This is provocation, from somebody. But OK if there are 3 good Joy Division songs, which ones are they?
If I had to pick just three, they would be –
Atmosphere
(I love a party with an atmosphere)
Presaged the glory of New Order’s best dance music, but with Ian’s words, not Barney’s
Love Will Tear Us Apart
(Love Will Bring Us Back Together)
A cliche, but when it’s done well (Susanna and the Magical Orchestra), it’s devastating
Shadowplay
Matches good lyrics, Ian in full voice and music vigorous and vibrant
I think there are many other serviceable and portentous Joy Division songs, but if forced to choose, these are the ones I would go for now.
Tell me (and @freddy-steady) yours, if you like – plus reasons.
Bugger, I’ve just heard Transmission. That’ll be my joker.
You probably don’t need reminding. But here they are, to prompt people looking at the column on the right
Way more than 3.
Disorder, Decades, Dead Souls (today’s selection is brought to you by the letter “D”)
Digital. For the rawer punky inventiveness.
Disorder. See above but more refined.
Love Will Tear Us Apart. Sheer poetry amd a great tune.
But yeah, way more than three.
LWTUA was Keanu Reeves’s choice of song on the Colbert Questionert.
I was a +1 at a wedding.
LWTUA was the first song.
Boys don’t cry was second.
On a recent car journey the shuffle function played ‘I wanna be like you’ from the Jungle Book, and then followed with Joy Division’s ‘Transmission.’ It may be my favourite segue ever.
I love the shuffle function
Atmosphere, LWTUA, Twenty Four Hours.
But yeah, way more than three.
People seem divided over which is the better album. For me it’s Closer.
Top of my head, I’d go –
Atmosphere, Isolation, She’s Lost Control
LWTUA is a classic, but I’ve heard it enough I think.
3:
Atmosphere
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Transmission
And another 3:
She’s Lost Control
Shadowplay
Digital
Album: Unknown Pleasures
3? I thought it was ONE.
When I saw ACR at Nottingham, the DJ played No Love Lost from the under-rated Ideal For Living EP. It sounded ruddy fantastic when really loud through the PA system.
I have Digital in my DJ box. It scratches a certain itch.
Atmosphere.
Transmission.
LWTUA.
Bugger, that’s five.
Erm.
Love will tear us apart
Transmission
Isolation
“I sing this song with my tongue in my cheek..,”
Bugger…I’ve just heard Shadowplay
Erm… let’s see now…
Disorder
New Dawn Fades
Shadowplay
She’s Lost Control
Transmission
Isolation
Heart and Soul
The Eternal
Decades
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Dead Souls
Atmosphere
It’s official – Joy Division had (at least) a dozen top tunes!
These Days deserves a mention.
These Days absolutely, a thrilling glimpse of how they might have progressed
I think in many ways New Order shows us how they might have progressed, naturally with a different singer and a much weaker lyricist.
Generous description of Barney as “singer” there, Dai. “Vocalist”, definitely. “Singer”, not quite so much.
The one I play most often nowadays is Heart and Soul. It’s got such a great propulsive beat and a powerful sound.
Other than that I’d nominate Dead Souls and Decades.
I was only listening to my “best of Joy Division”, minidisc last week.
…and Ceremony if that counts as a JD song.
Minidisc! God I loved that format.
I still have three functioning minidisc decks. Two at home and one at work. Can’t beat it.
I had a fantastic Sony portable/recordable minidisc player I used to love. Can’t find it anywhere now and suspect it must have been thrown out, but I’d genuinely love to get another one. (Heads off to ebay…)
I have a portable minidisc player at home that someone gave me. It is never used. I’ll see if it’s recordable. You’re welcome to it if you’re interested. I’ll PM you if I can find it.
If Bamber doesn’t have one, I do. It hasn’t been powered up for years but you’d be welcome to it if it still works
What a very nice forum full of kind people this is. Thanks so much @bamber and @davebigpicture
will await replies with interest.
Reading the admonition by @salwarpe below, I would choose Dead Souls because of its dynamics, the transition from the steady verses to the driving chorus (I Wanna be Your Dog a definite influence) and the epic sense of history in the lyrics.
Decades is such a moving song, reminiscent of the WWI poets describing the traumatised generation. Musically it’s not great but even the lack of virtuosity probably adds to the poignancy.
Thank you Bamber. For a spur of the moment reactive post in reaction to an off the cuff remark from freddy, I was probably a bit cheeky demanding more from the AW massive than I was prepared to put in myself, but words like yours bring colour and dimension and personality to choices. Few of us are poets, but we can strive to say what we like about our music – it’s what makes the Afterword a great place to come to.
An interesting fact (if indeed it is a fact) is that Love Will Tear Us Apart was recorded in the same studio (Strawberry iirc) as Love Will Keep Us Together by Neil Sedaka.
I heard that from Tom “Something Happens” Dunne on his excellent radio show so blame him if it doesn’t check out.
‘Tis true. Although Captain & Tennille recorded their version in the US, which is a shame.
Thanks for your lists, everyone. I might put them into a blender and see which three come out on top.
Oh and Nick L wins the Attentive AW Award for answering the OP question in full. I asked for reasons and he gave them. Any bugger can list songs, it takes a bit more effort to explain why the songs are good.
Did anyone else bother? Bamber gets a point for one justification.
There’s still time to step up. Where is your critical and creative expression, everyone?
Joy Division clearly had many more than just three good songs – any suggestion otherwise is surely just provocative and contrarian. And I’d take anything from Unknown Pleasures or Closer over anything from New Order (except maybe Ceremony and In A Lonely Place).
If forced to pick just three: I’ll pick these, which I enjoy for the basslines – these are great fun to play and still have the power to startle the youth of today. And they’re miserable as sin.
Komakino
Day of the Lords
Twenty Four Hours
Well, yes. I was being a bit provocative and contrarian with me mate.,..
Just remembered something else!
I annoyed my mate even more by telling him I much preferred Moby’s version of New Dawn Fades then the original…ouch!
Isolation: A death disco rattle, it’s the sum of all their influences from krautrock to punk building up to a massive climax
Dead Souls: I love how this shows off JD’s typical bloody-mindedness. That intro that grinds on and on, the peaks and drop-downs, til Ian comes in, and it all kicks off. He sounds totally terrifying “someone take these dreams away… they keep calling me!!” til he’s exhausted and the whole thing ebbs gradually to a fade.
Digital: Krautrock via Macclesfield, each member playing to their strengths to the max in this one, Hooky’s simply hooky intro, locked into Stephen’s mechanic, metronomic slam, Barney’s mournful lines and Ian, working himself up into pure dread and frenzy ‘day in! day out! day in! day out! day in! day out!” etc. Like ‘These Days’ it points to a possible JD future that never was but could have been absolutely thrilling.
Fantastic descriptions – they change how I hear the songs I think I know so well, help me hear them in new ways. Thank you.
The working remit for the Closer album was ‘JD go disco with Frank Sinatra’. Isolation… kind of works.
I read somewhere that either Hannett or Wilson gave Ian a couple of Sinatra records to listen to before ‘Closer’ to focus his phrasing
Yeah, Wilson I think. Closer is a very different sounding record up UP, both vocally and instrumentally, despite having the same producer.
Like two different bands in two albums. Maybe that’s where Talk Talk got the idea.
Can’t even think of one to be honest. Er, not even ‘that one’ which I always thought monotonous and overrated.
Can’t disagree
It’s good to have the contrarian view – nobody should be afraid of being the boy pointing at the naked emperor.
I have a slightly different view in that, while I rate 99% of the JD songs, I’ve never liked LWTUA. I think it’s the NO fan’s favourite JD song – and definitely overrated. However, a cursory glance at the choices in the thread demonstrates that this is a minority view. If Sal does the stats, I bet it comes out on top.
A very interesting viewpoint but I plead exemption… it was my fav Joy Division song before New Order were even formed. Granted, it’s not a very long time frame from the single release to New Order’s birth!
And overrated? Definitely not by me. If anything it feels even more towering and classic with the passing of all these years.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: I know it’s a minority view.
But I’m used to that. It looks like nobody – nobody – has chosen any of the three songs that I picked! This exercise seems to have brought out the commonality in the JD fans on here…
Seems to me that many different songs have been picked, I didn’t pick LWTUA as it’s a little too obvious (and it doesn’t begin with D) I think it’s magnificent though. On SiriusXM here it gets very regular plays on the “New Wave” station and I never switch channels when it comes on despite hearing it a million times. And my 19 year old daughter likes it a lot too, she also adds New Order songs to her Spotify playlist after hearing one of those that she likes.
Bowie’s Up the Hill Backwards sounds very like it. However they came out in the same year so I don’t know if he was ripping them off.
Oh – I think and I’ll have to check on this but Visconti cited JD as preparatory listening before making Scary Monsters. I think he was referring to She’s Lost Control tho
I don’t hear the similarity, dai.
The intros are almost identical, at least until Barney’s synth line comes in
It’s deceptive because most of the JD song, what most people think of, is not like UTHB at all. It’s just that crashing loud guitar and drums intro which comes back later I think for a quick reprise. JD said they were listening to Bowie Berlin stuff when making music so mutual appreciation.
This ⬆️
LWTUA came out in May 1980 and Scary Monsters was apparently recorded Feb-April the same year so it would appear to be a coincidence, not that Bowie was unafraid to steal quite a few things throughout his career 😉
Some love for Twenty Four Hours downthread – so I stand corrected!
I remember reading a review somewhere of Radiohead’s Creep that said something about Nirvana having done the quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic first with Smells Like Teen Spirit and thinking, what about Twenty Four Hours? Really powerful bass.
If not that song, Pixies were definitely LOUDquietLOUD before either Nirvana or Radiohead.
Transmission
She’s Lost Control
Atmosphere
Last time we went on a “foreign holiday” I played a Joy Division playlist when I went out every day for an early morning stroll. As it happens we fly out on Monday and I suspect I shall do the same as walking (relatively quickly) in the early morning sun seems to work for me. It does feel quite the opposite to Salford or Manchester or Macclesfield in 1978 and yet it feels absolutely perfect and I look forward to it more than most things on my holiday.
Anyway, in answer to the original question-
Digital: BPM at the pace I walk at.
Dead souls: Just massive. Great walking song, particularly around a town or city. Long instrumental break helps at the start. I’ve never been a runner, but I can understand how one would have a particular song (or feeling) to get into a groove to.
Decades: I am absolutely looking forward to listening to this next week, I can almost see the harbour and the walk back to the old town right now. Clearly not what IC was singing about, walking around a pretty Spanish town first thing in the morning. Can’t quite put it into words, but it just seems to work.
Mind you, Mrs Paws likes to do the same sort of thing to Whitney Houston. I guess it takes all sorts.
Sounds intriguing. Songs that typically soundtrack gothic landscapes transposed to sunnier climes. It puts me in mind of travelling back to Venice in my 30s after being there in my teens. The first visit was a cold, grey foggy week, with building sombre through the mist, litre bottles of cheap Italian plonk drunk in sidestreets and alcoves – trips to remote churches to gaze at baroque side altars. The second was full sun, blue skies, pastel shades everywhere – it was like a Benetton advert. I couldn’t believe I was in the same city, and I couldn’t find that church or that quarter of the city that lodged in my mind anywhere.
Sorry @Salwarpe
1. Isolation – It’s the perky synth riff I like and a upbeat-ish vocal from Curtis. Could be JD’s nearest relative to New Order. The mix I am most familiar with distorts the voice with leads to a cloying, restrictive tension. I’m also a sucker for a false ending.
This is what I always believed the lyric to be:
“Serenity is self preservation
From mothers who care for themselves”
Which makes a bit of sense to me, given the mother reference elsewhere in the song.
However, the internet says it’s this:
“Surrendered to self-preservation
From others who care for themselves”
2. Atmosphere. In my more intense and serious teenage years, I visualised this as my funeral song with friends and relatives weeping uncontrollably.
Now that I’m older, I think I’d rather have something a bit more cheerful or, even better, leave it to them because I’ll be goneski.
Anyway, Atmosphere connects emotionally to me for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. You can’t beat a good glissando and I think the way the synth melody is understated – like it’s coming from another room – is beautifully subtle and gives the song it’s dreamlike feel. A masterpiece.
3. She’s Lost Control.
With this one, it’s all about the relentless drum/bass/guitar combo driving it along. Especially the drum sound. This underpins the story of a woman with epilepsy from the perspective of Curtis, who also suffered from the condition. It’s highly tense and on the brink. It doesn’t let up. Curtis performing it makes you worry for him, such was his intensity.
I first heard the song via Grace Jones – her version brings menace and perhaps a touch of cruel mockery towards the subject. Two very good and very different treatments of a remarkable song.
That’s much, much more like it, BC – quality prose as I know and have enjoyed over the years from you. Thank you. A small typo – (with leads = which leads), but otherwise a great effort.
Why have I turned into an English teacher? I was shit at English at school.
Thank you! It’s a challenge to answer the question “why?” when it comes to liking music. I enjoyed trying to justify it. I like trying to understand Curtis’ words because you feel there is a sincere meaning behind them. New Order’s lyrics are the direct opposite of that.
I also committed an apostrophe crime but I’m going to blame autocorrect for that.
it’s dreamlike feel?
That is hardly a crime these days – if so, it’s one many AWers commit and go unpunished for. Pedantry is like swordplay – too many slashes and it’s an attack, but a delicate slice here and there is surgery. Use it to help comprehension, not to perfect notions of order when the meaning is clear (enough).
Way more than 3 but I saw Joy Division support Dexys in Brum. 1979, at the Romulus Club
Only 3 that’s tough anyway of the top of my head here are the votes from the Cotswolds.
1/ Atmosphere
2/ Decades
3/ Transmission
Ask me tomorrow and it could possibly change.
Live, they were spellbinding until they started experimenting with synthesizers. Curtis’s peculiar physical contortions, resembling his epilepsy, enhanced the drama of Disorder more than any other.
New Dawn Faces maintains it’s tension for the whole of its unusual length, the bleak, overwhelming atmosphere enhanced by Summer’s guitar noises. It’s a song that still catches me in the throat.
Atmosphere captures the tragedy of Curtis’s death more than any other. Initially tucked away as a B side, the contrast between the devastated lyrics and the glittering shimmer of keyboard, the brightest sound in the whole of their catalogue, is too much to bear.
Typically detailed and evocative description of their music and its effect on you, tig – thank you. Like a good biopic that captures the essence of somebody and shows why it was making the film, thoughtful writing offers something to who even those not previously interested (eddie and james?)
I remember reading once an imagined scene of Ian turning up at the studio and hearing through the door the others practising Atmosphere and realizing they were going off in an new direction (order?) It’s fanciful and has ‘print the legend’ mythmaking echoes of Pink Floyd and Syd, (why wouldn’t Ian embrace electronica and vibrant sounds), but it’s a seductive notion, nonetheless. They were in the business of composing and performing evocative, powerful, imaginative, dramatic, mournful, cathartic music, with the imagery to go with it in dress and album design – it’s not surprising if listeners take those sounds resonating in their heads and go beyond reality.
It’s not just a provocative question, it’s plain wrong. They have so many good songs. If I was going to pick 3 it would be:
1. Love Will Tear Us Apart.
2. Dead Souls
3. The Eternal
LWTUA is just one of the best songs ever written.
Dead Souls is just a majestic beast of a song that is probably their most influential.
The Eternal is unique and brilliant.
There are so many more than 3 & although overplayed, there is no doubting the brilliance of their biggest hit. 46 years down the line it still sounds pretty damn fresh & will have me turning up the radio if it comes on.
My 3 would be
1. Atmosphere (IMHO one of the greatest songs ever – it is sublime)
2. Insight (surprised no-one else has chosen this yet – i think it is wonderful)
3. Disorder
Special shout out to Mobys cover of New Dawn Fades too – he does a great job of it
I’d like to know who said that to you. Trolls are silly people 🙂
————–
Atmosphere. The best Christmas song ever. This is not 100% true but I was swayed by the cover of the 12″. Majestic and sad.
Twenty Four Hours. The bassline, the drum pattern, Martin Hannett making a guitar sound like maracas and the build to a colossal chorus. Play loud, as they used to say.
And today, I’m going for Passover. Just the sub bass, simple but genius guitar figure, and the way it conks out at the end.
I remember reading a review somewhere of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit that said something about Radiohead having done the quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic first with Creep and thinking, what about Twenty Four Hours? Really powerful bass.
Indeed!
Well, yes, and I bet the Pixies were familiar with JD.
When I first saw Nirvana in the middle of the afternoon at the Reading Festival, I said they sounded like the bastard offspring of The Police and the Pixies.
Radiohead got there first? In a word, cobblers.
FWIW Creep was released over a year after Smells Like Teen Spirit.
I know Cobain said that Nirvana were influenced by Pixies quiet/loud dynamic for Nevermind, but I’m not actually convinced it’s there so much in the actual sound of the thing.
Smells Like Teen Spirit, if you listen to it, never really goes quiet – or at least not to the extent Creep does – it’s pretty loud all the way through, and its dynamics aren’t really that dissimilar to, say, Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith or (more obviously) More Than A Feeling by Boston.
There are Nirvana songs which genuinely do use the dynamic. Lithium is the track on Nevermind that plays with it the most obviously, and there are a couple on In Utero. But I’m not convinced it’s a game Smells Like Teen Spirit is playing.
Obviously, anything that brings attention to Pixies is a good thing, though.
I’ve just looked at Reading Festival posters, Nirvana were on mid-afternoon in 1991 and headlined 1992 – 35 years ago! Good grief, I feel old…
Radiohead were booked in 1993 but pulled out (Thom lost his voice but was there, I saw him backstage). They were replaced by Eat.
Honestly, why do I remember this shit?
Maybe John Lennon got there first with something like Isolation
I think Beethoven probably got there first, to be fair.
Loads of songs get a bit louder/more fully formed on the chorus – just listen to any of It Ain’t Easy by Bowie, Happy Together by The Turtles, or even Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
Pixies were probably the first alt rock group to make the switch from quiet to loud an absolute feature designed to make the loud bit feel even more feral and overwhelming.
The screaming on Tame, for example – in fact, Tame is the song I usually think of when I hear Creep, because it sounds like Creep before someone cleaned it up, gave it a bath and slapped a bow tie on it.
No That’s The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies
Late to the party on this one but wow, yes, it really is isn’t it! Always thought The Air That I Breathe was a wonderful, highly emotional song.
Before Beethoven was Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 – The “Surprise Symphony” composed in 1791. There’s gentle tinkly piano and then it has a very loud bit before going quiet again.
Haydn didn’t feel the need to have a singer shout “woo hoo! Well I feel heavy metal!” or anything like that .
@mc-escher No trolling on my part just a bit of joshing with a mate on a group chat.
Didn’t think it was you, I was referring to @salwarpe s mate in the OP.
Confused now. Think it was me!
For the avoidance of confusion, my ‘mate’ was:
this fine fellow!
Guilty as charged. Didn’t think I’d stir up quite such a hornets nest!
Hardly a hornet’s nest, Freddy: my “troll” comment was tongue in cheek.
Tis ok, I saw the emoji.😄
Like Nick Drake, my personal view is that the mythology around Joy Division has led to an overrating.
But that said, I do like Spear of Destiny’s version of ‘Transmission’. That and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ make two…
Funnily enough I’ve just been listening to Joy Division in the car. I find they go very well with a bright sunny day.
Both their studio albums are essential and just get better as the years go by.
If I had to pick three songs:
Twenty Four Hours
Decades
Novelty
No takers for “Louie, Louie” then?
I’m listening to Cortez the Killer (1975) by Neil Young on the radio and, with this thread fresh in my mind, it’s the blueprint for New Dawn Fades isn’t it?
Yes. I think Barney had the Zuma LP, if I remember from one of the numerous JD books.
Cortez on the radio? Excellent
Richie McCormack filling in for Tom “Something Happens” Dunne on the 10 to 12 slot on Newstalk (Ireland). It was by way of a follow up to playing the very long new Neil Young track the night before. I didn’t know it as I’m no Neil Young fan but the similarity to New Dawn Fades struck me almost immediately.
How about 3 greatest NO songs?
Everything’s Gone Green
Temptation
Fine Time
Ceremony
Blue Monday
The Perfect Kiss
(bubbling under Temptation, Bizarre Love Triangle, Thieves Like Us, True Faith, Regret)
All 12 inch versions (where applicable)
Sub-culture
1963
Elegia
3 great ones just because
True Faith
Sunrise
Ceremony
Depending on mood of the moment, I could make a case for Regret being up there, and the Republic album not as bad as many believe.
Then again, I rate Crystal as one of NOs finest moments, so make of that what you will
Perfect Kiss
Bizarre Love Triangle
True Faith
I might just leave this here…
Fine Time is an, er, brave choice. I suspect it would be in many people’s 3 worstest NO songs.
It’s ace !
The whole album is.
@fentonsteve! Fine Time is a classic – joyous, ridiculous and absolutely banging. I love it.
Technique is my absolute favourite NO album. I am waiting impatiently for a box set or atmos mix
I know, I own it (and the remix) on 12″. But many of the more post-punk NO fans on another part of the internet I frequent think Technique was their jump the shark moment.
Whereas we know that was Lost Sirens.
I’d say shark jumped on Get Ready
Fair comment. The shark was landed, dehydrated and filleted by Lost Sirens.
But Get Ready had Crystal, WFTSC had Krafty, and Lost Sirens had… nothing… as you might expect from a collection of out-takes, released as part of the divorce settlement.
Nobody has picked World in Motion (yet)
Ceremony
Regret
Vanishing Point
I’m changing number three. Procession replaces Vanishing Point.
Perfect Kiss
Elegia
Regret
Thieves Like Us
All Day Long
Ceremony
The trouble with this is that every NO song mentioned here is an absolute corker (except Crystal!)
But not as good as all the Joy Division ones mentioned!
😉
Succinct but Correct.
Yep…
The radio edit of Crystal (without the completely unnecessary and very un- New Order soulful wailing at the start) is much better and qualifies as a bit of a banger in my book!
As we seem to be wandering all over the JD family tree*, how about…
a Monaco Top 3?
• What Do You Want From Me?
• Shine
• Sedona
Because it’s Peter Hook’s bass playing that is the soul of all the music.
* Nothing wrong with that, BLT, TPK & S-C are my New Order go to’s. Anything before the abomination that is Technique would get my vote, even Every Second Counts.
I love Technique.
*ducks*
So do I @tiggerlion it’s virtually flawless!
Me and all!
Its the best NO album (bar Substance)
Correct
No it isn’t. That would be P,C&L
Or Lowlife
Or Movement
God this is difficult…for today anyway:
Ceremony…an emotional tour de force. (Not most live versions though where Sumner whoops and squeaks at the worst moments.)
Regret…just a banger of a tune. I love the live version from Reading Festival 1998.
Guilty Partner… (from Technique) just a great tune, with a touching, probably ecstasy inspired, lyric.
That whole Reading 98 set is pretty good – wobbly audience film of the whole gig here
Also on the “3 16” DVD. Well, 11 of the 19 tracks are.
I can confirm that, from the audience, it was ace. I’ve never felt a moment of a gig as community like the opening bars of Regret.
May have mentioned it before on here but I was there! It was exceptionally good and I still think it’s the best live performance I’ve ever seen.
I used to have a bootleg cassette of New Order live at the Michael Sobell Sports Centre, Finsbury Park (28 January 1985).
It was pretty good. Decent audio quality.
Strong setlist … except “Confusion” – a song I’ve always loathed.
The best version of Confusion was by Freeez. It was called I.O.U.
Wasn’t that what Arthur Baker was working on while the band tried to come up with something for him in their Brooklyn rehearsal room? And eventually cobbled together ‘Confusion’ (I might be thinking of something else, but I think it was Confusion)
Yep, pretty much. You can mix fairly seamlessly between I.O.U and Confusion. Baker gets a writer credit on both.
Always thought the same. I found it to be a big disappointment after Blue Monday, but it did pretty well in the charts. Naturally I have the 12 inch.
I really like all the different versions of Confusion.
Incidentally, I get the 12 inch when I hear New Order as well.
Is that you, Moose?
3 x NO is harder than 3 x JD for me.
Today it would be
1 – Your Silent Face
2 – Love Less
3 – Temptation
tomorrow it could quite easily be
1 – All The Way
2 – Ruined In A Day
3 – Age Of Consent
They can be patchy, but what a band. Hoping Gillian does release her book that was mooted a couple of years back, having read all of the others I would love her take on it all.
I was considering All the Way. Great song.
You’ve nudged me to relisten to All The Way just now and I agree – its a top 3
I have never understood the dislike of Technique. It has some wonderful tracks on it that have aged very well
Dunno, I always thought most NO fans loved it. Apart from Fine Time it’s not that radical either. I don’t think they ever made a completely satisfactory album though.
I cannot disagree with this. Every album has peaks & troughs, a few more troughs in the later ones, but when they are good they are excellent. I thought Singularity from Music Complete was up there with some of their best
I’d agree with that. Singularity would fit on any New Order compilation.
I thought Restless was pretty good, too, despite the lack of one of the essential ingredients.
We can argue over whether it’s really New Order but I thought Music Complete was pretty good
I saw Hooky in Berlin a couple of months ago, playing all of Get Ready. Great gig, but once you’re past ‘Crystal’, it’s OK, doesn’t have any other standout moments. Rather like ‘Republic’
Going to same gig next week in Toronto. For once I think I won’t mind being a bit late ….
@dai
You make a good point there . Though I agree Technique is virtually flawless, ⬆️, it isn’t quite and none of their albums are.
1. 24 Hours
2. The Eternal
3. Transmission
New Order are to Joy Division what Wings are to The Beatles.
What, better? Aha!
“The band they could’ve been…”
“I’d have to say, the Best of New Order”
I’m just disappointed no-one realises it’s Warsaw, She’s Lost Control and Transmission. Obviously.
I saw Peter Hook and the Light last night. Amazing show and She’s Lost Control was an absolute highlight. What a setlist! Even the Get Ready stuff went over well, apparently their biggest selling album in North America. Was somewhat bizarre to see lots of young people losing their minds to songs such as Temptation or Love Will Tear us Apart, not something I would have envisaged when hearing those tunes for the first time in the early 80s.
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/peter-hook-and-the-light/2026/history-toronto-on-canada-b436116.html
That takes me back – saw him with Revenge, must have been 1990? Very NO set it seems, no Revenge covers 😂 The Light sound a more interesting proposition. Sadly he’s only down to play Blackpool upcoming in the UK.
One Monaco cover. I saw New Order a couple of years ago and while in some ways Hooky and the Light were superior (especially the JD songs), the drummer wasn’t really anywhere near Stephen Morris’s ability. Only band I have seen with 2 lead bass players I think 🤔
1. Strontium-90
2. John Stevens’ Away
3. Err…
4. That’s it.