Architecture & Morality

Architecture & Morality is the third album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, released in 1981. It is the group's most commercially and critically successful album, selling over 3 million copies by 2009. Released just eighteen months after their debut album, it demonstrated both OMD's continuing musical maturity and advancement of their style. The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, as well as The Guardian's "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die". According to the album's credits, the album title was suggested to the band by Martha Ladly, formerly of Martha and the Muffins, after the 1977 book Morality and Architecture by David Watkin. The album yielded three singles, all of which charted in the UK Top 5: "Souvenir" (#3), "Joan of Arc" (#5), and "Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)" (#4), a retitled "Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)". Musically, the album was notable for making liberal use of the mellotron, a mechanical tape-replay keyboard more commonly associated in Britain with progressive rock bands of the early 1970s than with the synthpop of the 1980s.