honest opinions on brotherhood!
Archived46 replies · 737 views
Originally posted by AgentWood > Originally posted by Benny's Cobweb Eyes Every Little Counts - sheer embarrassment. It's not a joke, it's not even funny. A band who had run out of things to say/do for a while.
ok, maybe the intro is a rip-off of 'walk on the wild side', but i think it's a fantastic little tune. ridiculous, yes, but they know it's silly and you can picture barney blushing as he's laughing through the lyrics--there's something endearing and unaffected about it. i also love the way all the instruments come together as the song reaches the end. a perfect way to finish the album. i absolutely ADORE Every Little Counts. it's such a beautiful song musically, and the lyrics are such a fabulous pisstake.
Brotherhood is the first album I really got into, liked it better than Low Life for a while. Went off it for a bit, but have learned to appreciate it again since. Would put it below LL and Technique, about even with GR.
The production is a little rough and could do with a remastering, but I kinda like the way all the growling, thrashing guitars meld together on the first side...lots of energy. Hooky has some great basslines throughout (including on this version of BLT). I like Barney's lyrics and singing too.
AIIWIW is a great downtempo, soulful/wistful look at loss and loneliness and All Day Long is a serious contender for Most Beautiful Song Ever.
And I think ELC is a great tongue-in-cheek outro...I wish they'd done as Steve wanted and put appropriate "crashes" on the CD and cassette versions as well. I had a friend who used to play this whenever he DJed just to scare people.
I made a point to buy the CDs without the extra tracks (BHood and PCL). Sometimes my inner purist gets loose.
An album that took me some time to get into. My favourites now are:
- paradise, as it is when it was, all day long, angel dust Paradise for example needed me to watch reading98 to appreciate it. Now the funny thing is that the reading98 version starts to "bore" me a little while the b'hood version still sounds very ok.
Listening to some of the tracks off it now, you can't beat New Order, simple as that. It carries the spirit that makes them great. Unbridled, raw emotion. So what ever the ranking, it captures the essence of NO, and thats enough.
Cheers ALEX
Absolutely adore it - there's a lot of songs on there that are classic singalongs (when no-one else is around!) with such simple melodies.
I've recently been playing it a bit more, as quite a few of the tracks are on Retro Disc 2, which I prefer out of the first 3 discs in the set.
Anyway, this is what the band thinks of it (from that Uncut interview):
Stephen Morris: "It was a bit higgledy-piggledy." Gillian Gilbert: "One side was acoustic, the other electronic. I don't like the songs as much as our others. I don't like the sleeve. I don't like the name." Peter Hook: "There are some really good songs on it. Some of the best music Is made when you're desperately unhappy or desperately fighting, Isn't it?" Bernard Sumner: "It's not as good as Low-Life. I remember going on holiday to Corfu, playing it on a Walkman and thinking, 'Fucking hell, that's shit.' What songs are on it? [Uncut reels off tracklisting]. Really? Well, fuck that, then. It sounds like a good album."
l8rs,
Nick ;)
Originally posted by KW1 If only it wasn't so muddy.
My sentiments exactly! As I've said many times before.
They exagerated the pop in it.It´s not my favourite New Order album but it has the eternal hit BLT :)
I still have to rate Brotherhood as one of my favorite albums, but I'm very biased about what I like in new order and that's Peter Hook's bass.
To this day as much as I love Technique I hate that Hook only appears in bits in pieces on songs like "fine time," "vanishing point," Dream attack" etc etc. Although if did fortell of his virtual disapperance from Republic.
From, Will
Great Album. Can't really decide which 80's studio album is the best. They are wery equall to me. All very, very good records.
I have SOTN 12", and I don't count it as a one of the Brotherhood songs, although it would have been a nice add in somewhere between the acoustic songs in the side-a.
Every Little Counts is a question mark, and I used to think it's a bit useless. Nowdays I don't mind it anymore. It's kind of funny drugs&bear&no sleep -kind of outburst.
The b-side is pure class besides ELC. Bizarre Love Triangle - All Day Long - Angel Dust is my number one New Order trio. Just above Mr. Disco - Vanishing Point - Dream Attack.
I leave it at home when i come to uni. I really don't like it. Probably my least fave album by NO.
Funny, I used to love it and it was my favourite for a while. , but I hadn't listened to it for over a year until Brotherhood Survivor started. When Brotherhood came out, BLT was my immediate choice as best track, but some of the songs do really grow e.g. Angel Dust. I'll immerse myself in it for the next week or so and will post again!
Cracking album, only a couple of low points from me really, I have never been a massive fan of ELC or Angel Dust, Paradise kicks off the album quite nicely, and I love the chorus on this one. Weirdo sounds better live than on record, then it's one of my favourite songs AIIWIW, a true classic from the order, then from the slow to the fast in Broken Promise, what can you say about this? Rocktastic, a great tune and I equally enjoy the mental lyrics. Way Of Life is not bad, but it's not that good either. Side 2 Kicks off with BLT, and quite a few on here prefer this version to the 12", I can understand why, instead of all the fucking around with long intros (which I like) they bang straight into it, which works just as well. Angel Dust is ok at best IMO, the next track is one of the tracks where Barney actually gets praised for his lyric writing, a song about Child Abuse, and the music echoes the lyrics, sublime. The album's finished off with ELC, with this track, I go through phases of loving it, then loathing it and so on, at the moment I like it, but that's probably due to the fact of watching live bootleg vids.
Summary......a good album, but I prefer Low-Life.
I just think that at the time they had rather lost their way with songwriting - Low Life and its immediate few weeks afterwards had produced a dozen songs (inc. Let's Go, As It Is and SOTN), but Weirdo always sounded to me like they didn't really know what to do with it. Broken Promise changed a lot from the early live versions in October 85, and then BLT came along a month later. After getting most of these sorted out to their satisfaction in the first part of 1986, we then got Paradise (not that bad) and the half-arsed Way of Life. When it came to the recording of the album they then came up with another four songs in the studio, two of which were ok. I still think that half the album is weak, and remember being very disappointed when I first heard it after months of anticipation and live evolution.
it's complete rubbish...I'd rather listen to s club 7 or East 17...or maybe funboythree...I can't decide...maybe I'll just start posting on the Kylie board...I hear she's much better!!!! 
I love this album, Brotherhood. When it came out I was a little disappointed because it did not follow through with the electronics like LL did. However, as time goes by, I came to appreciate more and more. Benard's voice FINALLY reached a point of quality (too high pitched on LL). The acoustic songs are timeless. My hippie Uncle even bought it because they played the acoustic set at the record store when he was in. Like the others said, BLT without all that rubbish. This is the album you can play for your dorkie hippie friends.
Interesting to see such a divided opinion. Maybe the fact that it's completely different to everything else they've done has something to do with it.
For me, it's easily no. 2 (Technique being 1, of course). Even the weaker somgs have their charms.
