New Order were [1] an English rock group formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner (vocals, guitars,
synthesizers), Peter Hook (bass, electronic drums), and Stephen Morris (drums, synthesizers). The band was formed in the wake of the demise of their previous band, Joy Division, following the suicide of singer Ian Curtis. They were soon joined by keyboardist/guitarist Gillian
Gilbert.
New Order melded post-punk and electronic
dance, and became one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the 1980s. Though the band were shadowed by the legacy of
Joy Division in their first years, their immersion in the New York City dance scene of the
early 1980s introduced them to dance music. The band's 1983 hit "Blue Monday", saw them fully embrace dance music and synthesized instruments, and has been
described as the best-selling 12" single of all time. New Order were the flagship band for Factory Records, and their minimalist album sleeves and non-image reflected the label's aesthetic. The
band has often been acclaimed by fans, critics and other musicians as a highly influential force in the alternative rock and dance music scenes over the past 25
years.
New Order were on hiatus between 1993 and 1998, during which time the members participated in various side-projects. The band
reconvened in 1998, and in 2001 released Get Ready, their first album
in eight years. In 2005, Phil Cunningham (guitars, synthesizers)
replaced Gilbert, who had left the group due to family commitments. In 2007, Peter Hook claimed that he and Sumner had no further
plans to work together, and this was confirmed in an announcement by Sumner and Morris on the 20
July 2007 [2].
History
Origins
Between 1976 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band
Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett.[3] Curtis committed
suicide on the eve of their American tour, and prior to release of the band's second album, Closer, on 18 May 1980.
The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Hook told Mojo in 1994, "The first
meeting we all had, which was the Sunday night [Curtis committed suicide], we agreed that. We didn't sit there crying. We didn't
cry at his funeral. It came out as anger at the start. We were absolutely devastated: not only had we lost someone we considered
our friend, we'd lost the group. Our life basically."[4]
The members of Joy Division had agreed before Curtis's death not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member
leave the band. 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, with Sumner later saying, "We really, really thought it didn't have any connotations, and we thought that it was a
neutral name, it didn't mean much . . ."[5] The
band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as the guitar was an easier instrument
to play while singing. 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. Gilbert's membership was suggested by
Gretton.[5]
Their initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In A
Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life.[5] With the release of Movement
in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs,
albeit with an increased use of synthesizers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis'
death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by
themselves from then on.[6]
A change in musical direction was brought about when New Order visited New York City in 1981. The band immersed themselves in
the New York dance scene and were introduced to postdisco, Latin freestyle, and electro.[7] Additionally, the band
had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum
programming.[8] The singles that followed,
"Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", indicated the change in direction toward dance music.
The Haçienda, 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.
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
with their earlier guitar-based sound, heavily inspired by acts like Kraftwerk and
Giorgio Moroder. 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 [1] to lose from 2p to £1
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. 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 Power, Corruption & Lies album.
Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance
The Low-Life album (1985) refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, brandishing
"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. The instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" appeared in the film but did not make the soundtrack. Also, the instrumental
"Elegia" is in the film and not on the soundtrack.
Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides.
The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "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 featured "All Day Long", a tale of child abuse. In addition, the album also included "Every Little Counts," in
which Sumner dissolves into laughter after having sung the line "I think you are a pig, you should be in a zoo", affording the
track successor-status to 1983's "Your Silent Face".
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 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.
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 Haçienda. Technique was released in February 1989. The album debuted at number one in the UK and contained a
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 blend of occasionally upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics inspired
by Sumner's failed marriage.[citation needed]
Several tracks on this album have attained seminal status for example "Vanishing
Point" which was used as the theme tune to the BBC1
TV series "Making Out" - for which the band also
composed additional incidental music.
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 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 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.
Republic and 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), "Ruined in a Day", "World" and "Spooky". 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 reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. The group had not seen each other in nearly five years. Sumner
said "we decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out."
By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year.
In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again.[9] Since then, Joy Division songs have appeared regularly in New Order's setlists.
When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the second night of that year's Reading
Festival.[10]
Get Ready
Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more
electronic style and 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."[11] Longtime fan Billy Corgan of
The Smashing Pumpkins performed guitar and vocals on the track "Turn My Way", and
in 2001 toured with the band deputising for Gillian. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie 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 featured New Order on 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". Both New Order and 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. The film touches on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and The Durutti Column. The soundtrack features
a collaboration between New Order and the Chemical Brothers entitled "Here To Stay", which was released as a single. The DVD
release of the single contains scenes taken from the film.
Waiting for the Sirens' Call and Singles
The band released a new album on March 27, 2005, entitled
Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil
Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after her children. Singles from this album
were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals
by Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters), and the
title track. 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 had 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 contained 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 Ceremony, Temptation and Confusion) had 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.
Hook's departure
In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK and Brazil. At the end a show in
Buenos Aires in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band would stop
touring.[12] Rumours spread that the band was breaking
up, but in January of 2007 Stephen Morris denied the rumours, commenting, "It's the first I've heard of it." Morris added they
were working on a new album as well as preparing for the release of Control,
the upcoming Ian Curtis biopic. [13]
However, in early May 2007, bassist Peter Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM —
originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of former Jane's Addiction
singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party —
and when asked "Is New Order over now?" replied "Yeah, me and Bernard [Sumner] aren't working together." The interviewer appeared
unconvinced because, as he said, the band had split up and reunited numerous times before. Hook promptly added that "Bernard went
off for a break with Electronic, but it was different then." The interviewer flipped
that the band would be working together again shortly anyways, to which Hook, sounding somewhat desperate, replied "No-one
believes me... it's like The Boy Who Cried Wolf!" [14] Hook further commented on the band's breakup on his MySpace page: "I'm relieved... Really hated carryin' on as normal with an awful secret, so let's move on, shall
we?" [15] [16]
Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that, according to
"a source close to the band", "the news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what (Hook) said [...] Peter
Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order."[17] Hook mocked the "source close to the band" in a blog entry he made after returning from Cannes,
where the group attended the premiere of the Ian Curtis biopic Control, writing "Well, who could
be closer to the band than me! I love these unnamed sources, or shall we call them cowards, eh?"[18] Hook also reiterated that New Order had split in various interviews.[19] However on July 20, 2007, Morris and Sumner released a
further statement claiming that New Order would continue without Hook, expressing their stance on the on-off break-up situation.
The statement ran "After 30 years in a band together we are very disappointed that Hooky has decided to go to the press and
announce unilaterally that New Order have split up. We would have hoped that he could have approached us personally first. He
does not speak for all the band, therefore we can only assume he no longer wants to be a part of New Order."[20]
NME.Com reported on 31st July 2007 that Peter Hook had posted a message on his MySpace blog, claiming he would take steps to
prevent Morris and Sumner continuing as New Order, writing "This group [New Order] has split up! You are no more New Order than I
am! You may have two thirds, but don't assume you have the rights to do anything 'New Order-ey', because you don't. I've still
got a third! But I'm open to negotiation."[21][22]
In the wake of Tony Wilson's death and rumors of New Order "reforming" with Hook, Hook recently wrote on his MySpace blog that "in a conversation with Oliver Wilson about a tribute gig for his father, he asked me what the
chances were of getting New Order to perform. I said, 'Seeing as we have just split up, pretty slim.' He then said to me, 'If I
could get the others to agree, would you do it?' I said, 'In honour of your father, I'd do anything.'" He added that "this means
I would sell the popcorn, take the tickets, sweep up after, play bass in New Order/Joy Division/Crawling Chaos."
Hook, Morris and Sumner recently attended a screening of the new Joy Division film Control, but Hook attended separately from
the other two. "We've all been shouting at each other - now we're just arguing about who has custody of the children," Sumner
joked.
In addition to Hook's new Freebase project, Sumner and Morris announced they are putting together a project of their own. "I'm
working on some stuff at the moment," Sumner said. "Steve is gonna be involved with it, and it's a project called Bad
Lieutenant."
In yet another turnaround, Hook indicated recently he might not object to Sumner and Morris continuing on with New Order,
albeit with a slightly altered name. The bassist told Gigwise that he would not reunite with Morris and Sumner because of their
"attitude".
Speaking before presenting a posthumous award to the late Tony Wilson at the Q Awards, he said, "There is no future for New
Order. I mean, not as it was anyway. If they want to form a New Order 2 then that’s what it should be viewed as.
"I couldn’t carry on working the way they were working and I didn’t like the attitude. Unless that attitude changes then it’s
of no interest to me. I felt we had different ambitions from what the group was supposed to be about and it didn’t make sense to
me."
The 51-year-old spoke out to deny rumours that the three would reform.
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 Haçienda. 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 group's album art earned them the status of icons in the
alternative community, and have shown considerable longevity.
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 used the bass
as a lead instrument, playing melodies on the high strings with a signature heavy chorus effect, leaving the "actual" basslines
to keyboards or sequencers. This has often been the defining characteristic 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.
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) 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 said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the
minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling.[5]
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 such as "Thieves Like Us" and "Cries and Whispers."
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 collectibility. 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.[23]
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).
Honours and recognition
