New Order

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

This article is about the alternative rock/electronic band New Order. For other uses, see New Order (disambiguation).

New Order
New Order as depicted in the sleeve of their 1985 album Low-Life. Clockwise from top left: Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Gillian Gilbert, Stephen Morris.
Background information
Origin	Salford, Greater Manchester, England
Genre(s)	Post-Punk Alternative Dance House Synthpop Techno New Wave Alternative Rock
Years active	1980-1993 1998-present
Label(s)	Factory (1981-1992) Warner (1998-) and Warner subsidaries London (1993-), Reprise and QWest
Associated acts	Joy Division Electronic Monaco Revenge The Other Two
Members
Bernard Sumner Stephen Morris Peter Hook Phil Cunningham
Former members
Gillian Gilbert

New Order is an English rock group formed in 1980 by the remaining members of Joy Division following the suicide of singer Ian Curtis.

Melding post-punk and electronic dance music, New Order became one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the 1980s. New Order has often been cited by fans, critics and other musicians as a highly influential force in the alternative rock and dance music scenes over the past 25 years.

Current members include Bernard Sumner (vocals, guitars, synthesizers), Peter Hook (bass, electronic drums), Stephen Morris (drums, synthesizers), and Phil Cunningham (guitars, synthesizers). In 2001, keyboardist/guitarist Gillian Gilbert (joined in 1980; she and Morris are married) left the group due to family commitments.

Contents 1 History 2 Albums 2.1 Movement 2.2 Power, Corruption & Lies 2.3 Low-Life 2.4 Brotherhood 2.5 Substance 2.6 Technique 2.7 Republic / band hiatus 2.8 Get Ready 2.9 Waiting for the Sirens' Call and Singles 3 Aesthetics 3.1 Album covers 3.2 Song titles 3.3 Singles 4 Trivia 5 Honours and recognition 6 Discography 7 Media 8 See also 9 External links 9.1 Official websites 9.2 Fansites 9.3 Resources 9.4 Joy Division

[edit] History

From 1976 to 1980, Ian Curtis, Hook, Morris, and Sumner formed a creative and highly influential post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis committed suicide just prior to an American tour and the release of the band's second album, Closer, in May 1980. Intending not to let the band disappear with Curtis, the band rehearsed with each member taking turns at singing, ultimately choosing Sumner as the guitar was an easier instrument to play while singing. The group toured, then recorded a track with singer Kevin Hewick.

Wanting to complete the line-up with someone they knew well whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own, New Order invited Morris' girlfriend, Gillian Gilbert from Macclesfield, to join the band during the early part of October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist.

Ironically the band had agreed not to continue should any one member leave Joy Division. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over twenty years, is credited for having found the name "New Order" in an article in The Guardian entitled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for ex-Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. Yet the link with Joy Division made it hard for critics to ignore the fascistic undertones the name carried with it, the term "New Order" being featured in Hitler's Mein Kampf as "the new order of the Third Reich." The band publicly rejected any claims that the name had anything to do with fascist or Nazi sympathies.

Their initial release as New Order was "Ceremony", backed with "In A Lonely Place". These two songs were among the very last songs written by Joy Division (played and recorded in a rehearsal the week before Curtis took his own life). (In the documentary entitled NewOrderStory, New Order vocalist Bernard Sumner revealed that they had to run the recordings through a graphic equalizer (or EQ) to figure out what Ian was singing due to the poor quality of the recording. These rehearsal recordings are available on the third disc of the Joy Division box set, Heart and Soul.)

[edit] Albums

[edit] Movement

With the release of Movement in November, 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation (Joy Division), performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of ethereal synthesizers. Unfairly panned now, although admittedly a probable nightmare to make, highlights of the Martin Hannett-produced album include "Dreams Never End" and "Chosen Time".

The singles that followed ("Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", the latter appearing in altered form on 1987's "Substance") indicated that at this stage the band had begun to change direction, more readily adopting sequenced electronics into their sound.

The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order), opened in May 1982 and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. This was the UK's first ever superclub. Its opening was marked by a near-23 minute instrumental piece of Steve Morris' making, 'Video 586'; released as a single 15 years later. Peter Hook was later to admit to grievance when he thought New Order 'had gone and done a single' without him.

[edit] Power, Corruption & Lies

Power, Corruption & Lies was released March, 1983, a synthesizer-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music in with their earlier guitar-based sound, heavily inspired by acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Also, the group had begun to adopt abstract, seemingly nonsensical lyrics, with a curious naivety to them, effectively the polar opposite of Curtis' brooding poetry. Also, as seen at the end of the emotive "Your Silent Face", Sumner seems to have adopted an ironic, satirical sense of humour, finishing the song with the line "why don't you piss off", interpreted to mean Sumner's giving closure to the critics who have unjustly compared his lyricism to that of Curtis.

Even farther in this direction was the electronically sequenced, Falklands-themed, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday", which became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time. The 12-inch "Blue Monday" single sleeve was so elaborate, resembling a large 5¼" floppy disk, that the band and Factory themselves were said to lose around £0.20 on each copy sold. However, later presses became less elaborate, and the band reaped large profits from the sales of the single. The American edition of Power Corruption & Lies, released later, featured "Blue Monday" and its b-side "The Beach" as extra tracks.

The hip hop-tinged single "Confusion" (released in 1983 and co-produced by Arthur Baker) firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. It was a crossover success on the club scene, and set a precedent for remixes of rock or pop songs which has now become a key part of music marketing.

Still, the group did not pigeonhole themselves as a dance act. Instead they pursued two simultaneous and sometimes overlapping styles, one guitar- and rock-based and one dance music-oriented. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesized single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder.", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the PCL album.

[edit] Low-Life

The Low-life album (1985) refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, brandishing the now-classic "The Perfect Kiss" (the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme) and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. Interestingly, the instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" appears in the film but did not make the soundtrack. Also, the instrumental "Elegia" is in the film and not on the soundtrack.

The album also starts with a highly strange offering from the band's canon, probably the stronger for it and definitely helped by Sumner's over-reaching vocals; 'Love Vigilantes' is scarcely typical New Order fare, as remarked upon in Brian Edge's book 'Pleasures and Wayward Distractions". Elsewhere, Subculture is a decent enough dance track, but given discipline later by John Robie's reworking on the single's release.

[edit] Brotherhood

Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album featured "Bizarre Love Triangle", one of the band's best-known tracks. It also includes little known "Angel Dust" (available elsewhere under the guise of "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life era guitar effects.

"Brotherhood" also features the band at their most ably human and sensitive in 'All Day Long', a concise tale of child abuse of which Bernard Sumner can be rightly proud; as indeed he can of the closing "Every Little Counts" in which he dissolves into laughter after having sung the line "I think you are a pig, you should be in a zoo", affording the track worthy successor-status to 1983's "Your Silent Face".

[edit] Substance

While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & The Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance that featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in terms of collecting the group's singles (in the 12" format) onto CD for the first time and featured two new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion", respectively entitled "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder" and another new song "1963".

The album's main single "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a huge hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The song's B-Side "1963" (originally planned on being the A-Side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead) would later be released as a single in its own right several years later.

[edit] Technique

By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic house sounds of Ibiza and the acid house tunes making their way into the Hacienda. Technique was released in February 1989. The album debuted at number one in the UK and contained a healthy mix of the acid house influence (as on "Fine Time", the opening track) and a more traditional guitar-bass-drums sound on others (such as the single "Run"). The album is a brilliant blend of occasionally upbeat, always accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics inspired by Sumner's failed marriage.

New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion," under the ad-hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was a number one UK hit, and the now-famous John Barnes rap was also recorded by Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley. These versions have, perhaps mercifully, not been made available for release.

At around the same time, Bernard Sumner teamed up with fellow Mancunian Johnny Marr for the Electronic project (also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys), while Peter Hook in retaliation^{[citation needed]} started a project called Revenge, each of them leaving New Order but in all honesty continuing to make New Order-style recordings.

Unusually for such a major group, New Order never had a formal contract with their label Factory Records. (This was in fact the label's standard practice until the mid-1980s. According to Factory's co-founder Tony Wilson, "All our bands are free to fuck off whenever they please", a pledge he made by writing it in his own blood (!) ). Because of this, the group (rather than Factory Records) legally owned all their own recorded material. This has often been cited, not least by Wilson himself, as the main reason London Records' offer to buy the ailing label in 1992 fell through.

[edit] Republic / band hiatus

Republic, released around the world in 1993, was the band's first album release since parting company with the now defunct Factory Records. It featured an ultimately polished, inoffensive sound, but with a sombre edge. The release spawned the singles "Regret" (their highest charting single in the US and a highlight of the album), "Ruined In A Day", "World" and "Spooky", and is widely regarded as their most dance-focused outing.

Following the release of Republic, the band put New Order on hold, whilst each member continued on with their own side-projects: Sumner once again teamed up with Johnny Marr in Electronic for Raise the Pressure. Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk) also assisted with this record. Sumner also collaborated with the Chemical Brothers on a track from their album Surrender, "Out Of Control"; Hook formed the band Monaco with former Revenge member David Potts; and Morris and Gilbert formed the aptly named The Other Two.

In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixed versions of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", and "1963". The remixes of "True Faith" and "1963" were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the tracklisting was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of old remixes and newly-commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc/cassette comprised entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was again trotted out as a single for a third time in order to promote the collection.

The group returned to the spotlight in 1998 with an appearance at the Reading Festival, which found the band playing more confidently than they ever had before. Notably, Joy Division songs began to find their way into the New Order repertoire with regularity with this performance, and the band continues to include tracks like "Transmission" and "Atmosphere" in their live sets even today. Subsequent releases "Get Ready" and "Waiting For The Siren's Call" have been dignified returns from the band.

[edit] Get Ready

Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and is more focused on the guitar. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins performed guitar and vocals on the track "Turn My Way", he also toured with the band deputising for Gillian in 2001. Also, Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream provided vocals on the track 'Rock the Shack'. Singles from the album included "Crystal", "60 Miles an Hour" and "Someone Like You".

In 2002, Q magazine named New Order in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way".

Adding to the legend of the band, New Order (as well as Joy Division) were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, which depicts the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of The Fall and former members of The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets, lend a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings as if it has Manchester's stamp of approval. The film also touches on some of Factory's other artists like Happy Mondays and The Durutti Column. The soundtrack features a collaboration between New Order and the Chemical Brothers entitled "Here To Stay", which itself became a single. The DVD release of the single also features scenes from the film.

[edit] Waiting for the Sirens' Call and Singles

The band released a new album on March 27, 2005, entitled Waiting for the Sirens' Call to favourable reviews . Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters), and the title track. Another album track, "Turn", was intially pitched as a single but has so far (October 2006) not been released as such. According to Peter Hook, the band wrote and recorded enough material during the sessions for this album to release a follow-up in the near future. As 2006 drew to a close, no new album has been released.

At the 2005 NME awards, New Order received the award for 'Godlike Geniuses' (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, The Clash, and the Happy Mondays.

In the fall of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and collected every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to the title track to Waiting for the Sirens' Call. However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like Temptation and Confusion) have never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, entitled 'Item', that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for Temptation '87 and Ceremony.

New Order have announced a tour to promote Singles in late 2006.

[edit] Aesthetics

Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Hacienda.

The band rarely gave interviews in the '80s, later ascribing this to not wanting to discuss Curtis. This, along with the Peter Saville sleeve designs and the tendency to give short performances with no encores, gave New Order a reputation as standoffish. The band became more open in the '90s, for example the aforementioned NewOrderStory (and in particular the long UK version) featured extensive personal interviews.

Their music has trodden the line between the rock and dance genres, which can be seen on signature tracks such as "True Faith" and "Temptation". This synthesis laid down the groundwork for dance/rock groups of today.

The quality and innovation of the group's art earned them the status of icons in the alternative community, and have shown considerable longevity. "Does the Catholic Church pour its wine into mouldy earthenware pots? I think not...", Tony Wilson has offered.

They have heavily influenced techno, and were themselves influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire and Giorgio Moroder, and they have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house.

Bassist Peter Hook contributed to New Order's sound by developing an idiosyncratic bass guitar technique. He often played high-pitched melodies with a signature heavy chorus effect, leaving the lower registers to keyboards or sequencers, and this has often been the beating heart of the New Order sound.

Drummer Stephen Morris regularly played a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases played along seamlessly with sequenced parts.

All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the fairly common Taras Shevchenko and Pumped Full of Drugs concert videos. In particular, every member could be seen playing keyboards at times. Taras Shevchenko is notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song ("Temptation") comes to an end.

[edit] Album covers

New Order albums, and Factory Records products in general, frequently bore the minimalist packaging of Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (the Low-Life album was the exception proving the rule) or even providing basic information such as the band name or the title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single) or on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power Corruption & Lies). Saville elaborated on this concept on the NewOrderStory video, saying his intention was to sell the band as a "known secret" of sorts. The distinctive minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling.

[edit] Song titles

Many New Order song titles have nothing to do with the song. In some cases songs with normal titles appear to have had their titles swapped to other songs. For example, the phrase "This Time of Night" appears in the song "As It Is When It Was" on Brotherhood but is the title of a song on Low-Life. Also, the track "Chemical" from the 1993 album Republic featured the word Brotherhood, which was the name of the 1986 album. Other song titles were taken from the titles of old movies ("Thieves Like Us," "Cries and Whispers," etc.) For a full list see New Order tracks which include the title in the lyrics.

[edit] Singles

New Order released many singles for songs not included on albums. Singles were released in many formats and often with varying track lists and exclusive artwork. According to Tony Wilson, Factory intentionally released other singles, LPs and compilations in non-UK markets to increase their collectability. Indeed, the complete New Order discography is far too sprawling for most fans to collect in its entirety, and the compilations released by Factory and other labels are notoriously incomplete. In the late 90s, London Records spoke of releasing a Depeche Mode-esque singles retrospective for New Order, complete with original packaging and track lists. In fact, the project was at times named Cardboard and Plastic and Recycle, with t-shirts for the latter appearing at the infrequent New Order gigs. Eventually, the financial aspects caused the project to devolve into the Retro box set (2003), which featured many tracks that were readily available elsewhere. The single-disc International compilation (2003) similarly omits the classic, out of print recordings in favour of updating the conventional The Best of New Order (1995) and Substance (1987). At least one single, "Run 2" (1989), may never be reissued; it was the subject of legal action from John Denver, who argued that the song's wordless guitar break was based on his own song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". An out-of-court settlement ensured that the song would never be re-released in its original form. Denver is now co-credited as a writer of the song on the "Singles" compilation.[1]

Singles often feature remixes. The number of remixes were few at first but increased a great deal with increased popularity of dance music during the release of 1993's Republic. New Order remixes tend to have one or more of these characteristics:

• Dub Versions: Inspired by the dub musical genre, these have titles related to the original track (e.g., "The Beach," a lyric in "Blue Monday," is a dub version of that song; "Bizarre Dub Triangle" is the dub version of "Bizarre Love Triangle", "Dub Vulture" for "Subculture", etc.). Dubs were often solitary B-sides on the Factory original 12-inch singles, and were often recognizable rearrangements of the title tracks with few, if any, added parts.
• Edits: These were shortened versions of other mixes, often meant for distribution on a 7 inch record.
• Extended Versions: These preserve much of the original track but add extended intros, outros and instrumental parts (e.g., "Round and Round 12" Version", "True Faith (Shep Pettibone Mix)").
• Instrumentals: The title track minus vocals (e.g., "Fine Line", "Vanishing Point Instrumental"). An interesting twist on this is the "Confusion (A Capella Mix)" which has a sole vocal track.
• Re-recordings: Later takes of the title track (e.g., "Ceremony" on the white and blue 12-inch and on Substance, "Shame of the Nation").
• Live Versions: Live recordings (e.g., "The Perfect Kiss (Video Version)", the 60 Miles An Hour Tour Disc).

[edit] Trivia

• The U.S. synth rock band The Killers came up with the idea for their name from the video for "Crystal". The name was featured on the bass drum of the fictional band in the video. Brandon Flowers of The Killers went on stage at the 2005 T in the Park festival to perform vocals with New Order on the song "Crystal".
• Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris composed the original title track for Fox Television's America's Most Wanted. New Order themselves contributed music to two BBC comedy-drama series. 'Making Out' (the theme is an instrumental version of "Vanishing Point" from "Technique" as both series and album were being recorded at the same time) and "New Horizons" was the theme to 'Common As Muck'. The song's vocal version can be found on the second (and final) Other Two album "Superhighways".
• A synth rock band, Orgy, broke through the mainstream with a cover of New Order's "Blue Monday"
• A recent Mars bar commercial uses the band's 88 remix of Blue Monday as the background music.
• Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris composed the soundtrack for the 2006 return of Robbie Coltrane's TV crime drama, Cracker
• Apparently, the video game director Hideo Kojima is a fan of New Order, and named Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance after the New Order album Substance.

[edit] Honours and recognition

• Mercury Music Prize shortlist, 1993 (for Republic)
• NME Godlike Genius Award, 2005
• UK Music Hall of Fame Inductee, 2005 (Joy Division/New Order)
• Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection, 2006

[edit] Discography

For details on New Order releases, see New Order discography.

[edit] Media

[edit] See also

• New Order tracks which include the title in the lyrics
• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart
• List of New Order covers

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

• NewOrder.cc – official website, run by the record label
• NewOrder.de – official website, warner germany.

[edit] Fansites

• New Order Online – semi-official website and largest New Order website in general, supported by the band
• New Order Discography – details on New Order releases
• New Order Net – gigography and live downloads
• Knowledge Destroyed – discography and photos (German & English)
• World in Motion – a digest of news and information sourced from other web sites, books etc
• Blue Monday Owners Club

[edit] Resources

• New Order at MusicBrainz
• 24 Hour Party People at the Internet Movie Database
• 24 Hour Party People info at Joy Division Central

[edit] Joy Division

• For Joy Division links, see Joy Division.

New Order
Bernard Sumner | Peter Hook | Stephen Morris | Phil Cunningham Former member: Gillian Gilbert
Discography
Albums: Movement | Power, Corruption & Lies | Low-Life | Brotherhood | Technique | Republic | Get Ready | Waiting for the Sirens' Call
Compilation Albums: Substance | (The Best of) New Order | (The Rest of) New Order | International | Retro | Singles
EPs: 1981-1982 New Order | Peel Sessions 1982 | Peel Sessions 1981 | The Peter Saville Show Soundtrack
Singles: New Order discography
Related articles
Side projects: Electronic | Revenge | Monaco | The Other Two Topics: Joy Division | Factory Records | The Haçienda | 24 Hour Party People People: Ian Curtis | Martin Hannett | Peter Saville | Tony Wilson | Rob Gretton | Stephen Hague
This box: view • talk • edit