In Praise of...Brotherhood by New Order

Junior high flashback: I had an issue of Modern Drummer with Morris on the cover, and rather than badger him with the usual "Is this real music?" argle-bargle, they just dove right in and let him talk at length about being a drummer who regularly used samplers & drum machines to augment (or even replace) his drumming. Definitely a key moment in my development as a musician.

Anyway, this is a wonderful album that, dammit, I'm gonna have to go out and get a replacement copy of. Ned, I bought Music For the Masses and Black Celebration because of your last "In Praise Of..." thread. Keep this up and I'll be sending you a bill!

Still the same sense of disappointment as when I first heard it. The thinnest content and sound of New Order's albums for me.

I keep trying to get into "Get Ready," but every time I hear Billy Corgan's voice come in it makes me think I'm listening to the Smashing Pumpkins aping New Order (c. "Adore" or something). And I'm rarely in the mood to listen to Smashing Pumpkins, especially when I'm in the mood to listen to New Order. Which is often.

and Im not sure what kind of input Gillian had on the band's output. Im sure at the very least it was quality control/bouncing off ideas kinda stuff.

we can't, therefore, qualify or quantify gillian's contribution. but what we can surmise pretty easily is that, after 20 years, the departure of quarter of the band is going to have a cataclysmic effect on the group dynamic. for better or for worse? we'll have to wait and see. nobody has ever satisfactorily explained whether or not gillian played on "get ready"; given that what i hear on that album is the desperate thrash of ageing men trying to recapture some mythical lost youth, i imagine she didn't. but i really don't know.

i ranted about this at length on alt.music.new-order. it got quite heated ;0

"You know, you're a real 'up' person."

-- Edward Bax (Edward_Ba...), January 28th, 2005.
what movie is that ?
the vietnamese woman seems a sweetheart

She wrote some bits and pieces, but didn't play.

**I don't have any reason to suspect she didn't play gigs with them for the Get Ready tour either**

She didn't. The last Gill gig was 1998 (Alexandra Palace, I think).

that said thanks to you lot i went to listen to it this morning on the way in to work, just to see if it had miraculously got any better. but i must have taken it off the iPod ages ago. whoops. i'll dig it out at some point soon.

As for "Get ready" fear, I wouldn't touch it for about two years until I saw it for £4 in Big W about six months ago, played it as a soundtrack to mowing the lawn and loved it. Don't care about Billy Corgan being on it, can't really hear him, don't care about Barney's lyrics, they just exist, it sounds like them rocking out for the first time in a long long time (didn't really rate "Republic", too synthy clean) and enjoying it. Go on, you'll not regret it.

I'd forgotten about that thread! I'd also forgotten that I did a technical dissection of how "Turn My Way" was constructed.

Yes, they are in danger of this sometimes. Can't think of a better way to put it.

Go on, you'll not regret it.

Pun intended, I hope.

i still like power, corruption, and lies better.

Hmm, yes, this album.

THIS ALBUM

So good of you to agree.

I too prefer Power, Corruption, and Lies over this but it's definitely in retrospect; at the time I pretty much loved everything New Order did without exception. As my tastes have changed I've grown to prefer PCL over everything else because it captures the sound of the band at their most uninhibited. They're clearly finding their way on PCL, not really giving a fuck about their legacy anymore, zero-ing in on some of the textures that would define them later on (but probably not realizing it themselves yet!) and as a result there isn't another album in the New Order catalog that sounds as loose and jammy as PCL.

Today 'Brotherhood' sounds to me like the most conventionally "rock" of all of their records (that is, of their first generation period) but it still has that NO sensibility and execution that make a more straightforward track like "Way of Life" sound unlike any other band.

THAT ALBUM

I'm with scottw...something about PCL endures. "loose and jammy" - that's it. I would never have chosen it as my fave but it sounds better year after year. "Three miles to go..."

"We All Stand" sounds like an attempt at a looser version of 12-bar blues, updated for the New Romantic age.

I revived the thread precisely because I heard "Way of Life" and the live version of "As It Is..." found on the Retro set, the latter in particular sounding tighter and more forceful than I remembered.

i'm surprised by what i said above about this being my second-favourite new order album; i don't think i felt that way when we did our perennial rank-the-albums thing more recently.

also: i really don't ever remember digging out those peel session tracks! that i *must* do.

i actually prefer Brotherhood, Technique and maybe even Republic over PCL

*ducks*

republic is a beautiful, underrated album.

Republic is just AWESOME

Republic is an awesome Electronic album.

hah! if we're judging it on those terms, it's the best Electronic album

by far

... this seems as good a time as any to advance my unpopular and discredited theory that the first electronic album is in fact a perfect companion-piece to "technique".

I won't disagree. The first Electronic album got met into New Order in the summer of '91.

ah, the summer of '91. bliss was it in that dawn to be alive ... actually, no, hang on, i was probably deeply mired in teenage angst.

still. great soundtrack for it.

"Everyone Everywhere" and "Regret" notwithstanding, nothing on Republic's as good as "Get The Message," "Some Distant Memory," "Tighten Up," "The Patience of a Saint," "Getting Away With It," or "Reaction."

Electronic played a set opening for Depeche out here in LA in 1990, a year before the album came out, and I'm pretty sure they did "Patience of a Saint" since Neil and Chris joined them on stage (they very definitely did do "Getting Away With It").

Son of a gun, they did do it -- here's the tracklist for that first ever show:

http://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/archive/showartefact.php?aid=537&bid=332

And yes I bought a T-shirt which I still have, with a big pink slanted star on the front and a bit on the back near the top saying it was Electronic's first show anywhere etc.