New Order's money $$$

Originally posted by Without wishing to urinate on your pyre, the tracks from the first Electronic album were indeed found on New Order's Mac when it was won in a competition after the release of Technique. Barney had written them and intended them to be used as New Order songs. Ask Jonny Lucas for full details, he has the Mac in his possession. There's a full thread about it on here in the archive if you care to look.

Without wishing to shit on your wig, I was only referring to the first few bars of the first song on the first Electronic album. I don't know anything about this Mac competition business and to be quite honest it sounds like a lot of bullshit. And besides, EVEN if those songs were on this Mac, they were probably rough demo's that don't sound anthing like the finished PRODUCED article. There are books about recording popular music in most decent bookshops if you care to look. Also if Barney wrote all the songs for the first Electronic LP why does it say "All songs written by Bernard Summer and Johnny Marr" on my CD?

I wonder how New Order's sixth album (let's say they titled it "Electronic") would have shaped up had they not went their separate ways. Not as simple as replacing all the Marr riffs with Hooklines, but I think had Factory not been fucked up, this album would have been collossal, judging by the pieces left behind in the first releases of the individual members. Republic was only a shadow of what they may have been able to accomplish.

It might also explain why the first Electronic album sounds little like the following ones, as perhaps Johnny Marr was not involved as much in the songwriting, but was just laying guitar tracks to music Bernard had worked on, at least in the original incarnation of the release. Wasn't there a "pre-mix" version of Electronic that had supposedly leaked out?

Just my barely-informed speculation, take it as you will...

Well, it's all a matter of taste, but I think songs like What Do You Want From Me, Shine and possibly Kashmere are as solid as New Order songs...

As good as they are, they're ultimately derivative. There's no way around that fact, sadly.

I was recently relistening to the second Monaco album...

Give Black Rain another listen. That's easily the best song off the overlooked second album, with an amazing bass riff. I think Monaco would have been much better if they had replaced Bert's Theme and Ballroom with a couple of the b-sides instead. And who does the backing vocals on "It's A Boy"? Nothing listed in the credits.

Sure, it's diluted, but it was still a good quick fix for the New Order addiction.

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it...back to those second album tracks...

I've Got A Feeling is the feeling you have when you've nicked the bassline off Weirdo one too many times. Still a hell of a feeling, though.

A Life Apart is the 24k version of Revenge's 14k. Ace.

See-Saw's chorus feels awfully close to Electronic's Until The End Of Time. Or it's a imperfect kiss from once-Sweet Lips.

I don't care much about Revenge though...

You mean Revenge, pre-Potts, eh? I actually like them quite a bit. To each their own...

Junk/Ultra/Sweet Lips/See-Saw and the cover of the Bee Gee's You Should Be Dancing are indicative of...well, Hooky put out more tubthumpers than Barney and the OT combined, who would have predicted that one?

--Sam