New Order

Origins and formation: 1977–1980

Between 1977 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. Curtis died by suicide on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first North American tour, and before the release of the band's second studio album, Closer.

Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003

The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton, nearly five years since they had last seen each other. 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. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival.

Influences and style

New Order is known to incorporate elements of both rock and dance music, as showcased by the songs "Temptation" (1982), "Blue Monday" (1983), and "True Faith" (1987). According to AllMusic, the band is considered "the first alternative dance" music group, having "fused icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop". Critics have also described the band as synth-pop, post-punk, alternative rock, new wave, dance-rock, electronic rock, and electronica.

Legacy

The band have influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, the Killers, and the xx. Numerous covers of their songs have been released, notably Orgy's cover of "Blue Monday", as well as several tribute albums.

Blue Monday

"Blue Monday" is a song by the English rock band New Order. It was released as a 12-inch single on 7 March 1983 through Factory Records.

It appears on certain cassette and CD versions of New Order's second studio album, Power, Corruption & Lies (1983). The track was written and produced by Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner.

Background and writing

New Order was formed in 1980 by the former members of Joy Division, which split after the death of their singer, Ian Curtis. They later recruited Gillian Gilbert as keyboardist and second guitarist, and began to explore new musical technology such as synthesisers.

Composition

"Blue Monday" was described as New Order "getting into Euro disco" by drummer Stephen Morris, but labelled a "synth-pop classic" and cementing the band's transition from post-punk to alternative dance by critics. Barney Hoskyns of Spin highlighted the song as an example of the hi-NRG style of club music, and the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide called it "the ultimate in flawlessly programmed, LSD-driven, push-button dance-pop".

Music videos

A music video for a shortened version of the original was created in 1983, featuring military clips with false colour, simple computer-generated graphics such as colour blocks and geometric lines, digitised video of band members at very low resolution and framerate, a brief amount of footage taken from the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a short appearance of the 1982 video game Zaxxon. The colour blocks were created using Peter Saville's colour-coded alphabet.

Legacy and influence

In the decades since its release, "Blue Monday" has been commonly cited as one of the greatest songs of all time. In 2015, LA Weekly ranked it number 12 in their list of "The 20 Best Dance Music Tracks in History". In 2020, Slant Magazine ranked it number 27 in their list of "The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time". In 2022, "Blue Monday" was included in the list "The story of NME in 70 (mostly) seminal songs", at number 21. Mark Beaumont wrote that with this song, "Britain's formative alternative dance culture found its way" in the mainstream and "stayed there until the acid house explosion obliterated clubland". In 2021 and 2022, Rolling Stone included it at numbers 235 and 18 in its lists of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and "200...

True Faith

"True Faith" is a song by the English rock band New Order, co-written and co-produced by the band and Stephen Hague. It was the first New Order single since their debut "Ceremony" to be issued in the UK as two separate 12-inch singles.

The second 12-inch single features two remixes by Shep Pettibone. The promotional video of the single with a sequence featuring two men slapping each other in turn, received media attention and was on heavy rotation on music TV channels, helping the band to reach a wider audience.

Original releases

New Order wrote and recorded "True Faith" and "1963" during a 10-day studio session with producer Stephen Hague. The two songs were written as new material for New Order's first singles compilation album, Substance 1987. After the two songs were recorded, the band's US management decided that "True Faith" was the stronger track and would be released as the new single, with "1963" as the B-side ("1963" was remixed and issued as a single in its own right in 1995).

Critical reception

In 2013, Stereogum ranked "True Faith" number four on their list of the 10 greatest New Order songs, writing that "The drums do one thing: stomp. The synth bass rolls right along, locked in the same bouncing-ball pattern forever. There's hardly any flash on display: everything in service to everything else, all bowing to the simplicity of the song itself. Even Peter Hook, who shows up for his usual lead-bass acrobatics, is relatively restrained, in part due to the density of the mix. So it falls to the vocal to keep our attention — what we get is Bernard Sumner singing simply, plainly, effortlessly, somehow delivering some of the strongest lyrics of his career inside one of the band's very best songs".

Music video

The release of "True Faith" was accompanied by a surreal music video directed and choreographed by Philippe Decouflé, produced by Michael H. Shamberg. and was edited by Marc Eskenazi.

Bizarre Love Triangle

"Bizarre Love Triangle" is a song by English rock band New Order, released as a single in November 1986 from their fourth studio album, Brotherhood (1986). The song reached No. 4 on the US Billboard Dance/Disco Club Play chart and No. 5 on the Australian Kent Music Report in March 1987.

It failed to enter the top 40 of both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100; however, a new mix included on The Best of New Order was released in 1994 and charted at No. 98 on the Hot 100. In 2003, the song was ranked No. 204 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time."

Releases

The 12-inch version, remixed by Shep Pettibone, also appears on the compilation Substance and a second remix by Stephen Hague features on their Best Of album. The original album version appears on the 2005 compilation Singles, the 7-inch version appears on the 2016 reissue of this compilation. New Order's live versions since 1998 are based on the Shep Pettibone remix.

Reception

"Bizarre Love Triangle" has been critically acclaimed since its release. In a 30th anniversary retrospective citing the song as one of the greatest of all time, Billboard described it as a "synth-pop masterpiece" and "an incandescent jewel of mid-'80s computer love." NME praised the song as New Order's "finest pop moment" and credited its simplicity in comparison to previous singles such as "Blue Monday". In 2004, the song was ranked No. 204 in Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." In 2013, Stereogum ranked the song No. 2 on their list of the 10 greatest New Order songs, and in 2021, The Guardian ranked the song No. 7 on their list of the 30 greatest New Order songs.

Music video

The music video, which was released in November 1986, was directed by American artists Robert Longo and Gretchen Bender. It mainly shows a man and a woman in business suits flying through the air as though propelled by trampolines; this is based directly on Longo's "Men in the Cities" series of lithographs. The video has a black and white cut-scene where Jodi Long and E. Max Frye are arguing about reincarnation, in which Long emphatically declares "I don't believe in reincarnation because I refuse to come back as a bug or as a rabbit!" Frye responds, "You know, you're a real 'up' person," before the song resumes.

Cover versions and remixes

Australian band Frente! released an acoustic cover version of the song in 1994, re-imagining it as a folk ballad. Issued as part of the Lonely EP in their home country, the cover peaked at No. 7 on the ARIA Singles Chart and became a hit overseas, reaching No. 49 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 53 in Canada, and No. 76 in the United Kingdom. In Australia, it came in at No. 63 on the 1994 year-end chart and was certified gold for shipments of over 35,000.

Ceremony

"Ceremony" is a song written by Joy Division, and first released as New Order's debut single in 1981. The track and its B-side, "In a Lonely Place", were recorded as Joy Division before the death of their lead singer Ian Curtis.

Both were re-recorded and carried over to Joy Division's re-formation as New Order.