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Morning Star Review of Retro
THE seminal Joy Division came to an abrupt end in 1980 with the suicide of their charismatic singer and lyricist Ian Curtis. With the addition of keyboard player Gillian Gilbert, the remaining members reconvened as New Order and, to date, only the careers of Pink Floyd and the Manic Street Preachers can compare with their ability to increase their success and influence, despite the loss of such a pivotal member of the group.
Headline: Kings Of Pop
Insertion date: Dec 14 (sat)
Article credit: Lee MacFadden
Media credit: Morning Star
ALBUM REVIEW
Retro
New Order
London Records (4 CD box set)
THE seminal Joy Division came to an abrupt end in 1980 with the suicide of their charismatic singer and lyricist Ian Curtis. With the addition of keyboard player Gillian Gilbert, the remaining members reconvened as New Order and, to date, only the careers of Pink Floyd and the Manic Street Preachers can compare with their ability to increase their success and influence, despite the loss of such a pivotal member of the group. The first CD, simply entitled Pop, is essentially a singles collection, featuring well-known highlights such as Blue Monday, the biggest-selling 12² single of all time ,and Ceremony, a track written when they were Joy Division and only performed once onstage before Curtis¹s death. Bands may spend their entire careers attempting to emulate the sounds on classics like True Faith and Regret and the CD debut of the original 12² versions of Temptation and Confusion. The CD also includes Brutal, the first track recorded after the band¹s five-year split, previously featured on the film soundtrack to The Beach. A let-down to this otherwise excellent CD is Slow Jam, taken from their latest album Get Ready, which often exposed Bernard Sumner¹s inconsistent attention to the importance of the lyrics. The second CD Fan combines album tracks, B-sides and rarities. On In a Lonely Place, Sumner sings Ian Curtis¹s final lyric with a level of bleakness so magnanimous that the song is still emotionally draining, 21 years after it was recorded. Dreams Never End and Procession still suggest an attempt to equate the lyrical intensity of their previous incarnation, but later tracks such as All Day Long ‹ a simple, yet harrowing tale of the death of a child ‹ illustrate that the band could tackle sensitive and thought-provoking issues in their own style. Lighter moments ensue in Leave Me Alone and Every Little Counts. The CD culminates in Run Wild ‹ the standout track from Get Ready ‹ in which Sumner¹s heartfelt vocal is augmented with acoustic guitar and gospel-like backing singers. Club, chosen by the founder of M People and the Hacienda¹s resident DJ Mike Pickering, is the most mixed of the four discs. The essential inclusions of Arthur Baker¹s mix of 1963 and the original versions of Touched By The Hand Of God and Everything¹s Gone Green contrast vividly with the questionable selections of the extended instrumental version of Here To Stay, written for the 24 Hour Party People film and included at the expense of the vocal version, along with mixes of Regret and Blue Monday that do the originals no favours. The Subbuteo mix of 1990¹s World In Motion, inexplicably their only UK number one, recorded with Keith Allen and England¹s World Cup squad, still has the capacity to amuse when the novice rapping of John Barnes makes an appearance. The CD called Live conveys that, while New Order were consistently releasing top-quality records, it is only comparatively recently that their live sound has come close to the excellence of their studio material. In A Lonely Place, taken from 1981¹s Glastonbury Festival, pales against the Fan version, most notably because Bernard¹s nervousness at facing the massive audience was over-compensated by booze ‹ and this is all too apparent.
Tracks improve in sound quality and overall performance, but are still, effectively, the recordings that lovers of bootlegs cherish and the rest of the population skips over until 1989s Fine Time, live in Chicago, which heralds a new-found professionalism in the live set. The standout track on this collection is Turn My Way, recorded at Liverpool last year, featuring Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins on guest vocals and guitar. For the first 3,000, a bonus CD is included, worth searching for purely for the band¹s 2001 live version of Joy Division¹s Transmission, equating the blistering charge of old with the unity and experience of the present. A collection that every fan will buy, love, proudly display as a cool artefact and vociferously argue over its track selection. The wealth of superb material that New Order have produced in 22 years makes any compilation listing, by nature, appear purely subjective. No matter, this is a true testament to a vitally important band.
Insertion date: Dec 14 (sat)
Article credit: Lee MacFadden
Media credit: Morning Star
ALBUM REVIEW
Retro
New Order
London Records (4 CD box set)
THE seminal Joy Division came to an abrupt end in 1980 with the suicide of their charismatic singer and lyricist Ian Curtis. With the addition of keyboard player Gillian Gilbert, the remaining members reconvened as New Order and, to date, only the careers of Pink Floyd and the Manic Street Preachers can compare with their ability to increase their success and influence, despite the loss of such a pivotal member of the group. The first CD, simply entitled Pop, is essentially a singles collection, featuring well-known highlights such as Blue Monday, the biggest-selling 12² single of all time ,and Ceremony, a track written when they were Joy Division and only performed once onstage before Curtis¹s death. Bands may spend their entire careers attempting to emulate the sounds on classics like True Faith and Regret and the CD debut of the original 12² versions of Temptation and Confusion. The CD also includes Brutal, the first track recorded after the band¹s five-year split, previously featured on the film soundtrack to The Beach. A let-down to this otherwise excellent CD is Slow Jam, taken from their latest album Get Ready, which often exposed Bernard Sumner¹s inconsistent attention to the importance of the lyrics. The second CD Fan combines album tracks, B-sides and rarities. On In a Lonely Place, Sumner sings Ian Curtis¹s final lyric with a level of bleakness so magnanimous that the song is still emotionally draining, 21 years after it was recorded. Dreams Never End and Procession still suggest an attempt to equate the lyrical intensity of their previous incarnation, but later tracks such as All Day Long ‹ a simple, yet harrowing tale of the death of a child ‹ illustrate that the band could tackle sensitive and thought-provoking issues in their own style. Lighter moments ensue in Leave Me Alone and Every Little Counts. The CD culminates in Run Wild ‹ the standout track from Get Ready ‹ in which Sumner¹s heartfelt vocal is augmented with acoustic guitar and gospel-like backing singers. Club, chosen by the founder of M People and the Hacienda¹s resident DJ Mike Pickering, is the most mixed of the four discs. The essential inclusions of Arthur Baker¹s mix of 1963 and the original versions of Touched By The Hand Of God and Everything¹s Gone Green contrast vividly with the questionable selections of the extended instrumental version of Here To Stay, written for the 24 Hour Party People film and included at the expense of the vocal version, along with mixes of Regret and Blue Monday that do the originals no favours. The Subbuteo mix of 1990¹s World In Motion, inexplicably their only UK number one, recorded with Keith Allen and England¹s World Cup squad, still has the capacity to amuse when the novice rapping of John Barnes makes an appearance. The CD called Live conveys that, while New Order were consistently releasing top-quality records, it is only comparatively recently that their live sound has come close to the excellence of their studio material. In A Lonely Place, taken from 1981¹s Glastonbury Festival, pales against the Fan version, most notably because Bernard¹s nervousness at facing the massive audience was over-compensated by booze ‹ and this is all too apparent.
Tracks improve in sound quality and overall performance, but are still, effectively, the recordings that lovers of bootlegs cherish and the rest of the population skips over until 1989s Fine Time, live in Chicago, which heralds a new-found professionalism in the live set. The standout track on this collection is Turn My Way, recorded at Liverpool last year, featuring Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins on guest vocals and guitar. For the first 3,000, a bonus CD is included, worth searching for purely for the band¹s 2001 live version of Joy Division¹s Transmission, equating the blistering charge of old with the unity and experience of the present. A collection that every fan will buy, love, proudly display as a cool artefact and vociferously argue over its track selection. The wealth of superb material that New Order have produced in 22 years makes any compilation listing, by nature, appear purely subjective. No matter, this is a true testament to a vitally important band.
From the NewOrderOnline archive.
Thanks to: Lee MacFadden, Katie Gilmore
