New album on the WAY...

i'll give them 2 years to do it. as for expectations, i expect to be PLEASENTLY surprised. in other words, it better not suck.

I like the direction of Get Ready, something along that rockier vein wouldn't be too shabby. Perhaps a mixture of their old synthier sound ala Technique thrown in for good measure. Also, Spotty's suggestion of JD songs as b-sides would be interesting, as Barney's take on Transmission was quirkily beautiful for John Peel's 40th.

Good post, Spotnick. :)

First off, as far as should the direction be more guitar or electronic, I would like to have BOTH. What I really liked about Technique was the fact that it was practically half and half. Get Ready is a great album, but I think a track like "Here to Stay" would've been a great dance track to add instead of relegating it to a B-side; I still think "Run Wild" should've been a B-side. I felt one of the few flaws with Electronic's last album was that it was too rough around the edges and TT was really the only major synth song on there. I still like that album, don't get me wrong, it's just a different style than previously. But then again I liked the first two Electronic albums and RTP, to me, is a work of art, despite that a lot of people dislike the album. It's polished and crisp; TT album is rough around the edges and has a harder sound. Both styles are exceptional though, just different and may take a little more time getting used to. Regarding New Order now, I would like to see a combination of synth stuff and guitar work a little more evenly. Have some dance tracks (like "Here to Stay") and some guitar pop (like "Run" and "Out of my League" and then some harder guitar rock (like "Crystal"). I guess I just want to have my cake and eat it too. ;)

1. I agree 100% about including Hooky's vocals and even Gillian's. In fact, I would go so far as to say let Hooky sing on ONE track. He's capable, look what he did with Monaco.

2. Great idea about JD b-sides. That would be a huge incentive to collect the b-sides if those were included instead of a lot of these new, generic remixes.

3. Moby collaboration would be interesting. I didn't particularly care for his version of NDF but I'd give him another chance providing he doesn't sing too much on the tracks. ;)

As far as who should produce the album, I too agree that it would best if the group did it themselves, but I doubt they would. I like Arthur Baker's style, but there should be others too. Maybe even Moby could produce it? How about The Chemical Brothers? What about Stephen Hague? That'd be a flashback from the past.

There will be songs named "the deepest sea" and stuff like that. Ask Mr Greenwood, he has valuable info every time :p

In reference to Al, who bashed several nails on the head very accurately, just a few things. Re-doing a one-off back catalogue song isn't so bad, given the volume of work - would be a bit crappy if someone like Britney Spears did this as she's only been on the run for a few years but it may be a lost opportunity not to re-work some of the more outstanding JD/NO works of art (obviously not in the vein of the lackluster Substance efforts). Your misgivings I take are down to having to sacrifice 6 months of productive new material and live work in return for a cover? ... if only they could master a re-work in a week or so!

Barney's use of synths on the first Electronic album was a shambles, it highlighted in no uncertain terms that he had fallen behind and other bands had taken his synth/guitar mantle and surged ahead. Toy town should have been the name of the album, which is a great shame as some of the songs (all?) were excellent.

I agree totally that the twee versions of True Faith and BLT etc. are annoying and utterly out-of-date. Play the originals or introduce hard core synth sounds ... I believe that unfortunately NO have resorted to using preset synth sounds - very lazy and the results are confusing. How can the synth pioneers use such lame sounds? ... very easily it would seem. Which is why Get Ready was and is so good, back to hardcore unique synth sounds and rock guitars, the original NO premise.

I look forward to what the new NO album may sound like, based on GR I would assume the group would now introduce a new wave of synth sounds after satisfying themselves with a fairly rock album ... something Barney has been yearning for since the failure of originality on Electronic.

Well, first of all i'd like to say that i really like the production of Steve Osbourne. It's up to date and it sounds fresh. About the new songs themselves...well i'd like them to be a bit more experimental, a bit more daring in their songwriting. Most of the tracks on the album sounded a bit too much like "okay, let's write three or four singles". I think some of the b-sides have much more quality, like "Behind Closed Doors" and/or "Sabotage". Recording Joy Division tracks? Well, yes and no. NO, if they only play them like they did live, for example "Transmission" or "She's Lost Control". YES, if they update them in sound like they did with "Isolation". Treat them like NewOrder-songs, so add some sequencers or samples, could be interesting!

cheers.

I think it does not matter if the NEXT album takes a very long time to be released.I would like to see both GILLIAN and PHIL C in the mix.Production wise maybe they should do it themselves with a few OUTSIDERS if needed.Take stock,leave the JOY DIVISION songs alone and give me a FUNKY ARSE BASSLINE.Hooky should have centre stage and sing a couple of songs and carry on making NEW sounds with all the ELECTRONIC gadgets they should now be able to buy.Meanwhile keep touring playing ALL obscure NEW stuff to check out the FANS reaction.You know it makes sense.No football anthems but more songs about the "DARKSIDE" of life would be fine. ROCKET MICK

Rocket man finally comes out with a sensible post

JASPER CARROTT! uh! :D

I would be very happy with another album at the level of Get Ready. Personally it doesn't really matter for me if it's going to be more rock or more synths. It's the quality of the songs that counts, isn't it. I would have no problem with a 'rock' album filled with songs like Crystal or Primitive Notion, but a rock album just with tracks like Slow Jam and RTS...no thanks (i'd still buy it though).
In answer to some of the original questions:

• Barney should do all the lead vocals. He's still the best.
• I would prefer the re-recording of JD songs for b-sides to most of the remixes...but I prefer b-sides like Player in the League and Sabotage even more!
• I like Steve Osbourne's production. Probably the best man for the job.

What about a New Order Unplugged album? :)

Unplugged would be virtually impossible. Synthesisers don't make any sounds when not connected to an electricity source :)

OK, what about a cappella then? Blue Monday: the New Order vs. Nylons remix :D

I would leave collaborations out, that's mostly for has beens and as Get Ready has proved they do not add a iota to the sales. As for production I believe that Arthur Baker is the man for the Order. Definitely not Rollo, not Hague, not Moby, it could be interesting to get some remixes made by the Chems (what about a B-side remixed by Basement Jaxx?). Both Phil C. and Gillian in the recording sessions but only Gillian co-writing. A more dancey synth-driven album.

So far what I would like to hear, now, more importantly, given the poor sales Get Ready has got, do you think they will be pressganged into a different direction? Or maybe London Records couldn't care less because they do not intend to promote it anyway?

Well.....I def hope the new album do come out soon...while the momentum is there....due to the well- received GR....a pretty good feat for a bunch of mid-40's rockers who had disappeared from the scene for more than 8 years......

Answers to

1. Yes, do look forward to Hooky's singing but have to agree with Al, Gillian's voice is not really 'New-Order-ish'...I believe her talent is in songwriting.....

2. Dont mind some old NO/JD classics getting the re-workings and presumably, in better quality recordings... I think they are too many old New Order Classics that are very much in need of some kind of audio 're-boosting'... Just listen to those soft recordings, by today's standards, found in Substance and Brotherhood...

3. Prefer New Order producing themselves....Maybe Arthur Baker will be alright but def. lock away Stephen Hague... ( Anyone heard of a REM album which was deemed unfit for human consumption and remained unreleased as instructed by Stipey & co..because Stephen Hague has butchered/doctored the songs.... )

In retrospect, I believe GET READY has been a very good release ( I even quite like RTS now !! ) for NEW ORDER...

I was in a chatroom last week and CarterUSM Jim Bob was on ( he's in sydney now, btw ...) and he told me New Order are pretentious cunts....but admitted that Get Ready was quite good!!!!

i rather fancy a return to technique style... but we all know that aint gonna happen is it? i just hope we dont get another republic

I can see a return to the Technique era style, but redone through the aggresive lense of, say, Chemical Brothers or some other electronic act. I'm not saying NO should rip-off the newbies catering to the fragile electronic sect, but it might not be a bad idea to take a listen to Radiohead's latest stuff and find a clever approach to that. i think we can all agree New Order are the primary forefathers of dance music being accepted in a rock market (hello, Blue Monday?) and they obviously became enammored of the early rap stuff, so it wouldn't be unusaual for them to aim for something similar to Kid A (imagine Hooky's bass more prominent than it had been until GR, but with more electronic vibes to it). Of course, they'll probably fool us all with an entire album of Captain and Tennile covers, but we'd still buy...

Vicious Streak and Primitive Notion were the best of the Get Ready era tracks and should be used as examples of the direction of the next album....electronic songs WITH hooky well up front and some bursts of melody from barney's "ceremony guitar" combined with JD stlye drumming patterns from TANK. Gil, sweetie, can you grab a can of Stella....Ta

What do I want on a new NO album? Musically it should be a cross between Technique and Republic, a mixture of guitar-based songs (like Regret and All The Way), dance tracks (like Fine Time) and synth-based songs (like Young Offender and Round & Round) because NO can do all of them. I don't want another Get Ready because I've already got one Get Ready and I wasn't particularly impressed with it.

Lyrically I want Bernard to try really hard to write some good lyrics that sound as if he is trying to say something important, to tell a story or to paint a picture with words. He can write excellent lyrics (such as Thieves Like Us, Love Vigilantes, The Perfect Kiss, True Faith, 1963, Mr Disco and Regret with NO and Getting Away With It, Feel Every Beat, Gangster, Second Nature and Out Of My League with Electronic). He just doesn't do it often enough, perhaps because he doesn't believe that he can or because he doesn't approach writing lyrics in the right way and just scribbles down whatever comes into his head in the last few days and weeks of the recording sessions. If I wanted to listen to lyrics that don't mean anything, that were written by someone who didn't mean what they wrote or that largely consist of words chosen because they are easy to sing and rhyme I'd buy most of the singles that enter the Top 40.

If Gillian wanted to be involved that's fine but if she didn't that's fine too. I don't think bringing in collaborators in to work on a NO album again is a good idea because it didn't work very well on Get Ready. The members of NO can add something to records by other bands but other people can't really add much beyond different vocals to NO because NO are musically versatile anyway (if we hadn't been told that Here To Stay had been produced by The Chemical Brothers would anyone have noticed they were involved?). As for the job of production, if they didn't produce themselves Steve Osbourne would be a good choice (as long as Paul Oakenfold wasn't with him), as would Arthur Baker or, to throw a new name into the ring, Danny Saber (who, if I remember rightly, was a member of Black Grape and produced the last Charlatans album).

P.S. The story about an unreleased R.E.M. album produced by Stephen Hague doesn't ring true. By the time R.E.M. started taking more than a year between albums they had already started working with Scott Litt (who co-produced their best albums) and the various reasons for the delays between their more recent albums are well documented so I can't think when an unreleased album would have been recorded. Besides, New Order are probably the least poppy of the artists Stephen Hague has produced (didn't he produce at least one of Dubstar's albums) and I can't imagine R.E.M. or their management asking him to work with them. Such an album may exist but I won't believe that it does until I get more evidence.

R.E.M. worked with Stephen Hague during the recording of their first album 'Murmur' in 1982. Their record label thought it would be a good idea and thought it would give them a more modern sound (Hague had worked with the Human League before). Hague added synthesizers to the track 'Catapult'. R.E.M. didn't like it at all, it was never released and R.E.M. never worked with Hague again.

Originally posted by Coen van der Voort R.E.M. worked with Stephen Hague during the recording of their first album 'Murmur' in 1982. Their record label thought it would be a good idea and thought it would give them a more modern sound (Hague had worked with the Human League before). Hague added synthesizers to the track 'Catapult'. R.E.M. didn't like it at all, it was never released and R.E.M. never worked with Hague again.

Thanks for that info. I had considered the possibility that Stephen Hague may have worked with R.E.M. earlier in their career rather than after they had signed to Warners but I hadn't thought of that possibility. Now you've told me that I know I definitely don't want to hear whatever they recorded because I don't particularly like "Murmur". Who thought that would be a good idea?

how about Flood and Alan Wilder....oh no, now i've gone and done it:headoff:

wow. eno and lanois producing neworder....may be a very good idea....they made U2 sound more emotional and atmospheric on Unforgettable Fire...it will never happen but it would be nice...someone mentioned Adrian Sherwood...that would be interesting also....