My favourite song of all time?
mp3 : New Order – Age Of Consent
It’s now 40 years since it was released, so I can’t ever see it being displaced by anything else. It makes the ‘faves’ thing a New Order double, as Temptation topped the 45 45s@45 rundown in 2008, and would still sit at the top if I were to go through things again right now.
Neither Movement nor Power Corruption and Lies, the first two albums released by New Order, contained any singles. It was very much an artistic decision, but looking back on things, it really does feel like something of a missed opportunity. Let’s imagine that they were prepared to issue a 45 exactly a week in advance of the release of each album….I won’t dare suggest there would be a second 45 lifted from either as a way to boost sales, purely on the basis that with just eight tracks on both records, there would be a massive loss of credibility from issuing 25% of the album as singles.
Here’s how the singles discography could have looked.
March 1981 – Ceremony
September 1981 – Procession/Everything’s Gone Green
November 1981 – Dreams Never End
May 1982 – Temptation
March 1983 – Blue Monday
May 1983 – Age Of Consent
August 1983 – Confusion
But looking at this shows the dilemma. In terms of how the band’s sound was developing and evolving, Age of Consent would really have needed to have been the follow-up single to Temptation and issued in advance of Blue Monday, otherwise it might have been seen by some critics as New Order rejecting the club/dance sound in favour of a return to the instruments more associated with Joy Division.
But I have no doubt whatsoever, that if Age of Consent had been a stand-alone 45, it would have been a big success. After all, it should be remembered that each of Ceremony, Procession/EGG and Temptation all reached the Top 40 at a time when the band were still very much an unknown quantity with much of the record-buying public.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
While Age Of Consent would have been a jarring single in between Blue Monday and Confusion, it might not be *as* weird as Thieves Like Us between Confusion and The Perfect Kiss.
Of course, the real “lost” New Order single-that-never-was is Vanishing Point from Technique, which they wound up putting on their Best Of anyway.
Funnily enough, the first thing I thought of when I saw this series was “is there a single that would have saved Revenge’s album?” But after listening to it again, I don’t think there is. So much for my contribution then…
Couldn’t agree more that it should have been a single and you are right it does fit between temptation and Blue Monday, not after. I have often wondered if New Order had titled their songs after the key line in the chorus – as most bands do would they have been more successful….. and what would Age of Consent be called ‘ I’m not the kind’???