Challenge Match: Crystal vs Here To Stay

This is a shocker of a choice to make. I remember Crystal as being the first New Order track I had heard, although it was a grower (my first real obsession began with 60 MPH). Here to Stay was pretty instant and it has a huge advantage here as it's the only single I've ever bought for $10aus. To rate both songs' attributes out of 10:

          Crystal              Here to Stay

Intro 9 7 Guitar lines 8 8 Chorus 8 10 Bassline 10 7 Outro 7 9 Total 42/50 41/50

So it's Crystal by a whisker--and yes it probably is the best single release by New order. It was their biggest American hit I believe although I don't have confirmation of that.

Oh please! This 'debate' is about as even-handed as the Australia-England Ashes cricket series. CRYSTAL is up there with the very great NO songs, just a notch under the big three, Temptation, TPK & True Faith, in my opinion. HERE TO STAY is not a bad tune by any stretch of the imagination and it kind of grows on you but it's not in the same league as CRYSTAL and I'd go so far as to say that Player In The League is almost as good as HTS, if you want to compare apples with apples.

Originally posted by Justin Lazic This is a shocker of a choice to make. I remember Crystal as being the first New Order track I had heard, although it was a grower (my first real obsession began with 60 MPH). Here to Stay was pretty instant and it has a huge advantage here as it's the only single I've ever bought for $10aus. To rate both songs' attributes out of 10: Crystal Here to StayIntro 9 7Guitar lines 8 8Chorus 8 10Bassline 10 7Outro 7 9Total 42/50 41/50So it's Crystal by a whisker--and yes it probably is the best single release by New order. It was their biggest American hit I believe although I don't have confirmation of that.

Definitely NOT "their biggest American hit." It did well here only on the dance chart. Radio refused to play it.

I had a sneaking feeling that was the case. However I was doing some homework not long ago in the Discography section of neworderonline and in the singles area it used to have chart positions for each of the releases. I now notice that these statistics have been removed, for whatever reason. For Crystal it had five different countries' positions listed, but all I can recall off the top of my head are UK #8 and US #16. I also recall that Regret was US #28 and True Faith US #32 (their only other US top 40 hits). Patrick do you have any ideas as to how this mistake might have happened and could you confirm the authenticity of the Regret and True Faith positions?

Originally posted by Justin Lazic I had a sneaking feeling that was the case. However I was doing some homework not long ago in the Discography section of neworderonline and in the singles area it used to have chart positions for each of the releases. I now notice that these statistics have been removed, for whatever reason. For Crystal it had five different countries' positions listed, but all I can recall off the top of my head are UK #8 and US #16. I also recall that Regret was US #28 and True Faith US #32 (their only other US top 40 hits). Patrick do you have any ideas as to how this mistake might have happened and could you confirm the authenticity of the Regret and True Faith positions?

Sorry, Justin, I'm not sure. I would have said that Regret was probably their biggest hit here; it did get quite a bit of radio play. The U.S. singles charts are based mainly on radio play rather than on sales; in contrast, the album charts are based purely on sales. That #16 might have been based on sales. Regret did quite well, as I recall on the Billboard "modern rock" single chart, based on radio play.

Had to vote for Crystal. Again, as many have said, HTS is by no means a bad or poor song, but just doesn't do it for me like Crystal does. The riffs, bassline, intro, the way it fuckin rocks. HTS is a little too synthesized for me; I prefer NO's rockin, guitar material over their dancier synth stuff. It was one of the first NO songs I heard in which I knew it was them and it, along with SLY, got me into the band b4 Get Ready came out. One of the two best songs on Get Ready, along with Primitive Notion....which is actually better....

Originally posted by Matthew Smyth > Originally posted by Al Jarvis No competition whatsoever. Crystal is CLASSIC New Order. Here To Say just isn't. Listened to the latter to death for about 2 weeks, then woke up one morning and thought, god, this is boring. I could never say that about the former.Anyone who says the latter just ain't seen this band live.

I saw em live 1985, 1987 & 2002 and still prefer HTS.

ditto. yes, crystal is classic NO. but i, too, have seen them live a few times and still prefer here to stay (if only by one of kitty's whiskers ).

When I heard Crystal & HTS for the first time respectively, I thought these songs are fookin great. But my preference leans slightly towards Crystal. Killer intro.