What do you think about this song? Just listened to it again tonight for the first time in a while. It's so often overlooked when talking about P,C&L.The songs always talked about from that album are Age Of Consent, 586, Your Silent Face and Leave Me Alone.But We All Stand has its moments.I often regarded it as a hangover from Movement. But it kind of fell between that album and the progression of P,C&L. There's definitely some argument for its inclusion on the album, the "at the end of the road there's a soldier waiting for me" always evokes an image and Steve's drumming as always makes a big impact.It's a bit of a pause though after Age Of Consent and The Village is always a relief when its intro bounces in after We All Stand but somehow, somewhere the song deserves a place on the album, just.The image of a soldier at the end of the road and the grim tone kind of caught the mood of the times back then, 1983.I was 15 then and the constant expectation of seeing a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud on the horizon was something you expected to see any day soon whenever you left the house and walked down the street.The Peel session version is maybe better despite at times coming across as a bit Simply Red!
We All Stand
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I absolutely love it. Both the LP version and the Peel Session are great.
To be honest, PC&L, along with Technique, are 'perfect' albums for me. Every track on the pair of them are bloody brilliant.
I think “We All Stand” is a brilliant song, but it doesn’t make much sense coming out of “Age of Consent” or going into “The Village”. It kills the excellent, propulsive energy established by “Age of Consent”, an energy which could’ve been maintained by a different track. Were the song placed alongside the other, more sonically dark tracks on the record - “Ultraviolence” and “Ecstasy” - I think it would’ve worked far better.
Honestly, the placement of “We All Stand” is my only real gripe with the otherwise phenomenal Power, Corruption & Lies (still my favorite New Order album, and perhaps my absolute favorite record).
Dennis Remmer wrote:
My thoughts are here...
Thanks, yeah i do recall reading your review of this one, good summary.
VanGelder wrote: I think “We All Stand” is a brilliant song, but it doesn’t make much sense coming out of “Age of Consent” or going into “The Village”. It kills the excellent, propulsive energy established by “Age of Consent”, an energy which could’ve been maintained by a different track. Were the song placed alongside the other, more sonically dark tracks on the record - “Ultraviolence” and “Ecstasy” - I think it would’ve worked far better.
Honestly, the placement of “We All Stand” is my only real gripe with the otherwise phenomenal Power, Corruption & Lies (still my favorite New Order album, and perhaps my absolute favorite record).
Absolutely agree.The placement of We All Stand was always weird and like you, my only gripe.Having it as second track after opener Age Of Consent is a real dampener after the first song's breathless starting sprint.I'd have put The Village as track 2 to keep up that opening momentum, then have We All Stand as track 3 to give us a chance to get our breath back.Then if We All Stand was track 3 the slow languid vibe would segue into the slow languid vibe of the first minute or two of 586 before that song puts the foot down on the accelerator and things really get going again.But in that scenario you'd have maybe too much slow languid vibe if We All Stand was followed by the slow languid intro to 586 so it's a tricky one.
Sometime back i created in my iTunes a version of Power, Corruption & Lies that included Murder.I went for having the track sandwiched between Ecstasy and Leave Me Alone.The nearest song to Murder on the album in my opinion is Ulltraviolence, it has a similar vibe.But do you have Ultraviolence followed by Murder? Maybe a bit too much darkness that way so i stuck Ecstasy in between.
Their last JD moment. While the first LP was crappy and the second frantabulous, the Peel Sessions are the opposite: the first one shows how much stronger Movecunt would've been with simpler production (DNE and Hooky's awful voice excepted), but the second one shows how inexperienced they were with the technology. TTHO is a gem, though.
... i also agree that We All Stand shouldn't have been track #2. when i first heard the track, i thought it should've been a B-Side if anything. would've been easier for me when playing the record, so i wouldn't have to get up and skip it every time. :P
perspexorange wrote: I absolutely love it. Both the LP version and the Peel Session are great.
To be honest, PC&L, along with Technique, are 'perfect' albums for me. Every track on the pair of them are bloody brilliant.
Couldn’t agree more. I love every track and PC&L (and technique) still sounds as good today.
lee wrote: quite possibly their worst song
No, they did FAR worse than this. Crock of Shat, Chemical, Wanking Overtime, Liar... The list is long. The military aspect reminds me of PIL's Go Back, though that one's much more compelling. There must have been a 'worst NO song' thread over the years. I never had a problem with Jizzstream: as Hooky said, it was one of those tracks that needed mixing (think what Perfecto did with World). I sometimes think people need to have their heroes and villains, so they've latched on to this as THE worst NO song. It's like 15 years ago, when everyone was saying Scarlett Johansson was the sexiest woman in the world and then it was Megan Fux etc. Personally I have not met every sexy woman in the world, and if I had, I wouldn't have the energy to make an assessement.
Michael Monkhouse wrote:
lee wrote: quite possibly their worst song
No, they did FAR worse than this. Crock of Shat, Chemical, Wanking Overtime, Liar... The list is long. The military aspect reminds me of PIL's Go Back, though that one's much more compelling. There must have been a 'worst NO song' thread over the years. I never had a problem with Jizzstream: as Hooky said, it was one of those tracks that needed mixing (think what Perfecto did with World). I sometimes think people need to have their heroes and villains, so they've latched on to this as THE worst NO song. It's like 15 years ago, when everyone was saying Scarlett Johansson was the sexiest woman in the world and then it was Megan Fux etc. Personally I have not met every sexy woman in the world, and if I had, I wouldn't have the energy to make an assessement.
I agree on pretty much everything you say, Michael.
We All Stand, IMO, doesn't come anywhere near the horror of Rock The Shack, Slow Jam, Chemical and Liar.
Jetstream ain't too bad. I think it's mindless pop, really. Nothing offensive. I think it was the whole New Order:Sisters Sisters thing that made most people balk at the idea. It didn't help that the song wasn't great. I think that that combination has probably given it a worse reputation than it (probably) deserves.
Johannson / Fox. Neither float my boat, so to speak.
The only thing I'd disagree with you on, Michael, is the 'list is long' statement. Apart from the four I mentioned above, I'm struggling to come up with any more really terrible songs by the band (granted, Working Overtime, Jetstream, Run Wild, Morning, Night & Day, Krafty, Superheated and a handful of others don't appeal to me, but I know others that like them).
I personally think that New Order, more than most bands, can be singled out as producing very few 'duffers'. Even their average songs are pretty damn good, especially when compared with the vast majority of bands out there.
This includes their peers. For instance, I bloody love Depeche Mode. After JD / NO (they are one band, IMO), they are definitely my second favourite band. However, they've probably written more dross than they have good songs. It took them four LPs to make a halfway decent one; five before they made a great one (Black Celebration). And don't get me started on their post-SOFAD output.
Compare that to NO. The second LP is a bona fide masterpiece. If you include the JD ones, that's four pretty much 'universally agreed' British classics in the first five LPs. Talk about smashing it out of the park from the outset. If you include their next two LPs (Brotherhood and Technique), you've got 5 out 7 classics. Not bad for 4-5 ruffians, with zero musical training, from Salford/Macc/Manchester.
Anyway, I've rambled enough. ![[:)]](/emoticons/smile.gif){kind=small}
Yeah but their output is so slow. Given they've been around for nearly 40 years, I was amazed how hard it was. I hadn't finished. How hard it was to fill that 25 fave trax scurvey recently. I knew something was up - I hadn't finished - when I included Special and then went back over the second half of Rep. Doctor, I'm impotent. - What's up? Another WAS veto https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/the-ten-worst-new-order-songs/.
See - he's struggling to get to 10. :-)
Try All You Want is a stretch.
I used to really dislike State Of The Nation and never listened to it. Now, I really like it. Not their best, I know, but still pretty good.
Working Overtime has to be a serious contender for worst New Order song. We All Stand is a New Order classic compared to that shite.
I like We All Stand - especially as it appears in Pumped Full Of Drugs, with the sequencer bassline, and a drum machine playing the rhythm track:
People tend to forget their reggae connection. They covered Turn The Heater On during their second Peel Session because it was a favorite of Ian's. Too Late from the same session has that dubby feel, and the Italian tour dates in 1982 were super dubby, with extra long versions of some songs segueing together, lots of delay thrown in, etc.
I Told You So feels like a nod to that time. People hate it, but it's one of the tracks on WFTSC that I don't skip.
Apart from the obvious (Working Overtime, Rock The Shit), my least favorite "classic" era song is As It Was When It Was. I hate that song.
- 50pn
Music Complete wrote:
People tend to forget their reggae connection.n
Maybe for the best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN6fAJahdmE THREE likes? That's five more than usual.
Music Complete wrote: my least favorite "classic" era song is As It Was When It Was. I hate that song.
- 50pn
One of my favourites, esp the PFOD version with the longer outtake.
Listening to their average or ok songs is at times helpful therapy especially by placing them strategically in the mix - for instance -after allowing sister to enlighten me for an hour and a half as to the various superpowers of one b springsteen, while driving thru the Dakotas, reaching for Rock the Shack was second nature.
Col72 wrote: Normally just skip this one.... It does nothing for me....
Same here, it just drags.
If "It's a red sky tonight, At the end of the road, where all futures go" moves you less than " Jetstream lover" or " Hey now,watcha doin?'"..then.. well ... there is no hope for you.Sorry to depart that information.
I do prefer the Peel Session, way better with the synth bass. I'm afraid Hooky's slightly casual bass work on the album version ruins it a bit. Agreed it kills the opening of PCL too. However trying to improve the PCL track list is a tough one. Maybe Ultraviolence second but then you can't follow that with The Village and where do you put We All Stand? Its way too confusing!
