Retro - what a disappointment !

It seems to be, from those in the know, that the band will never allow the fans to hear what they want i.e. demos. This is the major problem we have, the band are just not on the same wavelength as the fans and this doesn't appear to be healthy. Barney, it seems, would rather give us polished rubbish like Slow Jam rather than rough, unpolished stuff like the Western Works demos. Unfortunately, I for one often prefer the demo version of a song as it can capture the essence of the piece, something that can be 'produced out' if reworked too much. It's a shame the band doesn't understand this as the gap between them and the fans seems to be growing ever wider.

There has been talk of some of what you have previously mentioned FINALLY seeing the light of day on "A.N.Other " CD - You won't hear any demos though - just won't happen. The "Vanishing Point" remix(es) are being looked into along with the master of the rambling "Elegia" session. There ARE soundboard recordings - mainly unmixed DATs of many of the more recent dates - some even appearing as in-house samplers but I'm not sure what the band themselves feel about those recordings being released officially.

Well if that ever comes off it will be great as i love this particular song.When they played it at G-MEX in the 80's BARNEY declared this is a new song but the next time you hear us play it, it will be an oldy!Memories of a fantastic night.The quality of the live BOOTLEGS these days are good but proper soundboard of older shows would be great.But once all this is out of the way surely we can look forward to some NEW songs.The band have still a lot to offer IMHO.

I think that most people are missing the point with their complaints against Retro.

Surely as a selling tool it is not aimed at New Order fanatics who have practically every release but rather it is more aimed at casual New Order followers.

The number of completists will make up a very small proportion of the record buying public which in turn will create very little money for the record company which is in essence what it is ultimately all about. By having tracks which are already more commercially available the marketing company will attempt to attract a larger slice of the market by aiming at people who may only own 1 or 2 NO releases.

Whilst I, as a completist am pissed off with the track selection it would be unfair to slag off the record company as are only doing their job.

My point was not about what should or should not be on the Box Set but about the band's attitude to access to unreleased material. What's wrong with London Records setting up a small e-commerce site where sad fans like me could pay a fee to download demos, live tracks, etc ? It's money for old rope, where's the problem ? It would make money for the company, have little costs to set up & run, put the bootleggers out of business in one fell swoop, please the fans & it wouldn't interfere with their real job of repackaging the same songs over and over again for mass-market sales. The market in bootlegged material shows that the demand is there for unreleased material, it just needs a bit of imagination to tap into it.

...but we've been slagging off record companies for years. Why stop now?

Originally posted by Al Jarvis Finally, another voice of reason! ;)

We don't want no steenkin' voice of reason.