Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Maid Of Orleans

What this video is

Released in January 1982, 'Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)' was the second single from OMD's landmark album Architecture & Morality (1981). The song and video represent a convergence of post-punk intellectualism and early synth-pop's capacity for grand, conceptual subject matter — in this case, the martyrdom and canonisation of Joan of Arc. The early 1980s British music scene was undergoing a rapid…

Why it matters

A defining artefact of British synth-pop and New Wave at their most ambitious and intellectually serious. 'Maid of Orleans' demonstrates the genre's capacity to fuse electronic instrumentation with historical and spiritual subject matter, anticipating the more elaborate conceptual music video…

The director

Anton Corbijn (born 20 May 1955, Strijen, Netherlands) is a Dutch photographer, music video director, and feature film director. He became one of the most influential visual collaborators in rock and electronic music from the late 1970s onward, working…