Alongside "Half Mute", "Desire" is one of Tuxedomoon's inaugural two albums, which are largely responsible for establishing the band's worldwide cult status.

"Desire" remains one of the band’s most mythical and popular album, with classic tracks such as  “Jinx”, “Desire” and many more. The album was recorded in the UK and originally came out on The Residents' label Ralph Records in 1981. When Crammed and Tuxedomoon established the Cramboy imprint (solely devoted to the band's body of work), the album was re-issued in 1986, augmented by the 4 tracks from Tuxedomoon's debut EP from 78, “No Tears”.

Tuxedomoon by Glenn O'Brien

They were an anomaly from the beginning. Some of their music was quite danceable, robot drummers programmed to get humans moving without sounding human.They used synthesizers as the dominant instruments, and their solo parts were played on sax and violin, which is quite normal now and was in the past, but wasn't at the time. But they weren't a prototype of today's synthesizer dance bands, although they anticipated that stuff. Much of their work seemed to be soundtracks for non-existent films noirs. Sometimes they sounded distant and alien, sometimes they created melodies of great warmth and sophistication. But whatever they did it was always intelligent, beautiful and provocative.

Published in Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, 1982