A GUEST SERIES

18 – Blue Monday (’88) – New Order (1988, Factory Records)

Released as a single in April 1988 (Reached Number 3)

“You should listen to this”. This is Martin, and he is talking to a 15 year old me outside our school gates one Wednesday evening as we stand waiting for Dubstar Chris who is ‘in the art room’ (he is actually spraying offensive graffiti about the French teacher Mr Ashton and his liking for cats in the teachers toilets, but I never told you that).

With this Martin hands me a CD. He brings it out of an inside pocket of a green army jacket, and for some reason I feel like a junkie as I shuffled the CD into my rucksack

The CD is called ‘Power, Corruption and Lies’ and it is obviously an album by New Order. It will be in about two hours time be the first thing I have ever listened to by New Order.

Martin was always ahead of the crowd. He is still involved in the music world, in fact, he is currently in The Charlamagnes who you should google and then check out and then immediately buy their back catalogue. Anyway, I take the CD and I go home and do my homework and then I slip into something more comfortable and decide to give the CD a listen. Now at the time my music likes were rapidly expanding. I discovered a new band that I loved pretty much every day. If it had guitars, I was ‘in to it’. I fully expected New Order to be my new favourite thing in the entire world.

So there I sat, on my dads sofa with some big comedy headphones plonked on my head and ‘Power Corruption and Lies’ on the stereo. I had for the past six months or so listened to Martin, Dubstar Chris and Richard chirp on about how brilliant New Order were. I’d been told how songs like ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘True Faith’ were amazing, and all I’d done was nod along. So I sat there and I waited, I have to say I was excited and I felt like I existed and that this was something. I waited for that thrill of listening to something incredible to kick in.

But.

I didn’t like it. I couldn’t get into it. I say this now, and I sort of shrink away from it in embarrassment but I much preferred ‘Street Fighting Years’ by Simple Minds which was the second album I had obtained that week (this one found in Woolworths on cassette for £1.99 – which on reflection, seems as over priced as it is overblown right now).

I didn’t listen to New Order again for a long time.

Five years in fact. By now – I am the inspiring music journalist that I was back then and I am sitting in the offices of Sony Records in London because I am picking up some music and interviewing a band called Reef, who have been on a Tv advert and are being tipped for ‘Great Success’. Whilst there I help myself to Sony’s free bar and Crisp Machine (this is true by the way, the promotions floor at Sony UK, used to include a bar full of Becks and Red Stripe and a machine that dispensed crisps) before interviewing Reef. As I was leaving, the promotions manager (Ben see Number 44) gave me a bag. It was full of CDs, mugs, promo toys, gig tickets and general shit. I loved visiting Sony, you never went away empty handed and as long as you said nice things about most of it, they kept giving you stuff.

I forget nearly everything that was in that bag, but I do remember that in there was a CD which contained New Order, it contained ‘Blue Monday ‘88’ and I couldn’t stop listening to it. In fact it was pretty much glued to the stereo for the next month or so, it was like I discovered a new band who had just released their debut single. The light had come on, the light I should have seen back in 1990 when at home in my Dad’s lounge but I was young and I’ll be honest I much preferred U2 back then.

And that is how I fell in love with New Order. I was 20. And New Order had at that point split up and I thought at the time that I had thoroughly missed the boat (which was true, I saw them live at Wembley Arena about ten years later and they were a bit rubbish to be honest), that didn’t stop me filling up the back catalogue as quick as I could though.

I, of course have form for this, I did the same thing with The Stone Roses, declaring that they ‘Were not as good as The Inspiral Carpets’ to my mate Jimmy on the way to the football in 1990. It took me three years and a serious conversation with OPG to realise my mistake – “I can’t sleep with someone who doesn’t like The Stone Roses’ was pretty much was she said one night in the pub, before I was, you know, actually sleeping with her. I re-listened to that debut album quite a lot for the next month or so.

Fools Gold (9.53) – Stone Roses (1989, Silvertone Records Number 22)

But the record for me failing to realise the greatness of a band is reserved for The Fall

Mr Pharmacist – The Fall (1986, Beggars Banquet, Number 75)

Genuinely the first time I heard The Fall I swore loudly at the stereo in disgust, that’s how appalled I was. I was 16. It took me, ahem, 25 years before I realised their brilliance.

When I was writing my first blog WYCRA we did this series called ‘One Song A Day’ and we invited fellow bloggers to stick their iPods on Random and send us a review of the very first song that came on. JC was the first to offer and the song that came on first to his iPod was something by ‘The Fall’. I swore inwardly, and regretted my brilliant idea – but then I listened to what he sent through and again, that little light came on.

SWC

Album : Power, Corruption & Lies – New Order
Review : Rolling Stone, 18 August 1983
Author : Steve Pond

Few rock bands have had as daunting a past to live up to, and overcome, as New Order. But Power Corruption & Lies is a remarkable declaration of independence; for the first time since lead singer Ian Curtis hanged himself three years ago, the survivors of Joy Division have shrugged off the legacy of that band’s grim, deathly majesty and produced an album that owes as much to the currents of 1983 as to the ghosts of 1980. This record is a quantum leap over Movement, the band’s first album, and over most of the music coming out of Britain lately.

Leap is the appropriate word, because on the surface, this is largely a stirring, jumpy dance record. Forget about New Order’s reputation as gloom mongers or avatars of postpunk iciness; forget about the artiness and mystique that envelop them. Just put this stuff on the radio, in clubs or on American Bandstand: you can dance to it, it deserves a ninety-eight, and a song like “Age of Consent” merits heavy rotation, not reverence.

That’s not to say New Order have turned into A Flock of Vultures or anything. But there’s a newfound boldness on Power that was sorely missing from Movement. On that LP, New Order were tentatively trying to break free of Joy Division’s style, if not their tone; too often, the result was turgid and solemn and sprinkled with the kind of whistles, whooshes and beeps that suggest novices halfheartedly tinkering with dance-oriented rock.

Working on subsequent singles toward a surer control of the studio and a more ambiguous emotional stance, the band hit its stride with the epiphanic “Temptation.” A tenacious, gripping, rock-hard dance tune, it was also the first New Order song to suggest that maybe love doesn’t always tear us apart – that, in fact, it just might bind us together, though at great risk. (That song and four others make up the highly recommended EP New Order: 1981-1982.)

Though not as forceful as “Temptation,” the songs on Power glow with confidence – musical confidence, mostly. While Steve Morris‘ drums weave patterns around the unrelenting kick of an electronic drum machine, the band masterfully interlaces layer after layer of sound: Bernard Albrecht‘s alternately slashing and alluring guitar lines, Peter Hook‘s melodic bass playing, broad washes of keyboard color from Gillian Gilbert and such percussive effects as chimes. It’s a bracing, exhilarating sound, equally suited to feverish dance workouts like “Age of Consent” and “586” as to such murkier, more impressionistic outings as “Your Silent Face.”

Lyrically, New Order still rely too readily on emotional vagueness and stock portentous images. Having partially abandoned the frigid, nocturnal chill that permeated Curtis’ work, the band’s current viewpoint is closer to simple pessimism than outright despair. Still, the group likes to draw the drapes and usher in a little darkness at the end of its songs. Power has some of the most foreboding lines in rock: “I’ve lost you.” “Their love died three years ago/Spoken words that cannot show.” “For these last few days/Leave me alone.” And then there’s the jarring conclusion of “Your Silent Face,” a glorious, understated reverie that rails against passivity (and, perhaps, against Curtis) with lines like, “A thought that never changes/Remains a stupid lie.” As the tune closes, Albrecht turns contemptuously dismissive: “You caught me at a bad time/So why don’t you piss off.”

With spiritual anguish and failed redemption no longer an obsessive theme, it’s now easier to focus on New Order simply as a rock band as strong as any in British pop. And as has been pointed out before, once you get past the romantically murky stance, New Order are (just as Joy Division were) a terrific singles band–not a consistent one, but one whose best singles, “Ceremony” and “Temptation,” have been transcendent.

“Blue Monday” isn’t in that class, but in its own way, it’s a breakthrough, getting the band heard on radio stations and in dance clubs. Neither New Order’s boldest song nor their most telling, it is instead their best sounding. The drum machine pounds away with an appropriately inhuman thunk, the band pumps hard to keep up, and after seven searing minutes, it soars to a close with layers of lush keyboards.

That song is included on the cassette version of Power Corruption & Lies; by itself on the twelve-inch single, though, it’s backed by “The Beach,” its dub remake and a tougher, better version of the tune. The point of “Blue Monday” is sound, after all, and the second version takes more sonic chances and shows just what sure-handed producers and assured musicians New Order have become. For the members of a band once known for one man’s sensibility, that’s the last thing many of us expected and, in a way, the best thing they could have become.

mp3 : New Order – Age of Consent
mp3 : New Order – Your Silent Face
mp3 : New Order – Leave Me Alone

JC adds : Possibly the most important record that I’ve ever purchased.  It certainly contains, in the album opener, my favourite song of time.  It felt like the right way to close off this series.  Things return to normal from tomorrow.

From wiki:-

Music Complete is the tenth studio album by the English rock band New Order. It was released on 25 September 2015 by Mute Records, their debut on the label. The album features guest vocals from Elly Jackson of La Roux, Iggy Pop and Brandon Flowers.

During summer 2015, New Order promoted the album through online media, at Lollapalooza Chile with “Singularity” and “Plastic”, and half-minute snippets directly on their YouTube account. It was announced that Gillian Gilbert returned to the band, but with Tom Chapman taking Peter Hook’s bassist role.

Musically, the album is more electronic-focused than its two predecessors, and New Order’s first of new material in a decade. The cover art was designed by long-time collaborator Peter Saville and comprises a montage of lines with four colour schemes: red, yellow, green, and blue, which varies depending on packaging.

Music Complete was released on CD, both clear and black vinyl LP, and digital download on 25 September 2015, with an 8LP deluxe box set released on 20 November. The album received generally favourable reviews. A tour in support of the album ran from 4 November 2015 through 20 December 2015.

All of the above might be true….I didn’t pay attention to the release at the time and for the first time ever, I didn’t seek out tickets for the live shows in Glasgow. Some folk tell me I’m missing out, others say that the material was fairly bog-standard and not a patch on the band’s glorious era of the 80s and early 90s. It seems three singles were also released. As I download them, it will be the first time I’ve ever heard them:-

mp3 : New Order – Restless
mp3 : New Order – Tutti Frutti
mp3 : New Order – Singularity

First one is New Order by numbers…..nice and comfy and unchallenging.

Second one starts off a bit more interesting with a tune that is reminiscent of the Technique era. The chorus, however, is a total turn-off….as dull as the Waiting For The Sirens’ Call material.

Third one is Barney singing…..the others seemingly are playing on it……………but it’s not New Order.

Sorry folks for dragging out the series to such a sad conclusion. The legacy is being tainted by this sub-standard rubbish.

Tune in next Sunday and see what nonsense I’ve come up with for a new series.

JC

Waiting for the Sirens’ Call is the eighth studio album by New Order. It was released on 28 March 2005 and was preceded by the single “Krafty” in February. Two additional singles from the album were released: “Jetstream”, which features vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters, and the title track of the album.

Waiting for the Sirens’ Call marks Phil Cunningham’s recording and co-writing debut with New Order; although he had been playing live with the band since the Get Ready tour of 2001–2002. It is the first New Order album recorded without Gillian Gilbert who left the band in 2001 to look after her family. During the sessions the band also recorded seven songs intended for their next album, which was never completed as planned. These songs were shelved when Peter Hook quit the group in 2007. One song, “Hellbent”, was eventually released in 2011 and all seven (plus a remix of “I Told You So”) were released as the album Lost Sirens in 2013.

The Japanese release includes several alternate versions of “Krafty” as bonus tracks, including one sung in Japanese. This was the first time that lead singer Bernard Sumner performed in a language other than English on record.

Here goes:-

mp3 : New Order – Krafty (single version)
mp3 : New Order – Jetstream (album version)
mp3 : New Order – Waiting For The Sirens’ Call (album version)

Krafty marked the first new release for Warner Bros. Records and was produced by John Leckie, a real veteran of the scene who had worked with Magazine back in the late 70s. Truth be told….it’s a bit of a disappointment given the pedigree of all involved. It did make #8 in the charts; the only songs made available as b-sides were remixes, none of which improved the singles.

Still, no matter how bad the remixes were, they were still a million miles ahead of the truly dreadful Jetstream, without any question the worst of all their 45s. And again, no b-sides other than remixes to redeem things. Somehow, this reached #20 in the charts

The third single saw the record company at its money-grabbing best. Here’s wiki:-

Rather than the typical maxi CD and DVD configuration for the single, “Waiting for the Sirens’ Call” was initially released as three separate 7″ singles. Each 7″ contained a different mix of the single as an A-side. On the B-side, each 7″ contained a brand new remix of a classic New Order single. A CD single for “Waiting for the Sirens’ Call” followed the three 7″ singles, and was released on October 3, 2005. The two-track CD featured full-length remixes of the song.

Just fuck off will you?

The three classic singles chosen for the remix treatment were Everything’s Gone Green, Temptation and Bizarre Love Triangle. The bottom of the barrel really was getting scraped. But it fooled enough folk to part with their cash that it reached #21, the last time New Order made the singles chart.

Here’s something referred to earlier in the post:-

mp3 : New Order – Krafty (Japanese version)

Despite the date of this posting, the above mp3 is not a joke……

Tune in next week for the final installment of the series.

JC

Here to Stay is a song by New Order and produced by The Chemical Brothers. It was released as a single in April 2002.

It was the closing track from the movie 24 Hour Party People, and was the only new song composed specifically for the film.  The track was released without major marketing, but still reached #15 in the UK chart.

The single was B-sided with the track “Player in the League”, New Order’s failed entry for ITV’s football highlights programme The Premiership. The track was originally slated for inclusion on Get Ready, but was dropped.

The version offered up today is the full-length edit, as made available on the soundtrack to 24 Hour Party People, which I still believe is a very fine and often very funny movie.  Here To Stay isn’t the worst thing New Order ever released…in fact it’s one I quite like but I do always associate it with the closing titles of the movie and remembering how much I was smiling at, and inwardly applauding, Steve Coogan‘s portayal of Anthony H Wilson.

mp3 : New Order – Here To Stay

I’ve gone digging deep for the b-side:-

mp3 : New Order – Player In The League

I’m guessing the original version for the TV programme was an instrumental and it was revisited after it was rejected with the lyrics added……it makes for a more than decent b-side.

Part 28a??  Well, the thing is, a couple of months after Here To Stay, a rather wonderful mash-up was made available as a b-side to Love At First Sight, the latest single by Kylie Minogue:-

mp3 : KylieNewOrder – Can’t Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head

Poptastic stuff.

JC

Yup….it is the cover of Get Ready, the album released by New Order in 2001.

Three singles were lifted from it.

mp3 : New Order – Crystal (radio edit)

The ‘comeback’ single was released in August 2001; the first new song in eight years and sort of fitting that it went to #8 in the singles chart.  The critics went wild for it but to this fan of such long-standing it was distinctly ordinary.  Never had New Order sounded so much like an average white rock band.  It was released on 2 x CD singles and, as had happened ever since the move away from Factory a number of remixes were offered up as the b-sides, although CD1 also had one other otherwise unavailable track:-

mp3 : New Order – Behind Closed Doors

If only it had been a cover of the Charlie Rich country hit from the 70s…..but to be fair it did turn out to be more  unusual songs in the discography of the band – one that if played in isolation with no hints might catch out a few folk with the vocal not quite sounding fully like Barney till about 2mins in.  It still doesn’t disguise the fact that for a band who were so adept with b-sides for much of their career that this is far from stellar.

Moving forward to November 2001 and what proved to be a #29 hit, which is about right for such a plodding effort:-

mp3 : New Order – 60 Miles An Hour

It’s b-sides consisted of a remix of the single, three remixes of album track Someone Like You and one new track:-

mp3 : New Order – Sabotage

Nope, it’s not a cover of the Beastie Boys song. In fact, it’s a far better song than many which found their way onto  the parent album. It’s something of a throwback in some ways to the Low-Life/Brotherhood era with some great bass licks from Hooky midway through.

And just one month later, the song given the remixes as b-sides to 60 Miles An Hour was issued as a 45 in its own right….albeit one with a difference Here’s wiki:-

Someone Like You is a single released by New Order in December 2001. The single is unusual in New Order’s back catalogue in the respect that it was issued primarily as a club DJ vinyl release. “Someone Like You” was remixed by Futureshock, Gabriel & Dresden, James Holden and Funk D’void. The Gabriel & Dresden 911 Vocal Mix was recorded on September 11 and all releases with its inclusion has these sleeve notes: “Recorded September 11th, 2001 and is dedicated to the men, women and children who senselessly lost their lives that day”.

mp3 : New Order – Someone Like You (Gabriel & Dresden 911 Vocal Mix)

Methinks this 12 minute explosion of sound is one for Swiss Adam and ctel.

JC

The b-side to True Faith, the 14th single by New Order which was released in July 1987, was 1963. It was, and remains a magnificent b-side – a pop song with a lyric that wasn’t mundane and was also open to a number of interpretations – with both tracks being composed specifically for inclusion on the Substance compilation which, more than 30 years on is the album I’d recommend most to anyone who was new to the band and looking for a decent introduction.

All that was back in the Factory days when the release of a new single really was something to look forward to, even if on occasion the contents were a wee bit of a letdown. London Records had already shown how cynical they were prepared to be by lifting four 45s from Republic in 1993, but worse was to come when the label realised the band weren’t intending to get back in the studio anytime soon.

In November 1994, (the best of) NewOrder was put into the shops just in time for the Xmas market. A ridiculously lazy effort, it was mostly the 7″ versions of singles from 1985 onwards with four tracks given the remix treatment. I’ve already featured the abysmal True Faith 94 and it was released as a companion single to promote the ‘best of’ album. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the post-Xmas effort came via the release of another single….

mp3 : New Order – 1963-95

The thing is…..this was different from the mix that had been put on the ‘best of’ compilation. The new single was a remix by Arthur Baker and in itself was a really decent effort in that the song was stripped back a fair bit and was reminiscent in many ways of Regret. But it all seemed so pointless and greedy, especially when anyone wanting to get the full set would need to buy a least 2 x Cd singles and a the 12″ vinyl.

CD1 came with a slightly edited version of the Baker mix, together with the really appalling version that had been put on the ‘best of’ LP

mp3 : New Order – 1963-94

and two further mixes that really had fuck all to do with the original song:-

mp3 : New Order – 1963 (Lionrock Full Throttle Mix)
mp3 : New Order – 1963 (Joe T. Vanelli Dubby Mix)

CD 2 offered the full length Baker remix, a vocal version of Let’s Go (which had originally appeared as an instrumental on the soundtrack to a long forgotten movie called Salvation, released in 1987), another pointless remix of Spooky and another outing for the Shep Pettibone remix of True Faith.

The 12″ single consisted of four mixes of 1963, these being the two non-Baker efforts on CD1 and two further variations on them.

All of which sold in sufficient numbers to take the single to #21 in the UK charts.

This is where I really began to get disenchanted with New Order.  I did, and still do, have time for what Arthur Baker did to 1963, but the other mixes were a disgrace.  Years later, I did get one of the other b-sides courtesy of its inclusion in the Retro boxset.

mp3 : New Order – Let’s Go

What happened next almost beggared belief.  With still no material coming from the foursome, London decided that a further compilation was required and in August 1995, the tills bulged as fans parted cash for (the rest of New Order)…..here’s wiki:-

…the compilers brought together a selection of older remixes alongside new specially-commissioned remixes. The remixes of “Blue Monday”, “Confusion”, “Touched by the Hand of God”, “Bizarre Love Triangle”, “Age of Consent”, “Temptation” and “Everything’s Gone Green” were all new radical reinterpretations. The four singles from Republic are represented with remixes that had previously appeared as B-sides. The oldest mix included was Shep Pettibone’s take on “True Faith” from 1987.

The compilation was released on Compact Disc, cassette and double LP. Each version has a different track listing. Cassette editions include an additional mix of “Temptation”, while limited editions of the CD and cassette came with an additional bonus disc/cassette of “Blue Monday” remixes. To promote the album, “Blue Monday” was once again re-released. The single was backed with remixes that appear on the bonus disc of the limited edition CD. The version of “Blue Monday” released was the Hardfloor Mix, dubbed “Blue Monday-95”, and reached #17 in the UK

It was all beyond a joke now…

JC

For a band that had long taken pride in the quality of its 45s, from ensuring as few as possible were on LPs to the high quality designs of the sleeves to making more than decent and different b-sides, New Order really seemed to give up the ghost once they found themselves on London Records.

Regret had been well received and the reviews for parent album Republic were universally positive, so much so that it went in at #1 on the album charts. Job done for all concerned at the new label.

But it proved to be an album, for this long-time fan anyway, that seemed to offer little in the way of substance (pardon the pun) and it didn’t really stand up to repeat listens. The reviews were almost as if the critics were using up all the goodwill from previous years, delighted to see the band back after four years in the wilderness offering proof that, post-Factory, there was much to look forward to.

I’ve dug out a review from NME – one in which the critic awarded the album 8/10. With phrases like these, that mark is perhaps understandable:-

New Order return near-triumphant after four years in the superstar wilderness, still sculpting and creating music as dizzyingly pretty as an azure chemical sunset over Los Angeles. The oceanscapes, landscapes and cityscapes of the world might have changed almost beyond recognition in the interim, but this Mancunian quartet have managed to retain their poignant, indefinable essence while voyaging tentatively into new waters.

It can’t be the easiest task in Christendom to sculpt an album that marries the machine-dreams of the purest Euro techno with Funk percussiveness and absolutely haywire melodies – these musical cul-de-sacs are usually mutually exclusive – and string wayward, frothy, accusing and tender poetry on top, but more often than not they’ve pulled it off.

But later on, the reviewer, Dele Fadele, points out something rather obvious about the record and why it was of huge bother to many fans:-

‘Republic’ has been produced and co-written with Stephen Hague with, for the most part, positive results. The only gnawing bone of contention is that he doesn’t seem to realise that Peter Hook’s melancholic, melodic bass-playing is the soul of New Order, the point from which all the other emotions start to make sense. Hook seems to have been confined to playing bit-parts on his own LP and the effect is that the tracks take some getting used to, such is their unfamiliarity, although when they finally sink in they just keep on growing. The single ‘Regret’ is not symptomatic of what follows, being classically hummable, guitar-led New Order, but at least you can hear Hooky.

If the reviewer really does think that Peter Hook’s bass was the soul of the band, how can you be so fawning over an album in which he seems to hardly feature?

Regret opened up Side A of Republic – it was followed in order by World, Ruined In Day and Spooky, all of which were released as 45s (but not in that particular sequence).

Ruined In A Day was released in June 1991 on 2 x CDs, 12″ vinyl and cassette. All told there were eight(!!!) mixes of the single. World, one of the other tracks on Republic (and a future single although we didn’t know it yet) was given a dub version on the 12″ while a new song, Vicious Circle, was released in two versions – the New Order Mix on the cassette and the Mike Haas mix on CD1. I thought it was the worst single they had ever released (up to this point) and I didn’t buy any of the versions…I wasn’t alone as it limped to #22 despite all the formats. I may not have bought it at the time and still don’t own a copy, but one of the remixes was given away on a compilation CD with a magazine around the same time:-

mp3 : New Order – Ruined In A Day (Reunited In A Day)

I’ve also done a bit of villainy for your previously unreleased track which is more like an Electronic outtake than anything else:-

mp3 : New Order – Vicious Circle (New Order Mix)

Moving on two months and the newly titled World (The Price of Love) became the third 45 to be lifted from the album. This time it was on 2 x CDs, 7″ and 12″ vinyl with, yet again, eight mixes of the single featuring the work of Paul Oakenfold/Steve Osborne, Brothers in Rhythm and K-Klass. There were no new songs on offer. It reached #13.

mp3 : New Order – World (Price of Love) (perfecto edit)

Finally, the dead horse was truly flogged in December 1993 when Spooky was issued as a single, To show you how ridiculous things were getting, I’m going to list all nine variations:-

CD #1
1. “Spooky” (Minimix) (Remixed by Fluke)
2. “Spooky” (Magimix) (Remixed by Fluke)
3. “Spooky” (Moulimix) (Remixed by Fluke)
4. “Spooky” (album version)

CD #2:
1. “Spooky” (Out of Order Mix) (Temixed by Paul van Dyk)
2. “Spooky” (Stadium Mix) (Remixed by Tony Garcia)
3. “Spooky” (New Order in Heaven) (Remixed by Paul van Dyk)
4. “Spooky” (Boo! Dub Mix) (Remixed by Tony Garcia)
5. “Spooky” (Stadium Instrumental) (Remixed by Tony Garcia)

There was also a 12″ single but it didn’t offer anything not available on the 2 x CDs.

mp3 : New Order – Spooky (Magimix)

Tune in next week to hear the bottom of the barrel really being scraped by the record company.

JC

I was very tempted to call an end to this series after World In Motion given that we are now onto the London era with the band signing to the label after the sad and bitter collapse of Factory.

It took nearly three years for the follow-up to the #1 hit to be released. By this time, the music scene in the UK and the US had gone through a number of major changes and there was a feeling that perhaps there was no longer a need for New Order. But doubts were banished when the first few notes of the comeback single were first heard:-

mp3 : New Order – Regret (7″ mix)

OK….it’s not exactly dance hall New Order, it’s not exactly electro New Order and it’s not exactly guitar-led New Order. But it is a rather lovely mid-tempo pop song in which the vocal comes through nice and clear over some polished and professional playing. There was no doubting that Stephen Hague‘s fingerprints were all over it as it sounded sublime coming out of a radio.

It was ‘new’ New Order, so to speak – one that seemed to promise much, albeit it was the sound of a band perhaps accepting their halcyon and wild days were over and it was time to settle down and make music for grown-ups and the baby boomers. They would no longer be a truly essential part of anyone’s aural landscape, but as long as there were enough songs of the distinction and quality of Regret, we’d have nothing much to worry about.

Except of course it didn’t happen that way.

Which is why this is the last 45 to be given a feature on its own, with all the b-sides brought together for your enjoyment. From here on in, the 45s will be lumped in on the basis of the albums they were lifted from.

Regret was released in 7″, 12″ and CD format. All of the b-sides were variations on the hit, which reached #4 in the UK, the last time the band enjoyed a Top 5 achievement:-

mp3 : New Order – Regret (New Order Mix)
mp3 : New Order – Regret (Fire Island Mix)
mp3 : New Order – Regret (Junior Dub Mix)
mp3 : New Order – Regret (Sabres Slow ‘n’ Lo)
mp3 : New Order – Regret (Sabres Fast ‘n’ Throb)

Fire Island and Junior Dub are the work of Terry Farley and Pete Heller. Sabres are that man Weatherall again…and both come in at more than 12 minutes in length. Here was the band showing that they could, indeed, still be relevant to dance halls. But you’d be hard pushed to recognise either of them as being related much to the original.

JC

The final 45 that New Order would ever release on Factory Records – not that anybody realised that at the time – and it provided the band and the label with a first ever #1 single.

Prior to World In Motion, there is a general consensus that all football-related songs, (especially those on which players take part), were shit. Post-WIM, there is a general consensus that all football-related songs (especially those etc.), are shit.

World In Motion, as a New Order song, isn’t all that great. As an Englandneworder song, it works well enough.

I’m sure just about everybody knows the back story, but just in case…..

The Football Association of England, at the tail end of the 80s, had a press officer who was quite upon his music.  He thought it would be a great idea if New Order would consider penning something that would become the official team song for the World Cup Finals taking place in Italy in 1990. The press officer approached Tony Wilson who immediately said yes.

Knowing full well that the band had little or no interest in football, Wilson drafted in comedian/actor Keith Allen to pen the main lyric. It was also felt the involvement of Stephen Hague, following his success on the production side of True Faith, would pay dividends in terms of making the record a cut above the norm. There was also a slice of luck in that a fraction of the squad – just 6 players in all – came along to the studio to add their vocals in the background, but that one of them was John Barnes, who proved willing and adept enough to chance his arm on a rap section that Allen wanted to incorporate, albeit he came through a contest in the studio with the other players.

Two other things helped the song – the video that was less than serious (no surprise given the involvement of Allen) and also that England put up a good showing, eventually, in the tournament, reaching the semi-finals and thus the song became the backdrop to their progress.

mp3 : Englandneworder – World In Motion

The flip side doesn’t have the Hague production, nor any input from the players, outside of the rap . It still has the football related lyric in the verses and a backing vocal from Allen, but put these to one side and you can appreciate just how good a tune it is while the ‘Love’s Got The World In Motion’ chorus is not only catchy, but open to interpretation – it’s easy to see why Allen originally wanted to call it E for England only to have the FA just say no…..

mp3 : New Order – The B-side

World In Motion, like many of the more recent New Order 45s, was given the remix treatment, with four versions put on a 12″ single housed in a gold sleeve in which the letter ‘e’ was a bold yellow colour.

mp3 : New Order – World In Motion (Subbuteo Mix)
mp3 : New Order – World In Motion (Subbuteo Dub)
mp3 : New Order – World In Motion (Carabinieri Mix)
mp3 : New Order – World In Motion (No Alla Violenza Mix)

The first two are the work of Graeme Park and Mike Pickering; the latter are by Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley. The world was not only in motion, but it was truly loved up. This was not a novelty song, but something that the band and all involved with had every right to be proud of – it was a continuation of what had made Technique such a great listen.  Not everyone gets to have #1 hits.

JC

I’m being lazy this week and re-hashing an old post from January 2016 which I entitled

‘When John Denver went to Ibiza.’

My effort come up with an ICA for New Order in June 2015 placed Run as the final track on Side A when I said:-

Run is one of the most outstanding songs on the album and rather bravely the band went for an edited single release in due course in which about 45 seconds are chopped off and by editing down the dreamy instrumental finish to the song and replacing it with more of the re-recorded vocal with Barney’s voice given more prominence than the original mix. It’s a decent enough mix and does a job of giving us enough changes to think of it as a new song altogether but it’s not a patch on the original.

The remix was in fact worked on alongside Scott Litt who at tht point in time was known for having worked on couple of LPs by R.E.M. The fact that he would also work on the multi-million sellers Out Of Time and Automatic For The People albums in the 90s and become one of the most talked about producers of that era was all in the future…..

Run 2 is really quite a different version. To expand on what I said in the ICA piece, the long instrumental section at the end of the original is replaced by a repeat of the chorus while there’s also greater prominence given to Bernard’s vocal and guitar and Hooky’s bass lines in an effort to make it more appealing to radio stations. Despite this, Factory Records didn’t press up all that many copies and it wasn’t the easiest thing to find in the shops.

The record, which was released only on 12″ vinyl which played at 33 1/3 rpm, stalled at #49 in the UK charts which was the poorest showing by a New Order single in a long while. But this where the fun really started…..

After the release, John Denver (or more accurately John Denver’s lawyers) sued the group, claiming that Run 2, in particular the instrumental part, sounded too similar to his hit Leaving On A Jet Plane. The case was settled out of court, and as a result the single in it’s remixed form was, for a very long time, out of print save the original few thousand copies made available in 1989.

As a result, Run 2 was a bit of music much sought after by fans, especially outside the UK (it was never made available at all overseas). There was much anticipation when Run 2 was listed on the track lists of compilation LPs released in 1994 and 2005, but in fact it was always the original version from Technique that was included.

But finally in 2008, a deluxe edition of Technique was released that included the extended mixes of Run 2 and the track MTO that had been on the b-side of the 12″. But even now, the regular mix of Run 2 and minus mix of MTO a are otherwise unavailable.

Unless someone rips them from vinyl:-

mp3 : New Order – Run 2
mp3 : New Order – Run 2 (extended mix)
mp3 : New Order – MTO
mp3 : New Order – MTO (minus mix)

Oh and nowadays, the credits for all newly released versions of Run are attributed to Sumner, Hook, Morris, Gilbert and Denver.

PS: Here’s the album version.

mp3 : New Order – Run

JC

The second single lifted from Technique.

Round & Round is a magnificent offering. It was much adored by Tony Wilson who pushed hard for it be issued as a 45 when the band were asking for it to be Vanishing Point. Legend has it that Wilson struck a bet with Rob Gretton, the manager of New Order, that it would be at least a Top 5 hit in the charts, and if not he would resign as chair of Factory Records. It only reached #21 and to his word, he did resign, albeit for a day. And in typical Factory behaviour, the event was deemed significant enough for it be given its own catalogue number, FAC253.*

The single did take the piss somewhat in respect of formats in the UK, with two different 12″ releases, one 7″ release and 2x CD singles, all with variations in the sleeves and some offering different b-sides. I bought the standard 12″ with the catalogue number FAC263:-

mp3 : New Order – Round & Round (12″)
mp3 : New Order – Best & Marsh (12″)

The single has a different mix from the album version; the b-side was the theme tune to a television show in which legendary footballers George Best and Rodney Marsh talked nostalgically about the good old glory days.

I’ll feature the music via the other formats, beginning with FAC263/7:-

mp3 : New Order – Round & Round (7″)
mp3 : New Order – Best & Marsh (7″)

FAC263r was the remix single.

mp3 : New Order – Round & Round (Club Mix)
mp3 : New Order – Round & Round (Detroit Mix)

FACD 263 was the CD single. It contained the 7″ and 12″ mixes of the single, the 7″ Best & Marsh and this:-

mp3 : New Order – Vanishing Point (Instrumental Making Out Mix)

This came from an otherwise unreleased soundtrack work that Steven and Gillian had done for a BBC drama series called Making Out, one of whose stars was Keith Allen to who we will return later in this series. It’s a fantastic variation on one of the stand-out tracks from Technique (and the one the band were keen to issue as a 45).

FACD 263r was a 3″ CD single that featured the club, Detroit and 12″ mixes of the single.

Oh and for completeness sake, here’s the LP version.

mp3 : New Order – Round & Round

And a lousy remix that was made for the release of The Best of New Order by London Records in 1994:-

mp3 : New Order – Round & Round 94

Just wish that I had danced to Round & Round in a club back in 89/90.

JC

*yup, I also think it is bizarre, but I suppose typically Factory, that the resignation of the chairman (FAC 253) comes in the catalogue in advance of FAC 263, which was the number given to Round and Round….all New Order singles did have a ‘3’ at the end

FAC 33 NEW ORDER Ceremony
FAC 53 NEW ORDER Procession
FAC 63 NEW ORDER Temptation
FAC 73 NEW ORDER Blue Monday
FAC 93 NEW ORDER Confusion
FAC 103 NEW ORDER Thieves Like Us
FAC 123 NEW ORDER The Perfect Kiss
FAC 133 NEW ORDER Subculture
FAC 143 NEW ORDER Shellshock
FAC 153 NEW ORDER State of the Nation
FAC 163 NEW ORDER Bizarre Love Triangle
FAC 183 NEW ORDER True Faith
FAC 193 NEW ORDER Touched by the Hand of God
FAC 223 NEW ORDER Fine Time
FAC 263 NEW ORDER Round & Round
(more to come)

The single after Touched By The Hand of God was in fact Blue Monday 88, but I featured that in an earlier posting.

New Order had closed off 1987 with a sold-out gig at the 12,500 capacity Wembley Arena, supported by a then little-known Primal Scream whose debut LP had been released to huge indifference. The following year, New Order seemed to drop completely out of view, with no new songs or live gigs to speak of. It later transpired that they had spent the best part of seven months working on their latest album, initially in Ibiza and then in Bath.

Technique should have been in the shops in time for Xmas 88 but it ended up being delayed until January 1989. All the talk was that the new record would be quite different from anything they had done before, with more a club feel to it with one eye on what was beginning to pack out The Hacienda.

In December 1988, the new single was released. The sleeve for Fine Time, with its depiction of drug capsules, was a clear indication that the club market was where the band were aiming. The contents of the vinyl remain, to this day, the one recording by New Order that gave a huge jolt to my system.

mp3 : New Order – Fine Time (12″ version)

The Barry White-esque vocal cut is Barney slowed right down via electronic trickery. I’ve long thought it was him  taking the piss out of Hooky’s rock god persona with the lyric:-

Hey, you know
I’ve met a lot of cool chicks
But I’ve never met a girl with all her own teeth
That’s why I love you babe
That’s why we could be
But you’re too young
Too young for me

Turns out it was supposedly about Barney’s first wife…which makes it as mundane and stupid as it gets.

But in this one, it’s best to put the lyric to one side and concentrate on the music. Which is why the instrumental b-side on the 12″ is the one for me…

mp3 : New Order – Fine Line

In a crowded Christmas market, the single managed to reach #15 and led to a very bizarre Top of the Pops appearance, which is saying something given how weird previous appearances had proved to be:

The following week….it climbed to #11 which I’m sure was the first time a New Order TOTP appearance had seen a single rise up the charts afterwards!

Oh, and I almost forgot that there was a more conventional instrumental made available as the standard b-side:-

mp3 : New Order – Don’t Do It

As it turned out, this was the sound that would provide much of the template for the resultant album…which regular readers will know is my favourite by the band, so expect some gushing praise for the next few singles.

JC

One of my favourite bloggers is Swiss Adam from Bagging Area.  He is a superb writer, especially on all things Mancunian, and he was responsible for a superb piece on Touched By The Hand of God last year.  It’s well worth a read.  So much so, I’m reproducing it:-

New Order put out two non-album singles in 1987, True Faith and Touched By The Hand Of God. True Faith was the chart smash, the crossover hit with the award winning video but Touched… has long been its equal to these ears. The juddering synth bass intro was written by Hooky, waiting around for the others to arrive at their rehearsal studio, their timekeeping being a long standing gripe of Hooky’s. Tellingly in Substance Hooky notes that ‘Barney was happy with it’. From there on in the full band contributed to fleshing it out. Originally Touched… was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Salvation!, a parody of televangelism (a straight to VHS release). New Order recorded several other songs for the soundtrack and then had Arthur Baker remix Touched… for its release in December 1987 as a single. There’s an effortlessness about it, synth-pop disco brilliance, which makes it favourite of mine, Hooky’s bass well represented and Bernard’s lyrics seeming to carry the weight of personal experience.

Kathryn Bigelow’s video, shot at their Cheetham Hill studio and intercut with MTV video pisstake snippets, is a hoot- all the group dressed as a hair metal band (and Hooky in his normal clothes).

Only thing is, I disagree vehemently with him and have nothing good to say about this single (nor its accompanying promo).

mp3 : New Order – Touched By The Hand Of God (12″)
mp3 : New Order – Touched By The Hand Of Dub (12″)

The dub version sounds like a tune Howard Jones would have rejected. Oh, and if you want the 7″ version of the a-side, you’ll find it at a posting a few weeks ago back here.

Today’s cuts were extracted from a second (or maybe third or fourth-hand) copy picked up for not too much money some 7 or 8 years ago. It’s still one of the cheapest New Order singles available via Discogs and the likes…probably as a good number of copies were sold at the time of its release, with it hitting #20 in the UK singles charts.

JC

‘What the Fuck?????’

I think it’s fair to say that this was my reaction when first hearing True Faith. It was via a TV set when the accompanying video was shown.

The summer of 1987 was a time when I was otherwise occupied and not paying too much attention to music. I wasn’t buying all the much and indeed if hadn’t been for a subsequent friendship with Jacques the Kipper whose C90 cassettes filled in so many gaps, then it’s fair to say I would have little or no knowledge of about two years worth of indie music.

New Order‘s latest single was a huge hit, thanks in part to the astonishing and innovative video, but let’s face it, True Faith was, and remains, an outstanding piece of pop music. It may have been a long way removed from Blue Monday, Temptation and Ceremony, but it is a wonderfully timeless and catchy piece of music.

It was written, along with 1963, its b-side, in the studio for the sole purpose of being new songs that could be included on Substance, a compilation album that brought together various singles and b-sides that have already featured in this series.

Substance was intended to be issued simultaneously in the US and UK, and it was the band’s American manager, Tom Attenacio, who pushed hard for a breakthrough pop hit to be written and included, and so pushed the band in the direction of Stephen Hague. The story behind the sessions that produced True Faith and 1963 is one of the most fascinating parts of Hooky’s book on New Order – the producer had very firm and fixed ideas about how it should be put together and he didn’t think there was much room for the usually distinctive bass sounds and indeed they were only added at the 11th hour after Attenacio, thankfully, intervened on the basis that you couldn’t have a New Order song on which only three of the band made a contribution as the bass is one of the things that drives it along beautifully.

mp3 : New Order – True Faith (12″)

The b-side was another lovely bit of synth-pop, something that could have (and subsequently would) work as a stand-alone 45:-

mp3 : New Order – 1963 (12″)

The single was released in two formats, with a radical remix by Shep Pettibone, aimed squarely at the dance market, also made available on 12″ vinyl in a different sleeve:-

mp3 : New Order – True Faith (remix)
mp3 : New Order – True Dub

The remix single also included the version of 1963 that was housed within the ‘blue’ sleeve, and all told it reached #4 in the UK singles chart and #32 on the US Billboard charts. Job done in terms of Substance.

Some seven years later, and the post-Factory release of The Best of New Order on London Records saw a little bit of history repeating with True Faith being used, in a re-recorded style, to promote the release:-

mp3 : New Order – True Faith 94
mp3 : New Order – True Faith 94 (Perfecto Mix)
mp3 : New Order – True Faith 94 (Sexy Disco Dub)
mp3 : New Order – True Faith (TWA Grim Up North Mix)

Make of them what you will…..it still pisses me off how cynical London Records were proving to be, but I’ll return to that it in a few weeks time when, among other things, I’ll feature the time when 1963 was issued as a stand-alone 45.  Worth mentioning that such was the popularity of New Order in the mid-90s that the re-mixed True Faith went all the way to #9 in the UK singles charts.

JC

The LP Brotherhood had been released to mixed reviews in September 1986, and as mentioned last time out, the non-LP single State of the Nation hadn’t charted all that highly in comparison to the singles from 83/84.

The solution? Take one of the more upbeat songs from the album, give it a bit of a remix and issue it is a single. The outcome….a brilliant 12″ single that sold dismally and limped to #56 in the singles charts. But it has become the most covered New Order song of them all – wiki lists more than 20 different versions (while admitting the list isn’t exhaustive) – it’s a song that also been recorded successfully in the Cantonese and Mandarin languages.

Loads out there, even featuring New Order, and I’m not going to try and get them all in today as it would take far too long.

mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (album version)
mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (7″ version)
mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (12″ version)

The single versions were remixed by Shep Pettibone, a then fairly well-known producer who would go onto to achieve world fame thanks to extensive work with Madonna in the late 80s and early 90s.

Here’s the b-sides:-

mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Dub Triangle (7″ version)
mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Dub Triangle (12″ version)

A few others…..

mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle 94

This was produced by Stephen Hague for inclusion in the Best of New Order compilation CD

mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (Richard X extended mix)
mp3 : New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method extended mix)

These were from compilation albums entitled Future Retro, released in 2005, and which gave 21st Century remixes to 80s electro/indie hits.

Of them all, I don’t think you can better Pettibone’s original 12″ effort….also worth noting that although, as with all New Order songs it is attributed to all four members, Hooky gives the credit for this one to Stephen Morris.

Oh what the hell….

mp3 : Sandy Lam – Bizarre Love Triangle (Mandarin version)
mp3 : Post Modern Jukebox – Bizarre Love Triangle

The latter is described, somewhat accurately, as a Burt Bacharach style take on the song.

JC

The combined efforts of Nina Simone and Dizzee Rascal provided this series with a stay of execution.  I’m not holding out too much hope for today given that the rules of the indie chartplacings, especially in the 90s, gave rise to major labels using loopholes, and this is the time of year when novelty records can be all the rage.  If so, I’ll take some consolation from the fact that fewer people visit here during holiday periods.

1 January 1988 : mp3 : New Order – Touched by the Hand of God

Now this was a surprise.  A song that will feature very soon in another long-running series and so I’ll leave the commentary until then.  The reason I said surprise is that I can’t really recall this being a Xmas-time release, but it did go to #1 in the indie charts in early December and held the spot for a very impressive six weeks.

1 January 1998 : Steps – 5,6,7,8

Quickly moving on…..

1 January 2008 : Shaun The Sheep – Life’s A Treat

As I was saying about novelty records.  This was on Tug Records, a label that mostly issued material by Right Said Fred….I’ll leave it at that.

Roll on next month.