"Dazzle Ships" (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark)
I've never been much of an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark fan, but I am a fan of the raised middle finger album, like these particular ones:
British eccentricity may well play a role in these crash-and-burn albums - a willingness to be contrary. Some Americans have followed gold albums with zero-sellers, but not many. Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson contained the original lung-busting power ballad, Without You, and made him a rich man. Never one for the obvious, he gave its sequel the misleading title Son of Schmilsson and filled it with raggedly sung novelties. It contained no obvious hits, though You're Breaking My Heart, a song for his ex-wife, did stand out: ABC's "apple crumble" line hardly holds a candle to "you're breaking my heart, you're tearing it apart, so fuck you".
That was calculated self-destruction. Neil Young, having tasted fame and fortune with After the Gold Rush and Harvest, famously said he would rather head for the ditch than stay in the middle of the road. And that's just what he did with Time Fades Away. Young recorded the stoned, muddy, hard-rocking album on a stadium tour to confused audiences who had never heard the songs before. No atmosphere, no acoustic balladry, just memories of getting a kicking in the schoolyard and an extended moan about LA. Young's profile duly disappeared.
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours had been recorded in trying circumstances. The sequel had the even more onerous task of following what was then the bestselling American album ever. Lindsey Buckingham assumed control of 1979's Tusk. Though it cost £1m to make - a figure that even today seems barely plausible - much of it sounded clattery, half-formed, with strange rhythmic leaps and offbeat tics. Hotel California it wasn't.
It later emerged in his girlfriend's memoirs that Buckingham had become obsessed with Talking Heads, and was desperate to make Mac relevant to a post-punk world. The problem was that even though Rumours had been all about break-ups and unfaithful lovers, it still sounded as though the roof was down and you were heading up the highway in the sunshine. Tusk was unleavened weirdness, as close to its predecessor as the Beach Boys' lo-fi Smiley Smile had been to Pet Sounds. It simply didn't cut the midwest mustard. However, like Dazzle Ships, Tusk makes a lot more sense to 2008 ears.
[Click to read more of How to lose 3 million fans in one easy step | Pop | guardian.co.uk Music]
There are other albums of this ilk, Lou Reed's noise and chaos album Metal Machine Music, for instance, which exists a long way from the pop-rock with soft saxophone of Walk on the Wild Side. Bob Dylan's country crooner album shocked his wild mercury sound fans. Even John Coltrane - fans of My Favorite Things or Blue Train must have been shocked when they heard Giant Steps the first time. I'm sure you could think of a few more.
