1/2 Of OMD Is A Hit Machine

Slate has an article today on songwriters, alone and collectively, who crank out pop hits for famous and non-famous singers and groups. It's interesting to consider the singer/songwriter vs. the songwriter and the singer, and if it makes a difference in the long run. My take is that it doesn't as long as a singer doesn't take songwriting credit where it's not due. Elvis Presley took false songwriting credit all the time. It put more money in The Colonel's pocket, and if anything fell out, that was Elvis' cut.

Bananarama and Dead Or Alive were launched by the team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. For whatever reason I hold Dead or Alive in contempt for this. Wait, I know why, I've always held them in contempt for a list of reasons that expands with the universe. I like Bananarama.

I lit up when I read Andy McCluskey, former bass player and singer for OMD, who had a fine and highly defensible career up to Architecture & Morality, is now a hit maker himself. Andy looks a little like b-movie god Bruce Campbell. And I quote:

Andy McCluskey, formerly of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, created the girl group Atomic Kitten in 1999 and is now behind Genie Queen, a trio audaciously attempting to fuse R&N and '80s-style techno-pop. McCluskey recently declared in an interview, "Master craftsman is my job nowadays and I take it very seriously indeed."

I saw them play a few times and either I met Andy in 1981 or I just think I did. Either way he was very nice. He danced like crazy with his bass guitar when he wasn't singing, working it until you thought he'd do a half-gainer and fly off the stage. I wish him the best of luck.