Album Title & Artwork

So, what is up with the title "Music Complete" --- seems a bit daft, and arrogant, and atypical for their lp titling style --- are they saying it is their last album, they are now complete?

And has Saville or anyone else explained anything about the cover art? Just curious what that is about as well.

I have two guesses for the title: 1) after many asking them about the album, in the end they decided to advertise "hey, kids, the album is finished... music complete"; 2) could be a nip to Hooky, just see the last promo photo with Tom on the front, maybe a way to say to him (and to his "widows") "band is complete too".

On Traffic Records (Japan) website I read Saville had two main influences to make Music Complete artwork: dutch painter Mondrian and Tudor architecture.

Music concrete comes to mind. My primary impression of Bernard and New Order is that creating songs of quality is extremely rare for musicians as they age, but this band is different. I suspect that there is a self respect and fondness for excellence that other favorites lost as they got older. May they follow music complete with anther set

I'm curious as to how they'll explain the title. I am sure the question will come up in an interview at some point.

I like to think it refers to it being a complete representation of what the band can do musically. They've collaborated with close friends. They've done guitar driven and electronically driven songs. I see it as the album is a complete representation of where they are and what they can do musically.

Though of course it's difficult to judge the relevance of the title with the album without having heard it.

As for the cover. I can't say much about it but for me it appears to match the 80's aethedic that New Order are generally affiliated with.

So here's the explaination of the title from Morris.

"Music Complete came from Bernard saying, 'Let's call it musique concrète,'" he explains. "But we couldn't call it that, so we said, 'Let's call it Music Complete.' And for some reason that became the title. Everybody liked it most. We hadn't even thought about it having a sense of finality about it. We never thought that it sounds like it'd be the last album we're doing. And also we never thought that it sounds like another New Order compilation album, which I think the world's got enough of, quite honestly. It was the best title we could come up with, because we do the title last. And it's sort of summed up the fact that it's all styles of music. It isn't all dance, but a lot of different things in it. Music Complete explained it best."

From http://exclaim.ca/Music/article/8203new\_orders\_stephen\_morris\_talks\_first\_album\_without\_peter\_hook via http://forums.neworderonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=2912#post17880

It's nice that the Exclaim article revealed the origin of the title, though I wish they had opted for "Concrète" or "Complete" as the title instead.

Neil Tennant of PSB's called and asked not to steal their future album names.