In Praise of...Brotherhood by New Order

"All The Way" (I skipped Fine Time, sorry, nothing against it, really but I wanted to get into the meat of the album quickly) seems to me like a better, more fully fleshed out song than anything on Brotherhood besides "All Day Long". I think overall I probably do like Technique more than Brotherhood, but I didn't really realize that until now.

I still think Get Ready is better than either of these, though, and I raised my fist in the air with a big "WOOO HOO" as if a sports team had just won when you said upthread it was grand, Ned!

Also I do believe I've narrowed down what my first New Order record must have been or at least I've narrowed it down to three, but it's quite possible I bought two or more of them all on the same day: Power Corruption & Lies, Blue Monday 12", and the U.S. 1981-1982 EP comprising most of the EGG & Temptation 12"es.

The first time I realized how much I really liked New Order was when I heard "Your Silent Face". I can't remember if I had heard Blue Monday or Temptation before it or not, but when I heard YSF I suddenly had this flash of intuition that whatever else that band did, I was going to like. Perhaps not a completely true statement in retrospect, but true enough, I have no qualms about calling them my favourite band, and I've never had any similar flash of intution about a band or artist like that.

Side note: NO lovers everywhere. Answer me something. I love pretty much everything by the band, right up to Get Ready. And I mean nearly every song, not just album. But something scared me away from Get Ready. I'm not sure why -- perhaps it's that feeling when you realise an artist you love has run out of ideas, grown stale, whatever (Wild Mood Swings and Bloodflowers, right? Sorry, Ned and Dan, I've really tried) -- but I avoided it completely. I've only heard "Crystal" and I do like it a lot. Now, here's the question: based on what I've just written, would you say I was insane for giving Get Ready the cold shoulder, and would I love it after all?

xpost to Ned. Damn, I never saw that little trap! Good thing it never happened then, really.

1. EGG 12"
2. Ceremony 12" (the non-3 piece version, I guess, but I don't really care tooo much)
3. Movement
4. Temptation 12" if I could just put the Substance version on the A-side instead
5. PCL
6. Low Life
7. Theives Like Us 12"
8. Get Ready
9. Confusion 12" (THE ORIGINAL ONE DAMNIT)
10. The two early Peel Sessions? Can we pick that? No? Oh okay, then Touched By The Hand Of God, then
11. Here To Stay CD single

I do believe you were wise to spot this, Ned. Good call.

David, you will never know if you like Get Ready until you try it. There is certainly a lack of consensus here, and I'm not presumptuous enough to even try to predict which side you might fall on.

But of course, you're right.

(I can't believe I've managed to go this long without hearing anything other than "Crystal", anyway.)

No one's answered my question yet: Gillian's role.

I never really took to Brotherhood, I have it somewhere though , the pbk style cassette version.
I think as I was so enthralled by Lowlife, that it seemed like a retreat from the progression they'd made in the previous 5 years, plus the PSB were on the scene and it was as if they'd taken the baton and were the ones doing the more interesting work. I'll have to dig that tape out as there's so much love for it here that it merits reappraisal.

You hurt me in my heart, Billy ;)

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.