New Order:Sublime or Ridiculous?

My first portable disc listing upthread is f*cked up!

Here is the correct tracklisting:

Ceremony (re-recorded vers from FAC 33T/Substance)
Temptation (5/87 from Substance)
Blue Monday (12" vers. from Substance)
Confusion (5/87 from Substance)
Thieves Like Us
Sub-culture (Robie remix from Substance)
Perfect Kiss (extended vers. from Substance)
Bizarre Love Triangle (12" mix)
True Faith
1963 (94 edit from Best Of)
Touched by the Hand of God
Fine Time
Round & Round
Run
Regret

(same running time 80:56, still chronological)

I have to disagree with this since New Order almost never sounds cheesy to me in a these-are-old-electronics kind of way. The sounds have come out surprisingly timeless. As much as I love Joy Division (top 10 band for me), I would say that Ian Curtis heavy vocal style is perhaps the most dated sounding thing on my compilations (except for maybe "586" which sounds like a tv show theme from 1986)

... in 1988, I picked up an issue of Musician that I still have around for some reason -- I think I got it for the Pink Floyd article on the cover. Figures. Anyway, besides that, there was an informative enough article (for young me, at least) about Joy Division and New Order. New Order had released their Substance compilation the previous year, godlike assemblage that it was, and Joy Division's own Substance collection was about to come out. New Order had on the strength of merely two singles, "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "True Faith," had become one of my favorite bands, and I had taken the plunge into getting their CDs as quickly as possible in the last months of my high school existence. None of them had lyrics printed in their sleeves, as it happens, and I found out why in the article. Near the end, Bernard Sumner said something that turned out to be rather important:

"If you want to print your lyrics, that must mean you feel you have a message that's very important....To us, that sets the lyrics apart from the music and makes them more important than they really are. I try to develop an atmosphere with lines that are conducive to the feeling or emotion of the song."

I think I was initially disappointed in this stance, especially since I really wanted to know more of what was being said in the songs. But it turned out to be the turning point, and while I can't say when for sure, some little while after I stopped explicitly caring about printed lyrics, reading along with them or any such thing. I returned to square one, in ways. I just listened, and it was not only remarkably freeing, it made sense. One doesn't have a lyric sheet when suddenly hearing a song for the first time on the radio or on TV or on computer or via a passing car or whatever.

but yeah i generally thin that the "feel" of the singing in the context of the song makes it quite easy not to worry about any infelicities in the lyrics.

However, the lyrics to songs like "Bizarre Love Triangle," "Temptation," "Thieves Like Us," and the other early classics when he was just starting to find his own voice identity mean far more to me than anything Ian ever wrote. Ian was obviously fascinated with death, but I think Barney was even more fascinated with life--love, passion, music, confusion, and all the rest--and I find that just as powerful.

Well said, Doc.

he got looooooooove technique

amen

So, yeah, sublime and ridiculous, of course.

I recall Bernard saying he was having trouble with the lyrics for the new album, so, I have no reason to believe anything will change in that respect. Don't like it? Too bad. That's New Order.

Anyone else going to see them in Hyde Park? Anyone else already seen them this year/seeing them somewhere else?

Anyone else already seen them this year/seeing them somewhere else?

Saw them for the first time last weekend at the Fuji Rock Festival. It was worth every minute of the 15 year wait. They did Krafty in Japanese on MTV Japan and then repeated the feat in front of 20 000 people later that evening. The set-list was very well balanced and also included 4 Joy Division songs. I don't know what else can be said about these guys, but I love the hell out of them.

!

22 JUN 82 Rollingstone - Milan, Italy 60

Truth, Dreams Never End, Chosen Time, ICB, Leave Me Alone, Denial,
Procession, 586, Temptation, Everything's Gone Green, When I'm With You

Some absolutely brutal performances of Movement-era stuff -- and it's all topped off with a performance of Sparks' "When I'm With You!" What a band.