Academic appreciation thread

I remember reading The Quietus' review of Music Complete a couple of weeks ago, and the reviewer quipped that on first listen, he'd drawn a frowny face in his notes next to this song because it sounded too much like guitary New Order by numbers. To my ear, New Order have only made three truly great guitar songs since Dream Attack closed Technique: Regret, the title cut to Waiting For The Sirens' Call, and this.

I've realized that it gives me that classic NO rush because it's a refined version of Paradise from Brotherhood - especially with that sequencer bassline low in the mix. You can even sing the lyrics to Paradise over the whole outro of Academic. Funny to me that one of the most NO-sounding songs on the album was actually written by Phil and Tom!

That single-note bended guitar solo is straight out of The Cure's A Hundred Years.

I love Barney's "doo doo doo" vocal ad-libs before the guitar solo, and this is the track where it finally sank in that he'd really made an effort with the lyrics.

I can't stop listening to this album. I'm a 45-year old man who's as giddy as I was at age 16 buying Brotherhood new.

Ace track!

First Impressions of MUSIC COMPLETE listed Nothing But a Fool, Tutti Frutti, People on the Highline as perfect songs.

My very first reaction to ACADEMIC, captured on my livetweeting the album leak:

[indent]Track #7: Finally some guitars and live drums go surfing on these symphonic synth waves. No other musicians on the planet can make THIS sound. (even without Hooky)[/indent]

Now, I would say that if there are three perfect songs on the album, Academic is one of them (and Nothing But a Fool). Side 3 rocks!

Third perfect song? Restless?

Music Complete wrote: I remember reading The Quietus' review of Music Complete a couple of weeks ago, and the reviewer quipped that on first listen, he'd drawn a frowny face in his notes next to this song because it sounded too much like guitary New Order by numbers. To my ear, New Order have only made three truly great guitar songs since Dream Attack closed Technique: Regret, the title cut to Waiting For The Sirens' Call, and this.

I've realized that it gives me that classic NO rush because it's a refined version of Paradise from Brotherhood - especially with that sequencer bassline low in the mix. You can even sing the lyrics to Paradise over the whole outro of Academic. Funny to me that one of the most NO-sounding songs on the album was actually written by Phil and Tom!

That single-note bended guitar solo is straight out of The Cure's A Hundred Years.

I love Barney's "doo doo doo" vocal ad-libs before the guitar solo, and this is the track where it finally sank in that he'd really made an effort with the lyrics.

I can't stop listening to this album. I'm a 45-year old man who's as giddy as I was at age 16 buying Brotherhood new.

I agree with you! My favorite on the album, I actually teared up a bit on the snippet used as a promo...ended up my ringtone! I love that Tom and Phil totally understand NO, atleast to my ears.

People bang on about Elvis and Kennedy, but I will always remember where I was when I heard Academic for the first time - in the third isle of Aldi looking for spaghetti hoops.

That New Order speciality - euphoric sadness - hit me in a way that I used to experience thirty years ago and would always experience at least once on every album release.

I adore this record.

Music Complete wrote: New Order have only made three truly great guitar songs since Dream Attack closed Technique: Regret, the title cut to Waiting For The Sirens' Call, and this.

Loved 'Turn' too. It's funny... When I first got into NO it was via the Pet Shop Boys so my favourites were the electronic ones (TPK, BLT, R+R) but I'm more into the guitar-led stuff now. The album's great but it's super-electronic and Academic is more my style these days.

According to my Ipod of all the Music Complete tracks Academic is my most listened to with 26 since release two weeks ago today. The next being most of the others. For me Academic just sums up the full weight of effort that's gone into this album, whether that's down to Gillian, an urge to show they don't need no Hooky or what I have no idea. In some ways, the track could've sat nicely on WFTSC with it being sort of guitar-driven but there's so much more going on with the song compared to the WFTSC tracks it could be a different band (which in many ways it is, of course).

Mind you, that "so much more going on" is the same with all the Music Complete stuff; the sound is full to bursting. Brilliance.

Academic is a truly great Neworder song & the 34 second intro is as close to guitar driven perfection as you can hope to hear.

The fact that the rest of the song does not let it down in any way, just shows how good a job they've done this time around.

I've recently been avoiding starting with the 1st 5 'monster' tracks on 'side A' & instead, listen to MC starting at track 7...

I'm loving the extended version. Both versions certainly have there place and this is surfacing as my favourite track on the album!

thehim wrote: I'm loving the extended version. Both versions certainly have there place and this is surfacing as my favourite track on the album!

Came here to say the same thing. The extended version is a sublime mixture of rock and electro-pop. Can't stop listening. To the extent that I'm missing out on what I'm sure must be quite good albums from Silversun Pickups, Disclosure, Jamie Woon, Grimes and many others. It's a nice problem to have!

Music Complete wrote:

I can't stop listening to this album. I'm a 45-year old man who's as giddy as I was at age 16 buying Brotherhood new.

I couldn't have said it better mate.

At first my attention was drawn to tracks like Plastic and Tutti Frutti, but I was soon more drawn to all the other tracks.

Academic to me really stood out as a lyrically well written and classic New Ordery sounding guitar based track, I was, and am totally in awe of it. And then came along that extended mix... I listen to it several times everyday and I still can't get enough of it. It's a masterpiece, and only New Order know how to churn out that particular sound we all love.

I think Academic will have more longevity than the dance tracks....the freshness of Tutti Frutti & POTHL is slowly wearing off now....and my two fave tracks when I got the album download - Singularity & Plastic are also slowing becoming second best behind Academic.

i've always liked this track from when i first heard it, it one of the standout tracks to me.

have heard some instrumentals and other breakdowns of the track now.

i'll post some of them, in the future singles thread (although not sure if it will be one).

later -1

ok, i've made 3 mixes of it.

check them out here: http://forums.neworderonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=21712#post21712

later -1

Christmas just came early!

Cheers, -1.

NotAMod wrote: Academic (Extended Mix)

The Academic (Extended Mix) audio stems are available from Juno Download for £1.99 (in the UK anyway).

I purchased/downloaded and you basically get a 78mb lossy AAC file which in turn contains 5 audio streams:

• The Full Extended Mix
• Bass
• Drums
• Melody
• Vox

If you use the freeware editor Audacity and ensure you have ffmpeg installed you can load up the separate streams and view/extract for remixing purposes.

I haven't loaded the stems into my sequencing application yet but I made a quick instrumental version of the track straight away simply by saving it down minus the Vox.

Great track, I hope this means it will be a single.

yes, they seemed to come up out of nowhere, and haven't been mentioned.

beatport has them also.

use YAMB to extract the streams, and convert to wav to mix.

looking forward to other peoples mixes.

later -1