The very first side project thread?

All this side project shananigans has attracted fifteen years' attention totally out of proportion to its actual achievements. As I wrote elsewhere, just buy 'Electronic' and 'Music for pleasure'. If you like those, you could then go for either 'Twisted Tenderness' or 'Monaco', but they're hardly essential. The Other Two are nothing but anonymous instrumentals and Stock-Aitken-and-Waterman synthpap, 'Raise the Pressure' was the biggest disappointment of my life after missing Melanie C in concert round here, and Revenge weren't even a band, just an excuse for superegotistical Hooky to get on the road and dabble in some dodgy wank studies. I really can't understand how one pisspoor album has allowed a 2-hour re-release and a live CD over a decade later. I just want those lazy fuckers New Order to get recording their 9th album.

So, what are you really mad about? The fact that Electronic got a retrospective piece put out, or that NO hit a breaking point and didn't put out music for almost a decade?

As I said before, New Order aren't gods, they're human beings, and it's only natural that over nearly thirty years there are gonna be ups and downs. And the bigger the up, the bigger the down. It's only my opinion, but I reckon Barney made the best post-Curtis albums of his life (Techique, Electronic) followed by a decidedly lean period. Republic was the most forced effort since Movement, then he gave the okay to the Rest of..., then Raise the (yawn) Pressure. And the others were struggling at that point too. Do we really need Revenge and Other Two albums?... It wasn't till NO got back on the road in 98 that they sorted themselves out again.