My thoughts on Low-life

I believe Low-life to be New Order's greatest achievement. I think it is their most 'complete' album, there is not one bad song on the album. New Order is at the top of their game on Low-life, both musically and lyrically.

From the opening quirkiness and lyrical narrative of Love Vigilantes, to the highly original dance number The Perfect Kiss, the somber and loneliness of This Time of Night, to the vengefulness of Sub-culture, and finally the reflective and highly energetic Face Up; Low-life takes the listener through a wide range of different emotions, and it all comes together greatly as a whole. I also think that Low-life is New Order's most personal album. While Power, Corruption & Lies and Technique has its moments, they don't compare to the brilliance and pure chemistry of Low-life.

Pure greatness.

I have to a agree there. Its a complete album. Heck I even like the version of Subculture on there.

Its my favourite album also.:)

It's my second favourite after Technique.

Not only my favorite NewOrder album, but my favorite album ever!

It's a funny one, because I don't like all the songs and the production is horribly flawed, yet would place this era higher than any other. I just wish they'd avoided the TPK edit and had stuck the instrumental of Let's Go on there rather than getting stuck with crap lyrics as per the intended song.

Love Vigilantes is absolute quality, a huge favourite. This Time of Night is just great, Sunrise is far better on record than any live version they've managed, Sooner Than You Think and Subculture couldn't be any better, and Face Up is clearer than anything they've managed to churn out when playing it live. Pity about Elegia really, it's a messy edit of a boring tune, and the TPK edit should have been a 7" single rather than an album track.

New Order's quality control department seems to have had some off days in the past, and finalising this album was one of them. I'll never know just why or understand why Let's Go instrumental wasn't included.

Originally posted by Detweiler 3.63 Subculture couldn't be any better

It would have been better if barney had sung it even remotely well.

Originally posted by Major Tarantino > Originally posted by Detweiler 3.63> > Subculture couldn't be any better

It would have been better if barney had sung it even remotely well.

Hello Major

yes its a concophany (spell?) of noize and badly worded phrases indeed.

low life is top shelf stuff no mistake

& you can wrap ya lunch in it

low life is first class.

and the mini-tour which promoted the album was even better

I personally couldn't choose between Low Life and Technique for my own favourite album. I love both of them equally. Some of the tracks on Low Life are amongst my favourite New Order songs ever and, whilst I probably wouldn't say that about the individual songs on technique (apart from possibly Dream Attack), I absolutely love this album as a whole.

Love Vigilantes and Face Up don't fit the mood of the rest of the album, but LV is a great song, so it can be forgiven. Face Up could be a good song, but the vocals are total crap and ruin the song. Not the best way to end their best album.

Low-Life is probably my favorite NO album, with Technique a close second, only because Fine Time is a worse opening track than LV. But, although R&R, Mr. Disco, and Dream attack are on Technique, Sub-culture and This time of Night are on Technique. I can't really explain why I like LL better than Technique, other than the majority of the album has a darker, more somber sound than Technique, which is more of a dance record. I do like dance records, but, I'll take the somber sounds of LL or most Cure records any day.

I don't think it's aged well at all. On listening to it it's clearly a product of it's time with some pretty cheesy synth stabs and PWL-esque production. It screams the 1980's to me. The intro to Face Up sounds like "Boys Boys Boys" by that Spanish bird with the big jugs!

Technique on the other hand is truly timeless (ignoring Fine Time)and the same could be argued for PC&L.

Number four for me behind Technique, Brotherhood and PC&L.

My fave despite it being too short and apparently pieced together. Not a bad tune on the album and some of my favorite NO songs. Only flaw is the rape of TPK. What I really appreciate about Low-Life now is the fact that most its songs were forged live.

Sure Technique is more polished and commercially viable and for that matter better produced and put together but the gigs supporting Technique material lost the intensity and magic of the 84-85 shows.

Low-Life gets morre air time than any other NO album in my collection.

"I don't think it's aged well at all - it's clearly a product of it's time with some pretty cheesy synth stabs and PWL-esque production"

Have to agree with this - the musical sound everyone now thinks of as 'the 80's' didn't actually start until 1984/85. Listen to early NO and the sounds aren't too different to what you'll hear today but then Low Life comes along and it sounds very brash and '80's'. The same thing happened to many post-punk bands e.g. OMD, Killing Joke, Psychedelic Furs, ACR, even PIL. Everything seemed to change (much for the worse) around 84/85. Even fine band like The Chameleons suffered from this production style where the drums are so synthetic sounding and in your face that they very nearly ruin the whole song.

Originally posted by Grahame Ferguson I don't think it's aged well at all. On listening to it it's clearly a product of it's time with some pretty cheesy synth stabs and PWL-esque production. It screams the 1980's to me. The intro to Face Up sounds like "Boys Boys Boys" by that Spanish bird with the big jugs!Technique on the other hand is truly timeless (ignoring Fine Time)and the same could be argued for PC&L. Number four for me behind Technique, Brotherhood and PC&L.

You just need to shunt Pc&L to the front, otherwise, nail hit firmly on head.

Originally posted by Grahame Ferguson The intro to Face Up sounds like "Boys Boys Boys" by that Spanish bird with the big jugs!

Do you mean the lovely Italian Sabrina ??

Low-Life used to be my fave, then Technique but lately i cannot stop playing PCL

Well, I feel totally out of place here because my favourite New Order album is Republic!

I would probably put Low Life in 2nd place though. I absolutely love the shorter version of Perfect Kiss, and Sooner Than You Think is right up in my top NO songs of all time. Subculture is terrific (brings back memories of that hideous 12" version - their worst ever release in my opinion). I also have to stick up for Elegia which I think is beautiful. I remember them opening with it at the Festival of the Tenth Summer, and the whole of G-Mex being transfixed by this wonderful music.

The production on the album is excellent as far as I'm concerned - I don't give a stuff if other 80's product sounds like it. The 80's album I really dislike production-wise is Brotherhood, which is my least favourite New Order album...