"Be A Rebel" - Unreleased 'Music Complete' song

According to the following article, Bernard is mixing an unfinished song from 'Music Complete':

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b480ec10-96e6-11ea-b833-0d83599da676?shareToken=1da57a7ff809aa96db6e6e9eb00ff85b

Interesting.

We need a Lost Complete.

'The band that rose from Joy Division's ashes... They founded a nightclub... Hook left the band...' In the words of Shakespeare, bring the new song out and shut the fuck up. The Times. Rad!

Michael Monkhouse wrote: 'The band that rose from Joy Division's ashes...'

Come on, Michael. Even you must have something positive to say about this piece of news.

You're always complaining that they're stuck in the past and there's no new material. Well, here you go. (OK, I know the track's five years old, but beggars can't be choosers! )

And, yeah, 'Lost Complete' would be great, but seems unlikely. One or two outtakes seems like the most we'll get, based on the glacial pace of New Order.

Still, reasons to be cheerful. A Covid-19 silver lining...

Look for the rainbow in every storm... Can someone elucidate me on the Joy Division connection?

I generally find there's a reason songs don't see the light of day

I don't know, guys.

I try and spread some positivity...

What's the differencence between positivity and my mother's legs? Positivity isn't always spread.

Good find. I for one am excited about an unheard new order song. If it is good it may spur them on for an ep?

The Shadow wrote: Good find. I for one am excited about an unheard new order song. If it is good it may spur them on for an ep?

Yep. Me too! I'm really interested to hear it. Hopefully we won't have to wait for too much longer to hear it.

Its probably going to be a load of shite like the bulk of Lost Sirens,hence the 5 year wait but hes saying both him and Stephen have done remixes Facebook/Headstock

Just listened to the headstock stream. Good interviews with Steve and Bernard (enjoyed Mark reeder interview as well) and Bernard confirmed there is an original which he has remixed and so has Steve, sounds like a 12” release to me. There was no bad tracks imo on Music Complete so I have high hopes for this song.

I can't believe it's five years and not butter.

What's got 4 legs, looks retarded and needs 30 years to make two albums and they're both shit?

NotAMod wrote: [

Lost Sirens wasn't actually all that bad... it's just they'd been arguing about it for so long that once a release was finally agreed upon the material promptly drowned under the weight of expectation.

I listened to it the other day and at least 4-5 of the tracks are pretty solid; even the ITYS remix is preferable to the album version to these ears and "I've Got A Feeling" manages to be more melodic than the majority of Get Ready. "Recoil" is definitely an underrated gem.

The live shows are great and all but a certain predictability has developed with them and it has been over 5 years since Music Complete, which was arguably a critical and commercial success.

I was a bit perplexed as each year began passing with nothing new mooted as MC was the perfect springboard.

Anyway... very much looking forward to hearing anything new. "Keep it coming"...

You're right. Lost Sirens wasn't that bad. It just obviously pales in comparison to most of the band's back catalogue. 'Recoil' is very nice. I like 'Hellbent' quite a bit too, but that wasn't exactly 'new' when the LP came out. Every track is at least pretty reasonable (i.e. there's no 'Chemical' or 'RTS' on it).

Yeah - the predictability of the live gigs is a bit annoying. Although I still love seeing the band, you pretty much know exactly which tracks are going to be played.

This is why I loved the MiF gigs so much. Just to have certain tracks back in the set was wonderful (Ultraviolence, In A Lonely Place, Sub-Culture, Shellshock). If the band aren't going to write any more songs (really hoping that this isn't the case), I just hope they do something like the MiF gigs again.

I just want to see 'Everything's Got Green', 'Hurt' and 'Thieves Like Us' live before I die. 'Chosen Time' would be nice too.* New Order, if you're listening, make it happen. Please!

*I'd say 'Sunrise' as well, but that seems unlikely as that track is so synonymous with Hooky.

perspexorange wrote:

I just want to see 'Everything's Got Green', 'Hurt' and 'Thieves Like Us' live before I die. 'Chosen Time' would be nice too.* New Order, if you're listening, make it happen. Please!

Saw Thieves Like Us in Sydney a couple of years ago. With an orchestra. Anything else from this point forward is just gravy.

Maybe this will just be a one-off single release. Doing so would mean keeping up releasing new music in all six decades since the 70s.

One 'new' track in five years? That's four more than usual. Shame it wasn't used as a Bside instead of yet another barrage of mixes. I didn't bother this time, partly cos I'm no longer an obsessive, buy mainly because after London It was Once bitten etc. Lost Sirens? With Hellbent as a fanfare, I wasn't expecting much. And we didn't get much, except I'll stay with you. Recoil doesn't even sound finished.

The Times article is paywalled - what did it say?

I was massively underwhelmed by Lost Sirens, and can't help thinking that if a "lost" track from Music Complete has taken 5 years to surface, then it's not going to be that great

Oh and as a song title "Be a Rebel" bodes very badly

GotBlueEyes wrote: The Times article is paywalled - what did it say?

I was massively underwhelmed by Lost Sirens, and can't help thinking that if a "lost" track from Music Complete has taken 5 years to surface, then it's not going to be that great

Oh and as a song title "Be a Rebel" bodes very badly

Yeah - looks like it was only free for a short while.

I can't remember exactly what was said in the article. However, between that article, another one I read somewhere and the interview with Bernard in the live stream last week, he basically said:

1. It's a remnant from Music Complete;
2. It's called 'Be A Rebel';
3. He's mixing it;
4. It sounds 'really good' (which bodes well but, then again, he's hardly likely to say 'it's a bit shit' );
5. Both him and Steve are going to do separate remixes of Bernard's mix.

That was about it. No more info.

As regards whether the name "bodes very badly", I wouldn't worry about it. 'Mr Disco', 'Dream Attack' and 'Tutti Frutti' are all fairly bad names, but great tracks.

But you do make a valid point about the track being a five-year old remnant, rescued from the bin. How good can it be?

I'll reserve judgement though. It could be excellent. If you think about it, having only that track to focus their efforts on, there's a reasonable chance that they'll make sure it sounds pretty damn good.

Any 'new' material, as far as I'm concerned, is worth getting (moderately and modestly) excited about.

GotBlueEyes wrote:

Oh and as a song title "Be a Rebel" bodes very badly

Thought the same. Aren't we grim.

Add to other latter-era title zingers like Rock The Shack, Dracula's Castle, Working Overtime, California Grass and so on.

Poor old Rob would've cut these off at the pass.

Expectations set low here too but I'll still scour the net for an advanced listen and buy every format/variant possible in an annoyed fashion.

You can still see the live chat with Bernard here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/624927943?filter=archives&sort=time

He mentions the new track at about 2 hours 6 minutes in.

Not sure if you need a Twitch account or not to view it.

Some thoughts.

1. Melanie C's shoulderblades.
2. I wouldn't read too much into the crappy title. NO names are notoriously random, and I could namecheck great songs with shit titles and vice versa. But I won't. That's the kind of thing Blackadder fans do.
3. The Sirens parallel doesn't really work. That was a plodding, formulaic period - MC was their most inspired album for literally Decades (see what I etc), and the MILF gigs were the most thrilling setlists since the 80s, with the possible eggseptical of 1998.
4. Yeah I love it when people say 'Don't worry cos Bernard says it's great.' What do you expect him to say? 'Just heard the track and it is total and utter fucking shit. Boy, do we SUCK! We are SHIT. Avoid our bollocks, do yerselves a fucking favour, apparently there's a new Cure album coming out so buy that instead, they're fucking ace.'
5. No matter what gets written here, no one gives a fuck and the billisec this is out we're gonna get a boner and dig it out in minus one billisecond.
6. Melanie C's thighs.

Of course, what's so typically New Order about all this is that five years after releasing an album called Music Complete they then stick out an extra track from it.