New Order's Popularity in America

Many people on here have expressed the view that New Order isnt too popular in the US....

I dunno about that. Everywhere I go, new Order are pretty well known. At least, for example....

I live in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus is the 13th largest city in the US, and is the home of OSU, the nations largest University. 50,000 people go to school here. I myslef am an Art major.

New Order is VERY popular around here. You hear them playing in coffee shops and resteraunts all the time. You hear them played on the radio. At 80's night, where the crowd is mostly college aged, whenever True Faith, Temptation, Blue Monday, or BLT is played, the crowd goes crazy.

There are many bands around here that profess New Order and an influence.

I saw a 16 year old girl in a New Order shirt the other day.

And tons of people around here know who New Order are, especially in the Art and music communites.

Its been the same in other cities Ive been in.

Yeah, apart from those few pop singles, Americans wouldn't be able to tell New Order from their own asses.

I've always found that NO is more well-known in the college towns, mostly cause they were played a helluva lot on the radio at the time, and I still hear 'em today whilst surfing left of the dial.

Of course, in smaller towns round here, the music stores don't have any New Order sections anymore, just filed in the miscellaneous N section for the most part,

BTW, isn't it referred to as THE OSU, so as not to be confused with the inbred hicks that populate Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Corvallis, Oregon? A guy I work with also went to Ohio State, so he lets me know there is a difference.

When I saw them in '93 in Washington,New Jersey and Boston it was basically a Republic plus singles set, the reaction to AIIWIW told you everything about the crowd (completely bemused).The only ones to recognise it were those over from blighty.

I live in Abilene and nobody knows who New Order are (apart from music store boys). In St. Petersburg, Russia, alot of people know them. But who are those people? 27+ -old men who'd listened to JD, the Cure, Coil, DM, Nick Cave, DAF and other "punk" stuff, plus those who were into dance music back in the 80s. But young men don't know them so far.

New Order is moderately known among the indie crowd, but is not considered as "cool" as Joy Division.

In the USA, New Order, since the late 80s has often been considered as lumped in with the Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys and Cure crowd, but more of a B grade imitation. But then that was pretty much the crowd they were sold to by the music industry, sort of the "fag-hag" less knowledgeable club crowd, the people who were too shallow to know much about "alternative/ indie" or really understand the acid house scene.

So... thru-out the 90s New Order fans were usually stereotyped and lumped in with this Depeche Mode dorky poser crowd, and younger kids from the 90s never really knew of New Order as an actual indie band.

among people who know little about NO...now a lot of the indie kids see New Order as too "80s dancey" to be indie, while the club crowd sees them as too dated.

girls who know little about music always seem to like New Order when played in clubs... not sure what that says about New Order to be honest, but hey... why not

i think that the opinion of New Order will only get better with age thou

I dont think theyre THAT well known in England,you either know who they are and love them or you never heard of them. I prefer it this way,id be gutted if the new album came out and they were as big as Coldplay or god forbid U2. As for America,its probably the same. I could list a few bands who are big state side and unknown in the UK by 99% of people. Same goes for UK bands in the US. For example Matchbox Twenty are unknown in the UK,but sell millions in America,and utter shite like Busted are huge here but i bet the americans on here have never heard of them (luckily!).

A couple of observations...

1. Several songs (BLT, TF and BM) are still in regular rotation here in the SF bay area on multiple stations.

2. I heard TF while in scottsdale AZ this past week. I was there on a corporate offsite where I did indeed get the DJ to play BLT during the drinking/dancing portion..everyone got up and danced and knew most of the words.

3. heard from a local DJ on the racio..."that was Bizzare Love Triangle by New Order...most of you call in for it as the "every time I see you falling" song."

4. #3 above is very telling...many many people instantly know and like (at least the hits) several new order songs...they just don't know who sings them or what they are called...these are stealth hits.

5. I think that even though the Cure and Depeche are trendy right now...its pretty telling that the NO hits have been played steadily on several formats over the past 10-15 years...never really dropping off but never reaching the same sort of hype.

6. Most of the people that I know that like NO are college educated and between 30-40.

7. My sense is that the biggest limiting factor on NO's awareness here in the states is the lack of a specific charismatic front man and/or a well defined image...people know them for their pop/dance hits and much like sugar ray...the rest of the music isn't necessarily pop/dance. No offense to Barney...but he is not exactly the "idol" front man type (TBTHOG video aside :)

7. My sense is that the biggest limiting factor on NO's awareness here in the states is the lack of a specific charismatic front man and/or a well defined image...people know them for their pop/dance hits and much like sugar ray...the rest of the music isn't necessarily pop/dance. No offense to Barney...but he is not exactly the "idol" front man type (TBTHOG video aside :)

they never really knew how to sell New Order in the USA... a pop band?... an indie band? a dance band? a hippy drugged out band?... .... but if they were a stereotypical pop or rock band, then they wouldn't BE New Order, would they?

as for Barney, I remember when Electronic got some exposure, and they were billed as "collab between Marr and the Pet Shop Boys, and oh, also some guy from that band New Order"

i think that New Order's and Barney's attempt to be more "pop" in the late 80's/ early 90s actually hurt the band in terms of image of being out of date... what with the "alternative" going mainstream in the early 90s and hip hop, house, and drum and bass driving leftfield indie dance music thru the 90s. but in the last few years there has been a retro techno revival, the USA is always kinda slow to catch up to stuff in the dance scene

I think that SP1 is spot on. They're not as widely known in the UK as this thread implies. Most people know Blue Monday, and then there's "the England Song", but ask them for much more and most people would be stuck. Half the people I work with thought True Faith was by PSB when it came on in the pub a while back (sorry Mike)!

Eg: Funny work conversation. I have a mate at work who is really into Dexys (the band, not the drug) and one day we were talking about JD having supported them. A girl who works in the same area as him came in and asked what we were talking about, cue his attempt to see if she had ever heard of Joy Division. He tried to get her to guess the name of the band with the clues "happiness" and "opposite of multiplication". Her answer? "Gay Subtract".

If anyone is struggling to come up with a name for a tribute band, you could do a lot worse... It does however illustrate the lack of householdname-ness of JD and I'm not sure that that many people really know who New Order are either.

i think that New Order was too much indie/ alternative/ nonconformist in the 80s to be a popular MTV pop band, but in the 90s they were too pop to ride the indie/ alternative or the post acid house club scenes... ironically, two genres they helped at least in some way create.

now if Barney really wanted to go big worldwide, he shoulda went totally hip hop and rapped like on feel Every Beat

or, Barney could have been more androgynous and wore lipstick or all black or pretended to be a gay guy pretending to be hetero... but no... he had to be himself... dammit

Originally posted by Beer me but that's the beauty of it Sebs...I don't think they give a rat's ass about being "huge"...and I think it's one of the reasons I adore them so...they do what they want to do...and if we like it, that's an added plus...besides...if they did all the things that go with being so popular...wouldn't we call them a bunch of sell outs???

That's it! How a band could be popular (in terms of mass-media rotation) if the band doesn't give interviews, releases LPs with no titles on covers, hardly makes videos (and when does, who are those guys??), who doesn't perform on numerous TV specials and doesn't participate in Help-Africa-concerts, who is not up to a well-elaborated image of any kind (gothica/pop-dance/electronica).:) Obviously, they were an indie group (as were the Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Shamen, Wire, Fall, Coil & other), and they are. But just the very term "indie" has almost gone (the 80's John Peel era). They call now that type of unconventional music "alternative" (where are we now? With Limp Bizkit?) And I feel just fine about that almost nobody knows them. They wanted it. It doesn't change anything. It is as it is. I love them.

It should be commented that New Order is one of the most covered "indie" bands around...maybe partially due to the beauty and simplicity of their songs, but it could also be that people keep secret what they hold dear...so while the casual fan knows the dancefloor hits (BM, TF, and BLT) the "deep" fan enjoys the more obscure, sublime tracks.

--Sam

wluw is a indie rock station except after 10pm and nearly everyone there LOVES joy division. some like new order, and i think we have a few albums, but new order is too commercial for these indie rock kids. i noticed at the new order night last week that there were a lot of people who looked early 20's and knew every fucking song we played wether it was blue monday or icb. i dont know how big they really are. i always thought new order was one of the biggest bands in the world,and i still feel that way no matter what the experts might say.

It just depends on where you're at....

When I was in high school, I was literally the *only* New Order fan. Everyone there listened to rap or nu-metal. But when I was in college, almost everyone I met liked NO.