Get Ready: I don't get it

I've been a big fan since the mid-80s when I immersed myself in their albums to date. I embraced each new one after that (Brotherhood, Technique, Republic) with a fair amount of enjoyment/obsession.

Then came Get Ready, which at the time I found I could not listen to . . . I just didn't like it. Tried several times and then just gave up.

Then along comes WFTSC, which I think is BRILLIANT. I don't love every song, but the good ones are FANTASTIC. (Imho: Who's Joe, Hey Now, WFTSC, Krafty, Dracula's Castle, Jetstream, and Turn.)

How can this be, I wonder? So I decide to go back to Get Ready, give it another chance. Maybe I was just missing the point the first time around. So I give it the full treatment: car stereo to work, mp3 player while running, and home stereo. It's crap, I hate it. What the hell happened?

navels

Everyone has his or her "worst N.O.-album". Now we know what yours is ;) .

"Get Ready" was their first album after 7 or 8 years. They had to find their sound again and I think they did their best. I also think WFTSC is a great evolution of GR.

Bere wrote: Everyone has his or her "worst N.O.-album". Now we know what yours is ;) .

"Get Ready" was their first album after 7 or 8 years. They had to find their sound again and I think they did their best. I also think WFTSC is a great evolution of GR.

Yep Yep

Get Ready could have been much better. Add Behind Closed Doors, Here to Stay, Sabotage, Brutal, and maybe the Osbourne mix of Run Wild with Crystal, Primitive Notion, Someone Like You and maybe Viscious Streak and that's a very good album imo.

Ally3000 wrote: I think the problem was half the songs weren't really there and the production was overdubbed to death with guitars. They seemed determined to "rawk" and left behind all the grace and innovation that made New Order what they are. I think GR can be boiled down to half good songs, half average, and production unsuitable for their overall sound shakily keeping it altogether.

Well said, nail on the head.

navels

Wasimple wrote: Get Ready could have been much better. Add Behind Closed Doors, Here to Stay, Sabotage, Brutal, and maybe the Osbourne mix of Run Wild with Crystal, Primitive Notion, Someone Like You and maybe Viscious Streak and that's a very good album imo.

Totally agree that if they had substituted many of these songs for the weaker tracks on GR it would have been a much stronger album.

Spotnick wrote: Do I get you didn't like Electronic's Twisted Tenderness then.

Or even Joy Division material.

Get Ready was "back to their roots"... this is what U2 did 3 years later

Twisted Tenderness is a great album. I don't like the style of some of the songs, but I just chalk that up to personal preference. Some of my favorite Electronic songs are on that album (Vivid, Twisted Tenderness, When She's Gone, and Flicker).

I don't see that Get Ready remotely resembles any of their Joy Division material. That's one of the things that strikes me about this community, however . . . everyone has a different take.

navels

First of all, I love New Order. But I believe that if you are to love a band for all that they are, then you must realize that not all albums are going to be perfect for all. I actually liked Get Ready, it was no Power, Corruption, and Lies; or Low-Life, but it was an album that the band made after being dis-banded for several years. If I had to say one bad thing about the band choice of music, I would definitely say or ask them, "What were you thinking when you made "Rock the Shack", but other then that I love the band, and I'm willing to accept Barney and the rest of the bands' choice of music. I just wish they would release a new album of Barney singing all the songs from the Joy Division Catalog.

One year ago, when i've found out they were doing a new album to be released in 2005, i was so excited that went to listen all the records again and again. So enters GET READY. Which on my first listen, i was like "good, but not amazing". Crystal was a fav, yes, but i didn't went crazy with the album. But 2004 was like (in my head) a re release of the album. AND I'VE LOVED IT. It's been a year since i've started listening GR again, and now i cannot stop doing it. That record is absolutely fantastic, and it was obvious i wasn't prepared at that time. I was waiting for a more electronic orientated material, and the album sounds like a rocking band, but with the melancholic touch of Barney's voice. Now everyday (and i swear) is a one-two between WFTSC and GR... I just hope they keep releasing records forever.

I don't really get the 2 new albums. I like the new order stuff that is heavy on synths (Low-Life and Technique being my favourite) but thats not the be all and end all. My favourite tracks just have a grand sense about them like All Day Long and Age of Consent. Get Ready is just a collection of decent enough rock songs to me, same kind of with WFTSC, EXCEPT the title track which I think deserves to be mentioned with their other classics. If they made more songs like that with more of a synth edge I would be much happier, but then again its a dated approach.

I like Get Ready. I really respect that they just wanted to rock out and write songs as a band quickly rather than resorting to somebody doing work in a solitary fashion in front of the computer.

I went back GR the other day. It aint so bad. It does have some good songs, especially the first 3, and yes Slow Jam has grown on me as well.

The troulbel these days is that you just can't get away with releasing an album that just has 8 songs on it, hence there's the unfortunate potential that there'll be some crappy fillers; ie Rock The Shack.

Ronald Kirsch wrote: I went back GR the other day. It aint so bad. It does have some good songs, especially the first 3, and yes Slow Jam has grown on me as well.

The troulbel these days is that you just can't get away with releasing an album that just has 8 songs on it, hence there's the unfortunate potential that there'll be some crappy fillers; ie Rock The Shack.

Slow Jam is great. I can keep on playing my guitar over that track for hours!

Every New Order album drew at least 3 songs I absolutely loved, "Get Ready" didn't do that for me- only "Crystal" does/did.

Spotnick wrote: Do I get you didn't like Electronic's Twisted Tenderness then.

Or even Joy Division material.

Get Ready was "back to their roots"... this is what U2 did 3 years later

 I agree with Spotnick, I can even imagine Ian singing some of the songs like Crystal and Primitive Notion.  But I think GR was more a step ahead in relation to the JD sound than a back to basics or a step back like U2's last album, since there were no old riffs recycled and it was also very electronic in the good New Order fashion.  It was really a shock to hear it the first time, but that's what New Order is all about for me.  It's not perfect, but I love it.  Oh, and the b-sides were really great, too.

Get Ready is by far their weakest album for me. Crystal was a good comeback single, but they should have continued in the minimalistic experimentalism of Vicious Streak. Primitive Notion was intense, but with a better producer it could have been so much more. The rest of the album is unlistenable to me nowadays.

I am so grateful I got to pogo my brains out in Chicago to HNWYD, Krafty, and WFTSC instead of Brutal, Close Range and 60MPH!

Ronald Kirsch wrote: I went back GR the other day. It aint so bad. It does have some good songs, especially the first 3, and yes Slow Jam has grown on me as well.

The troulbel these days is that you just can't get away with releasing an album that just has 8 songs on it, hence there's the unfortunate potential that there'll be some crappy fillers; ie Rock The Shack.

Good statement Ron. It may have suffered from some crappy track selection & some overproducing by Osbourne, but it was a welcome return to harmony between Bernard, Steve & Hooky after the coke-fuelled, we despise each other Hague patch-up job that was Republic(admittedly, my personal faves from that set were Regret, Special & Chemical-Spooky became respectable after a few remixes away from The Hand Of Hague & the 2 dirges RAID & EE sounded better live IMO than on the album).

It's not that bad GR.