beginning with their first album, Roxy Music became a successful act in Europe and Australia during the 1970s. The band pioneered more musically sophisticated elements of glam rock, significantly influencing early English punk rock, punk music, and provided a model for many New wave music, new wave acts while innovating elements of electronic music, electronic composition. The group also conveyed their distinctive brand of ...
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Pulp (band)
Pulp are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 1978. At their critical and commercial peak, the band consisted of Jarvis Cocker (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Russell Senior (guitar, violin), Candida Doyle (keyboards), Nick Banks (drums, percussion), Steve Mackey (bass) and Mark Webber (guitar, keyboards). The band's " kitchen sink drama" lyrics, coupled with its references to British culture, led to Cocker and Pulp becoming reluctant figureheads of the Britpop movement. The band struggled to find success during the 1980s, but gained UK prominence in the mid-1990s first with '' His 'n' Hers'' (1994), which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Its follow-up, '' Different Class'' (1995), won the Mercury Prize, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and spawned four top ten singles, including the number two hits "Common People" and " Mis-Shapes/ Sorted for E's & Wizz". The band's sixth album, '' This Is Hardcore'' (1998), also debuted at number one in the UK and ...
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Karl Bartos
Karl Bartos (born 31 May 1952) is a German musician and composer known for his contributions to the electronic band Kraftwerk. Career Karlheinz Bartos was born on 31 May 1952 in Marktschellenberg, Germany, named after his grandfathers Karl and Heinz. He was the drummer in a college band called The Jokers (later The Jolly Jokers in 1975) as Carlos Bartos, around 1965 to 1975. Between 1975 and 1990, he was, along with Wolfgang Flür, a member of the electronic music band Kraftwerk. This lineup of the group remains the most stable and productive yet assembled. He was originally recruited to play on Kraftwerk's US "Autobahn" tour where he changed his name to "Karl", as the band member's names were displayed on stage in neon lighting; "Karlheinz" was deemed too long and thus too expensive by Kraftwerk's front man Ralf Hütter. As a percussionist, Bartos was influenced by Ringo Starr of the Beatles, as well as the composers Carlos Chávez, Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, Béla ...
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