Click below on the streaming service of your choice to listen to the playlist as you read along. This profile was updated in February 2020.

In the broader history of modern rock, the 1980s will be seen as a decade in which many new genres and sounds began, many of which were hybrids of what had come before. Modern rock had been formed out of the punk movement and broadened with the pub rock and power pop movements in the UK and US in 1976 and 1977. By 1980, the several emerging strands of post-punk music were coalescing around two broad flavours of modern rock, new wave and dark wave.

One of the most exciting and influential bands working in both of those genres was Joy Division, which had met an untimely end with the suicide of their lead singer, Ian Curtis, in May 1980. The path that band had forged was taken up by its successor, New Order, who continued to mix punk and new wave and eventually restored the use of dance beats into modern rock. The result was an incredible story of fortitude, reinvention, and brilliant creativity that made New Order one of the most successful, respected, and influential acts of the decade and indeed, the entire history of modern rock.

Full disclosure, New Order is my favourite band, having made an imprint on me in my early teens via introduction by my older brother. Well before I became fully entrenched as a fan of modern rock, songs like “Ceremony,” “Everything’s Gone Green,” “Temptation,” and “Age of Consent,” were favourite songs of mine and remain so to this day. It was through New Order that my music tastes were formed, moving me from the typical pre-teen fascination on pop towards the darker and more inventive styles of modern rock.

New Order’s story started in the early days of summer, 1980, as Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris were dealing with the sudden loss of their leader, singer, and band. Ian Curtis’ suicide was especially painful given the band seemed on the cusp of gaining a larger audience, especially having been on the eve of their first North American tour. The trio understandably took some time to gather themselves and assess their options. As much as the entire band contributed to their distinctive sound – indeed each player had a unique approach to their instrument – Curtis had been the driver of Joy Division’s creative force. He had helped the band find and refine their sound, and of course provided the compelling lyrics and now brand-defining vocals. Who were they and what would they be without him?

The Playlist

Ceremony
Procession
Dreams Never End
Doubts Even Here
Denial
Everything’s Gone Green
Temptation
Blue Monday
Age of Consent
Your Silent Face
Leave Me Alone
Confusion
Thieves Like Us
Love Vigilantes
The Perfect Kiss
Sunrise
Shellshock
State of the Nation
Weirdo
Bizarre Love Triangle
All Day Long
True Faith
Touched by the Hand of God
Fine Time
Love Less
Round & Round
Run
World in Motion
Regret
Everyone Everywhere
Brutal (unavailable on Spotify)
Crystal
Turn My Way
Waiting for the Siren’s Call
Krafty
Turn
Hellbent
Restless
Plastic
Tutti Frutti
Love Will Tear Us Apart

The band had made a pact not to retain the band name should any member depart. Therefore, the only certainty in the early days after Ian’s death was that it meant the finish of Joy Division, despite the subsequent and celebrated releases of the single, “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and the second and final LP, Closer. Otherwise, there wasn’t much consideration given to not carrying on in some fashion. Hook and Sumner had formed the band, with Curtis and Morris joining thereafter, and after so much work to get to where they were, there was a sense of inertia to carrying on; they didn’t know what else to do and needed to keep working – it was the best way to deal with their shock and grief.

Ceremony \ Non-album single (1981)

At the end of July, the trio played their first post-Joy Division gig in Manchester. They went on as a late replacement for another act, and not yet having chosen a name, were simply listed as ‘The No Names.’ Along with the decision to retire Joy Division came the understandable choice to stop playing its music, so they only played four songs – three new ones and an unrecorded, unreleased Joy Division song that had been played live only once, at the band’s final performance. It was called, “Ceremony.”

The band name situation was resolved shortly when their manager, Rob Gretton, pulled ‘New Order’ from a magazine headline regarding a political story and they liked the obvious fit to the band’s situation; and despite the risk of it re-inviting the accusations of Nazi affiliation that had plagued Joy Division, they stuck with it.

The other task they had to solve was, much the same when Joy Division was forming, finding a lead singer. This time they were more seasoned and confident musicians and the idea of finding a front person who might alter their creative dynamic was not a happy prospect. They also had a postponed tour obligation to fulfill in North America, so they set out on tour to start finding their new band’s personality and to figure out which of them would sing, with all three of them giving it a try. Touring, singing, and furiously writing new songs to fill out their line-up led for a tumultuous second half of 1980 – all of which was not helped by having their gear stolen after a show in New York City.

While in New York the band recorded “Ceremony,” which would be released at the start of 1981 as New Order’s first single. Whether they chose to give it new life rather than retire it along with the rest of the Joy Division library because it was a helpful transition or just because it was a brilliant song that needed to see the light of day, regardless the trio’s rendition delivered New Order’s best tune and my all-time favourite song – this blog is called Ceremony after all.

The song was more polished, powerful and relentless than anything Joy Division had recorded. In the absence of Curtis’ sombre vocals, the music shone through. Riding a heavy rhythm section lightened with Barney’s in-the-mix vocal and entrancing guitar work, in which the guitar and bass interplayed the leads and carried the song along a wonderful wave of energy and grace. The final third hypnotically built on a repeated guitar riff underpinning the guitar/bass leads, and then like a symphony with all its parts coming together, the song reached a climax leading to a final guitar sequence and a power chord, settling to rest in a cathartic hum. The relentless strength and energy of the song was breathtaking, and set the stage for New Order’s signature, wall-of-sound style.

The band would, oddly, re-record “Ceremony” later that year but this time with new band member Gillian Gilbert, who was Stephen’s girlfriend. Needing an extra set of hands in their performances she was able to contribute both guitar and keyboards, and perhaps most importantly come into the band as a known entity and as subtle change to the band’s composition. The second recording was inferior to the first, losing much of the original’s power. The new version would be the one used on their Substance compilation years later and thus the version most fans would become familiar with, leaving the original harder to find. My brother bought me a copy of the first version, with its green cover, in Los Angeles in the 1990s; finally scoring me my own 12” copy to replace the cassette recording of my brother’s. The original version of “Ceremony” was made available widely again when released on the Singles compilation in 2005.

New Order also continued recording on Tony Wilson’s Factory label, which as a business was also fearing its future after the loss of Joy Division. From this respect, the pressure on Barney, Hooky, and Stephen to continue and be successful for the sake of the label was an added dynamic, yet to their credit they would – almost laughably so – not take a very financially driven approach to their work.

Morris, Sumner, Hook, & Gilbert in the early days of New Order

Procession \ Non-album single (1981)

The next single was the first with Gillian also in the studio. Barney was into electronics and made his own equipment from kits. He was into experimenting and pushing the new sounds one could achieve with these new tools. “Procession” was an excellent example of how the band was blending the new electronics into their sound. The distinctive guitar and bass were there and Stephen’s kinetic drumming, but here it rode waves of synth that lightened the sound and brought the band more fully into the new wave era.

Dreams Never End; Doubts Even Here; Denial \ Movement (1981)

New Order’s first album still carried the Joy Division cloud over its head. Helmed once again by their Joy Division producer, Martin Hannett, it unmistakably bowed its head towards their previous incarnation’s sounds and tendencies. Despite the direction suggested by “Procession” there was a surprising lack of keyboards, which were relegated mostly to the background. Barney had taken on most of the singing duties, though Hooky took the lead on “Dreams Never End” and “Doubts Even Here,” in which even Gillian provided a bit of background vocal. Much of the album moved through the usual moody arrangements of their Joy Division sound and was a solid album, with “Dreams Never End,” “Doubts Even Here,” and “Denial” standing out as leading examples of the post-punk sound that Joy Division and New Order helped define.

One of New Order’s several distinct personality traits was Barney’s guitar work. Most New Order songs could be defined as ‘pickers’ or ‘strummers’ given he usually stuck with one more than the other in songs. His picking was usually sparsely played in songs to give them character, melody, and distinctive sounds and pacing – often when electronics or Hook’s bass were driving the tune. His strumming was often fast and persistent, giving songs strength and filling them out to expand their size and power. In these three playlist songs from Movement we saw a nice showcase of these combinations. “Dreams Never End” alternated between picking and strumming, “Denial” was a rip-roaring strum-along riding on a frenetic beat, and “Doubts Even Here” had guitar hints, flitting in and around a melancholy bass (as always) and ominous synth lines. Movement showed that while Ian was gone, the core of the band’s musical talent and creativity was intact, and there would continue to be more in which to enjoy.

Everything’s Gone Green \ Non-album single (1981)
Temptation \ Non-album single (1982)
Blue Monday \ Non-album single (1983)

Over the next eighteen months the band would work on their next album while releasing three singles that would reveal the maturation of their song writing, the musical evolution away from Joy Division, and New Order’s emergence as a leading creative force in their own right, slowly loosing the shackles of their preceding band’s reputation.

“Everything’s Gone Green” was a single released in tandem with Movement, a pattern they would repeat of not putting their singles on the albums. Its growling and echoey basslines, shimmering synths, hypnotic beat, and Barney’s strumming energy, gave the song an otherworldly quality that stood out in the musical landscape. Was this dark wave, new wave, or… dance music? The song brilliantly built on what “Procession” had started by melding the darkness of Joy Division with a lively energy that went beyond that band’s borders. The song was simply brilliant.

“Ceremony” and “Procession” had both cracked the top forty in the UK singles chart, as had Movement. New Order was now a going concern in the British music scene, yet despite its incredible sound, “Everything’s Gone Green” failed to chart. Perhaps it was too far ahead of its time?

The next single the following year was, “Temptation.” Marked by a pulsating synth rhythm, strumming, and Barney’s most confident vocal performance to date, it even started to bring vocals into the fore: “Oh you’ve got green eyes…” And though Barney has said the song is about lost love, I can’t help thinking there was melancholy towards Ian in the opening stanza: “Heaven, a gateway, a hope / Just like a feeling inside, it's no joke / And though it hurts me to see you this way / Betrayed by words, I'd never heard, too hard to say / Up, down, turn around / Please don't let me hit the ground / Tonight I think I'll walk alone / I'll find my soul as I go home.” The song was one of those moments when it’s hard not to unfurl a list of superlatives. “Temptation” was (and is) an epic song in which New Order was taking their emerging sound to a more developed, polished, and fuller place, and the results were spectacular. Today, with modern equipment and PA systems, the song is simply massive and explodes in any venue, never failing to get the audience jumping, now most commonly in the closing slot of their shows’ main set. “Temptation” was one of the greatest entries of the post-punk period, showing new wave music could still be tough while still being arty, and with its distinctive ‘oohing’ vocal intro, has grown to be one of the band’s most beloved.

In North America, “Procession,” “Everything’s Gone Green,” and “Temptation,” along with a couple B-sides from those singles, were bundled into an EP, 1981-FEP 313-1982. It featured a painting on it by Martha Ladly, who was Peter Hook’s girlfriend at the time and a former member of the Toronto band, Martha and the Muffins (but wasn’t the titular Martha). She would have further impact on the new wave world by suggesting the song title, “Tesla Girls,” to OMD as well as the LP title, Architecture and Morality. Today she is a professor back in Toronto at the Ontario College of Art and Design. I painted her picture from the New Order EP on the wall in the front hall of my family’s home when I was a teenager, to give you just a clue of how much I adored it (yes, my mother agreed to letting me paint it). At the time I discovered this music it would have been the summer of 1983 and I was listening to Men at Work, Culture Club, and Def Leppard’s Pyromania album as comparisons, so… yeah, these songs were truly something else, and thankfully forever altered my musical tastes.

I’ll never forget the afternoon that summer of ’83 when my brother came home with a new 12” single in hand from New Order. After noting the unique album jacket, we put it on the family stereo, cranked it, and sat there listening. When it ended, he and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows, noting “that was different.” I’m not sure either of us were sure if we liked it, not being dance music enthusiasts. It was almost entirely made of beats? There was no guitar? We flipped it over and listened to the B-side, “The Beach,” which was essentially a variation of the A-side. We weren’t very used to 12” singles at that point and the concept of remixes and multiple versions of songs. This time we frowned at each other, “isn’t that the same song?” It was an inauspicious start for me and New Order’s most iconic song, “Blue Monday,” and I have to admit that even after 35 years of listening to it, I still haven’t warmed up to it. It’s never my favourite moment at their shows, even though it is for most everyone else.

The lore goes that the band, notorious partiers and generally lousy performers, were looking for a way to get off the stage early while not completely pissing off their fans (New Order’s live sets were notoriously short). Barney had been playing around with sequencers and had been demoing an all-electronic song that could be played automatically by the electronics on stage. They could start playing it as the set closer and then leave the stage while the song played out for several minutes while the band started partying it up in the dressing room. They didn’t play encores so that would be it. I think the lore of this is questionable. Examining their setlist history, the song made its debut as an instrumental, indeed as the closing track for a show in Melbourne, Australia in November of 1982, and started appearing regularly in their setlists thereafter (and evermore). However, it wasn’t often in the closing slot as the band rarely followed a consistent setlist in those days, so the idea of it being a ‘departure’ song seems unlikely, or only served that purpose in its inaugural performance.

The iconic, and expensive, Blue Monday cover, designed to emulate a floppy disc. The silver sections are the album’s sleeve, inside the jacket and exposed by die-cut holes.

Credited with restoring disco in nightclubs and making dance music cool again, “Blue Monday” was a definite departure for the band. It also featured the interesting pairing of the band with legendary producer, Quincy Jones. I’m not a fan of New Order’s more electronic sound (per my comments above) so this ranks well down my list of favourites, but it is undeniably one of their most iconic and recognizable songs and DJs are still using the machine gun beats in dance mixes to this day. It was the band’s first top ten single in the UK as well as in several other countries and also made it onto the US Dance chart; and as any casual fan of the band likely knows, was and is the biggest selling 12” single ever in the UK.

On the YouTube playlist I have chosen the band’s Top of the Pops performance for many reasons. First, we’ve heard the recorded version plenty enough, so a live version is a nice change (though it’s not much different except for the vocals and the bass). Second, it showed how poor the band was in performance, especially for a song in which none of them had much to do. Third, New Order was one of the first bands to perform live on Top of the Pops since they refused to lip synch. And fourth, an appearance on that show was an undeniable indication that the band was moving out of the ranks of the obscure and were gaining larger attention, and not only as the band that used to be Joy Division.

The single’s sleeve design was noted above when I first heard the song, and “Blue Monday” is a good spot to focus on Peter Saville, who designed almost all of the record sleeves for all the Factory Record artists and has designed all albums and singles for Joy Division (except for the first EP) and New Order, right up to this day. For New Order especially, given the band’s desire to promote themselves as a whole rather than individuals (all credits for their songs were “performed and written by New Order”) and therefore not put their pictures on any albums, Saville had a blank slate to work with. His, and the band’s, reputation for intriguing and distinctive artwork started with the now famous Unknown Pleasures cover, but gained new notoriety with “Blue Monday” and its sleeve designed to look like a floppy disc. The design was reflective of the emergent technology used in the song and of the growth of computing in general. Due to the design – the circle and lines in the jacket were die-cut holes that revealed the silver sleeve within – the cover was so expensive to make that it supposedly resulted in every copy sold actually losing money, which was especially bad given it was the band’s best selling song to date. I’ve also heard this is a myth, but its charm and perfection in capturing the spirit of the band – art over commerce – has kept it alive and is too good to let go.

Age of Consent; Your Silent Face; Leave Me Alone \ Power, Corruption, and Lies (1983)

The second album, which of course had no singles, also had a great title and once again an enigmatic album cover. The jacket featured the same colour-block code invented by Saville that spelled the catalogue number as seen on “Blue Monday” – this time the decoder was on the back of the album. The release helped solidify New Order’s ascendency to the upper ranks of British music, with a #4 placing in the UK album chart.

CONTEXT: To give a sense of the music environment in which New Order was working, here are the chart toppers in the UK & US around the week Power, Corruption & Lies was released.
US
Maneater – Hall & Oates
Down Under – Men at Work
Billie Jean – Michael Jackson (for 7 wks)
Come on Eileen – Dexys Midnight Runners
Let’s Dance – David Bowie
Flashdance – Irene Cara
UK
True – Spandau Ballet
(Keep Feeling) Fascination – Human League
Beat It – Michael Jackson
Pale Shelter – Tears for Fears
Church of the Poison Mind – Culture Club

“Age of Consent” was another standout track harnessing the full power and beauty of Barney’s melodies and Hooky and Morris’ rhythms. “Your Silent Face” offered their first ballad, held aloft by rich, symphonic synths offset by soft and sardonic lyrics: “The sign that leads the way / The path we can not take / You've caught me at a bad time / So why don't you piss off.” In “Leave Me Alone” Barney offered one of his loveliest guitar performances, layering his picked melodies over each other into a crescendo while Hook underpinned it with undulating basslines. The album also continued their increasing foray into electronics and dance, such as on the full-on dance tracks such as “The Village.” It would appear electronics would be an ever-increasing companion to the murky, mysterious, and gloom-ridden sounds of their early work and the Joy Division legacy. And thanks to their American tours and exposure to the dance clubs of New York, beats and dance grooves were also going to be a mainstay.

Confusion \ Non-album single (1983)
Thieves Like Us \ Non-album single (1984)

Indeed, the next single, partnering with DJ and hip-hop producer Arthur Baker, was a full-on electronic dance-club track. I considered “Confusion” a disappointing song as it lacked their musicianship, melodies, and edge that had endeared me to them. True, New Order were leaders in forging the sounds of new wave electronic music, but for me it was a worrisome sign of where they might be headed that the guitars were taking a back seat. However, the song did well in the clubs and following “Blue Monday,” continued to build their audience in North America being another top five track in the US Dance chart.

Note the album cover continued to use the coloured block code. ‘93’ referred to the catalogue number, FAC93. Factory Records assigned a ‘FAC’ (for singles, posters or other items) or ‘FACT’ (for albums) number to everything they issued, including The Haçienda Nightclub (FAC51), the Haçienda’s resident cat (FAC191), and eventually founder Tony Wilson’s coffin (FAC501).

Any concerns about the direction the band was headed were alleviated by the next single, “Thieves Like Us,” and its sublime balance of the electronics and their traditional rock sound. A little bit new wave, a little bit pop, a little rock and roll, this song was a consummate New Order track and I loved it. It also had the song “1963” on the B-side, which had originally been debated for the A-side and was eventually released as a single in the 1990s.

Also in 1984 the band issued in Belgium an instrumental single, “Murder,” that was only available in the UK as an import. It barely cracked the top 100 in the UK singles chart and added a bit of an unusual side note to the band’s developing sound. It’s a track the band has never performed live.

Love Vigilantes; The Perfect Kiss; Sunrise \ Low-Life (1985)

“Thieves Like Us” tipped off what was to come on their third full-length album, Low-Life, which brought to fruition the band’s growing prowess in combining the duality of their sound. The first side started with the sharp drum opening of a western-tinged, “Love Vigilantes,” with its even-keeled pacing, and finished with the screeching guitar finale of “Sunrise.” Side two started soft with the enchanting electro-instrumental, “Elegia,” before finishing with a duo of electro-rock in, “Sub-culture,” and the electro-dance-rock of “Face Up.”

Stephen, on the cover of Low-Life — Stephen, on the cover of *Low-Life*

Low-Life diverged from their habit not having singles on their albums by releasing no less than two: “The Perfect Kiss” and “Sub-culture,” the latter of which became another nightclub success. Another precedent for them was including, if not their individual names, at least their faces on the LP’s artwork. The album jacket and sleeve included out-of-focus and up-close pics of each band member, with Stephen on the front cover. The look was further enhanced by the album being wrapped in a gauzy grey, plastic sleeve similar to a book jacket.

“The Perfect Kiss” was also accompanied by a video of them performing live in their studio and was directed by Jonathan Demme, who would release the fantastic movie Something Wild the following year which included “Temptation” on the soundtrack. The album version of “The Perfect Kiss” was shorter but the video had them playing the extended mix which featured an incredible two-minute climax that presented New Order at their absolute finest. Barney alternated between picking and strumming, Gillian and Stephen layered a wall of beats and synths, and Hooky laid down his most melodic, thrilling and prolific lead bass of any of their tunes. The song exhausted you by the end as you were brought to bear on the full power of their synth-rock sound, aptly culminating in the sounds of a car crash, as if the song had careened out of control with its power. If “Ceremony” was their best song, “The Perfect Kiss” offered New Order’s greatest musical moment.

If “The Perfect Kiss” was musical perfection, it must be noted that vocally, Barney was its weakest link. So on that note, let’s get it out of the way, Barney is not a great singer. As a friend once noted, it’s astounding a band of such talent and success got by with such a weak vocalist. However, to me this was part of the band’s charm and probably a big reason why I love them so much, Barney’s simply delivered, plaintive, and unassuming voice has allowed the band’s sound to take centre stage. As is noted often in this profile, the band’s full-band, wall-of-sound style was their stock in trade, and if they’d had a vocalist with a more assertive tenor, I’m not sure it would have worked as well.

While the prior three singles (setting aside “Murder” as a non-UK release) had cracked the top twenty in the UK, shockingly the two singles from Low-Life failed to sustain that momentum with neither reaching the top forty. The album was their second consecutive top ten, peaking three spots lower than Power, Corruption & Lies at #7. There was still little success in America, with the album being their first to chart through barely reaching the top 100. In Canada, the album fared better, achieving gold status.

I saw New Order for the first time touring this album at the International Centre out by the Toronto airport and with label mates, A Certain Ratio, as the opening act. It was a small crowd in a big, empty room. They played for one hour and then walked off the stage, only returning for a one song encore, which was “The Perfect Kiss.” It was evidence of how little a mark the band had made so far across the ocean despite their success in the UK.

Shellshock \ Pretty In Pink Soundtrack (1986)
State of the Nation \ Non-album single (1986)

All that was about to change over the course of the next year and half, starting with the single, “Shellshock,” their contribution to the soundtrack for the John Hughes teen flick, Pretty in Pink. The song’s title was how I felt listening to it, as the band resorted back to the melody-free and disjointed electronic style that had made “Confusion” so irritating. Once again flitting keyboards, soulless electronic beats and an annoying contrivance of sound effects made the song practically unlistenable. But again like “Blue Monday” and “Confusion,” the song built their audience through dance clubs, making New Order seem to North American audiences mostly like an electronic club band – which I suppose they were if it weren’t for the fact that ninety per cent of the rest of their music wasn’t that style. The single returned the band to the top forty in the UK.

Returning to their old ways, the next single was “State of the Nation,” a non-album release issued in the same month as the next LP (it was later included on the CD release of the album). Restoring the balance of edgy guitars and grinding bass with the dance beats (and weak vocals), it was another epic sounding song in their now genre-defining style. The single reached #30 in the UK singles chart, making it their eighth single out of twelve to reach that threshold.

Weirdo; Bizarre Love Triangle; All Day Long \ Brotherhood (1986)

Their fourth album deconstructed their dual sound into its separate parts. Brotherhood featured a side one of guitar and bass heavy tracks while side two was more purely synth-driven. “Weirdo” was a great, deep track example of one of their rockers, with the wall-of-sound and evenly paced markers of their brand, and of course a lead bassline from Hooky. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about New Order was the use of bass out front, of which so few bands can do effectively. “All Day Long” was another deep track example but of the second side synth sound, throwing off symphonic and grandiose melodies. It was a beautiful song that, like so many of their songs, lifted you with a big crescendo after having embraced you with sublime moments and flowing, melancholic basslines.

However, it was the single from the album (second album in a row to feature a single) that grabbed all the attention. From the electronic second side, “Bizarre Love Triangle” become one of their best known songs. Another huge club hit, like “The Perfect Kiss” the album version was shorter while the extended version (YouTube playlist) aired out the huge melody and built up a powerful dance-synth crescendo. This was unabashedly pop in a way the band hadn’t ventured before, embracing the melodies and leaning into them. Like their other electro-songs, it was ridiculously boring when performed live – the band might as well step out for a smoke – but in a club or your car it’s undeniable and simply jumps. Check out Billboard’s piece on why it’s “one of the greatest songs of all time.” It’s surprising then, to note the song failed to reach the top forty in the UK. It was, however, the first for New Order to crack the top 100 in the US singles chart. It did give them another top ten in the US Dance chart, their fourth to do so. Brotherhood fared better, giving them their third top ten LP in the UK.

I saw New Order for the second time, this time at Toronto’s Massey Hall, where they played two shows. It was a better performance than what I’d seen the year before and featured a great set list. The larger and more prestigious venue, not to mention two nights, were also indicative of the band’s growing stature in North America. New Order was, by a significant margin, my favourite band at that point. Low-Life and Brotherhood were the soundtracks to my teen years.

True Faith \ Non-album single (1987)

The stage had been set for the band’s breakthrough, growing their popularity out of the alternative stations and dance clubs to catch the ear of a wider audience. Increased popularity came thanks to their next single, “True Faith.” Continuing to refine their rock-dance sound, the song was a verifiable hit, reaching a new personal best with a #4 spot in the UK and giving them their first top forty single in the US. It featured a surrealistic video directed by Philippe Decouflé, (who would choreograph the opening ceremonies for the Albertville Olympics in 1992) that helped make New Order an MTV staple.

They played their first stadium as a headliner during their tour that year in Toronto, at no less than the 20,000 seat CNE Grandstand along with Gene Loves Jezebel and Echo & The Bunnymen as openers. The Toronto show was their biggest non-festival audience yet. Looking back, I’m sick that I skipped this show (my brother went), but by 1987 I had was a moody and broke seventeen year-old and felt seeing New Order in a stadium, especially after the two smaller shows I’d seen in the years prior, was simply uncool. I remember a day when we held onto our favourite bands like favoured pets, especially for us fans of alternative music, and seeing your faves break out to broader success was disorienting. It was easy to declare the acts as ‘sell outs,’ and look less favourably on their music. I liked “True Faith,” but like the other dance songs of theirs, it didn’t excite me a lot. So at the time it didn’t fuss me much to skip them, a decision I eternally regret.

The move to stadiums was driven by the release of the band’s first compilation album, of which “True Faith” was the featured single and sole new offering. Substance was issued to provide Tony Wilson with a CD of New Order’s singles to listen to in his car. CDs were still very new and only the albums of his most prominent band had been released in that format, but not yet the singles. Dismissively assuming no one would buy the album, thinking that fans already had all their music and wouldn’t want to re-purchase it, the band agreed to take a smaller royalty so Factory Records could gain some extra cash flow. Of course, buoyed by their emerging success and the breakthrough of “True Faith,” it became the band’s biggest selling album, once again depriving the band their share of their earnings.

For certain, the band, Factory Records, and their manager Rob Gretton had prolifically poor financial management. New Order worked as a single entity, crediting all their work to the band and not the individuals. All revenue was pooled back into the band or into Factory Records and the foursome were paid only small salaries which were usually barely enough on which to live. So, as the band grew in popularity and sales the band members were still living hand-to-mouth. They persistently poured most of their money into the purchasing of the newest electronics – they were one of the first to have their own Fairlight synthesizer, which at the time cost thousands of British pounds. Also, Factory Records had few successful acts, so New Order carried the label on its shoulders, funding the recording of many other bands. Perhaps all this sounds reasonable and democratic, and would have been a more rewarding situation if they’d been wiser with the decisions they made with their pooled funds. Most notoriously, the band and the label invested much of their money into the prolific Manchester nightclub, The Haçienda, which was a perennial money-pit. It’s losses stemmed from a multitude of reasons, nicely recounted by Peter Hook in his book, The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club. The club was one of the most notorious, famous, and storied night clubs in Europe through the ‘80s and ‘90s, but also served to deprive New Order and Factory Records of much of the rewards of New Order’s success.

Touched by the Hand of God \ Salvation! Soundtrack (1987)

The band contributed several instrumentals and a couple of new songs to a low budget, indie movie called Salvation! “Let’s Go” and “Touched by the Hand of God” were the songs of note and became regular inclusions in their live sets, with “Let’s Go” having been played from as far back as 1985. “Touched…” featured a video directed by Kathryn Bigelow (soon to be married to Canadian director James Cameron and a long way from her successes, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty). The video comically had the band parodying a heavy metal band. The song was a weak entry for them musically. It seemingly had all the elements of their synth-rock sound but lacked a compelling melody or any distinctive playing. Barney’s vocal performance was especially weak, even for him. It was the sort of throwaway song you’d give to a low-budget indie film. The video got a lot of play on the video channels though and gave them another top forty UK hit and their first #1 spot in the US Dance chart, though that may have been helped by being paired with their remixed update, “Blue Monday 1988,” as a double A-side single in the US.

At this point the band had been together ten years, survived the death of their original leader, forged a new and distinctive sound, was carrying a record label and nightclub on their back, and had completed several, increasingly larger venue world tours over the prior three years. Things were starting to strain, especially between longtime friends Hook and Sumner. Disagreements over the band’s management and musical direction (Hook was concerned they were losing the balance with their rock side, while Barney wanted to go deeper into dance and electronics) were exacerbated by their personalities, which increasingly were less willing to abide by one another. Outside of the studio and tours, the band spent no time together, despite having their own nightclub in which to hang out. Of course, booze and drugs were playing their part too. Morris and Gilbert, who were still a couple and would get married in 1994, kept out of the squabbles and focused on producing music for others. It was a good time to take a year off for the first time in their career.

Fine Time; Love Less; Round & Round; Run \ Technique (1989)

The band regrouped after their break on the island of Ibiza, Spain in 1988, hoping the change in scenery would reinvigorate them. Factory, always in need of money, had released “Blue Monday ’88,” a remixed version of the original which maintained the band’s presence in the world’s dance clubs. It gave them a new charting high point with a #3 spot in the UK and the aforementioned #1 peak in the US Dance chart. If the band needed a place to pull themselves together, Ibiza probably wasn’t the right place to do it given it was a haven for drugs (ecstasy was taking flight) and featured a prominent nightclub scene. It was a struggle to get the band into the studio at all, much less together, and disagreements continued over the direction of their sound. Not much was achieved during a time to which Tony Wilson referred to it as their most expensive holiday ever.

Yet amazingly, once back in England the four put together a fantastic new album – their first in three years. It was influenced by the Balearic dance beats of which Ibiza was known and that would play big in European nightclubs throughout the ‘90s. The band was tapping into the acid house sounds that had dominated The Haçienda over the past couple years. “Fine Time” was the prime example of this sound, the only track completed while in Ibiza. Like the Brotherhood album, Technique was a mix of electronic and rock songs, but altogether smoother and more polished and with a greater disco vibe – likely the cause of Hook’s increasing anxiety. But as usual when their two sides came together, the result was larger than the sum of its parts. “Round & Round” and “Vanishing Point” were prime examples. The band could also still put together lovely, low-key acoustic pop songs such as “Love Less” and “Run.” The album was an impressive effort on its own, even without taking into account the increasingly bitter environment of its recording. While it was their first album to reach number one on the UK charts (and hit a respectable #32 in the US), it was to be a last hurrah in more ways than one.

World in Motion \ Non-album single (1990)

New Order was asked to provide a theme song for England’s team in that year’s World Cup. Building off a TV theme song that Stephen and Gillian had written for the show Best & Marsh (a football show featuring two players, the track had also been issued as the B-side to the “Round & Round” single), the band put together what would become their first #1 single. The English Football Association wasn’t thrilled with the song nor the original title suggestion, “E for England,” because it sounded like advocacy for ecstasy, and ended up using another song. It didn’t stop fans from adopting the New Order song, which also included participation from the England football team and comedian Keith Allen (father of Lily Allen).

Although I doubt the band intended it this way, the lyrics somewhat aptly described their ethos at the time. They were singing about football/soccer but the lyrics could easily have been about them as individuals and the band: “Express yourself / It's one on one / Express yourself / You can't be wrong / When something’s good / It's never gone.” What about football involved expressing oneself? And in a team sport, why emphasize the smaller, ‘one on one’ battles between players? Further, the lyrics appeared to take stock of the band at a time when they were in the most successful yet precarious spot in their career: “Now is the time / Let everyone see / You never give up / that's how it should be / Don't get caught / Make your own play / Express yourself / Don't give it away.” New Order, always expressing themselves, making their own play, never giving up, yet…

“World in Motion” would be a brief bright spot for the band during this time. The band had concluded a successful tour promoting Technique just prior to the single’s release, playing amphitheatres all over America and once again including a show at Toronto’s CNE Grandstand, aided by another duo of strong opening acts, Public Image Ltd and The Sugarcubes. Unfortunately I once again missed the show, this time being away at college. Concluding the tour at the Reading Festival in August 1989, other than recording the “World in Motion” single, the band would embark on their longest break yet.

Why do they always seem to pose this way? Gillian, Peter, Stephen, & Barney

This time the interlude resulted in the band members taking on side projects. Sumner, free to be able to explore his electronic and dance sounds, joined with Johnny Marr from The Smiths to form, not surprisingly, a band called Electronic. They issued an excellent first single, “Getting Away with It” in 1989 that also included Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys, then followed that up with a solid album in 1990 that also featured a standout single, “Get the Message.” There was a second song on the album that included both Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys, “The Patience of a Saint.”

Peter Hook formed the band Revenge, issuing their only album also in 1990. The album had some solid songs that unsurprisingly sounded like the rock-tinged songs of New Order, though lacked Sumner’s penchant for melody. Gillian and Stephen also put out a song, ‘Tasty Fish,’ in 1991 under the cheeky name “The Other Two,” while continuing to do work with others.

With New Order not producing new music, Factory Records was carried by its latest sensation, The Happy Mondays, who were doing well as part of the Madchester scene. Their success propagated greater profligacy from Tony Wilson in the manner of new offices featuring a suspended boardroom table that cost over £35,000 (and which was promptly broken during a party). In recording their follow-up album after 1990’s successful Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, The Happy Mondays, like New Order, also chose a tropical setting (Barbados as opposed to Ibiza, though the Mondays had visited New Order in Ibiza too where they supposedly gained their taste for ecstasy), where they managed to spend a huge sum of money but, unlike New Order, came back with music nowhere close to the quality of their prior efforts. With The Haçienda still bleeding cash, Factory Records was in a desperate state and settled on a deal to sell its catalogue and artists to London Records, a subsidiary of Polygram Records. Ironically, or maybe not so much given its sketchy business sense, Factory couldn’t benefit since the music was owned by the artists not the label. It was an admirable symbol of how independent and musically focused the label had been but was their downfall when the bands decided to seek safer pastures. It was the end of a storied, influential, and prolific indie label.

And after fifteen years as an Indie band, New Order would be on a major label, should the band decide to come back together.

Regret; Everyone Everywhere \ Republic (1993)

Indeed, it was a bit surprising when the band did come together again in 1992 to record a new album. Republic came across more like a Barney solo album or another Electronic release. It was their weakest effort after an unblemished run of five albums (seven if you include Joy Division). Hook’s bass was almost absent on many songs. This was during the heyday of grunge and lovely, but light, songs such as “Everyone Everywhere” simply paled in comparison to acts like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, or My Bloody Valentine. While I still loved New Order my fervour for them was admittedly at its lowest. The band came to Toronto and played the Kingswood Amphitheatre at the Canada’s Wonderland theme park. I was so turned off by the album that I skipped them again, dismissing New Order as a poor version of their former selves. Looking back, it baffles me how I missed three consecutive tours, especially since the band wouldn’t come to Toronto for another nineteen years. “Regret,” indeed.

From this album they did give us that song, with “Regret” being the tightest and most complete pop song of their career. Opening with one of the nicest guitar strums of his career, Barney set the tone for a great tune that perfectly gathered the New Order ensemble sound. The first video humourously drew from a performance the band did on a Los Angeles beach as part of an MTV show and featured cast members from the TV show, Baywatch, and bikini-clad girls as part of a cross-promo. It was a far cry from the dark and moody band that was once Joy Division, and none of them looked very comfortable in the scene. Another video was later done to replace it.

Despite the decline in the band’s sound, Republic was the band’s most successful album, giving them their second consecutive #1 UK album and a top twenty placing in the US albums shart. “Regret” reached the top 10 in the UK, their fifth to do so, and the top forty in the US, being only their second to reach that high along with “True Faith.” Despite their success the whole recording and touring experience for this album did nothing to convince the band they should carry on. They only did a short tour – just fourteen shows and mostly in North America – finishing once again at the Reading Festival, their last show for the next five years. At the time, it’s unlikely many would bet it would come that soon.

Barney went back to Electronic and released another album in 1996. After marrying, Gillian and Stephen put out an album, The Other Two & You, in 1994, before Gillian retired to focus on raising their two children. Hooky put together the band Monaco, having some success with albums released in 1997 and 2000 and with the single “What Do You Want from Me?,” which to an amazing degree sounded like a New Order song.

Brutal \ The Beach Soundtrack (2000) (unavailable on Spotify)

Poor Rob Gretton, the band’s manager since the beginning, was lost without his band. He was also in poor health and fighting, unsuccessfully, to keep The Haçienda alive. He did manage to convince Barney, Peter, and Stephen to meet in 1998, and after a meeting they agreed to re-enter the studio and also did four shows over the summer. One of the first efforts was the song, “Brutal,” included in the soundtrack for the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach. It was a pure New Order song, though very safe, remaining in the well-trodden path of their signature sound. It was a welcome sound to the band’s fans, who had suffered through the longest gap in the band’s history, but it was nothing that would set the world on fire. It was a tentative and decent first step back into being New Order again.

Crystal; Turn My Way \ Get Ready (2001)

The band proceeded to record their first album in eight years. I have to say I was not prepared for what was coming. The keyboard and soul vocal opening built to a crashing beat and a signature strum from Barney, launching into a guitar driven, bass rumbling rocker called ‘Crystal.’ Wow! It was the best song they’d released in fifteen years! I recall being at my (future) wife’s condo and just cranking the album over and over. Being early in our relationship, I’m not sure she fully understood my history with New Order (she would in time), but appreciated my passion for their music, now fully restored after its long absence and maturity on my part.

Perhaps influenced by the Britpop of the ‘90s and Manchester sounds like Oasis, as well as the rock resurgence of the early 2000s, the album featured more guitar than anything New Order had done since Low-Life. Now as the respected, influential old guard of Manchester and England’s music scene, guests came to New Order to burnish their image, such as Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, who contributed to “Turn My Way.”

After having missed the last three times New Order had come to Toronto and not realizing they were almost literally, last chances, I was so very keen to see them live again. I was steeped in remorse for having forsaken them during their dance-pop late ‘80s and early ‘90s period – oh the fickleness of youth. For this playlist I have selected their appearance on the Jools Holland show to show how their live act had much improved from their efforts in the ‘80s. Barney would actually face the audience for most of the show and even acknowledge the crowd at concerts, and their setlists had grown from their stingy ten to fourteen songs to a healthier sixteen or seventeen. They headlined festivals across Europe, Australia, Japan, and England, but only gave North Americans a few shows on the west coast, including the Coachella festival. They did play in Canada in Vancouver, but didn’t come close to Toronto’s way. I started to fantasize about promoting a festival in Toronto just to get them here – hey, I figured, where there’s a will there’s a way!

Of note during this reformed period of the band was its new line-up, in which Phil Cunningham, a local Manchester guitarist, had joined to replace Gillian. She had stopped touring with the band but participated in the recording of the album. When they went on tour to promote the LP, Phil came on board full time. It was New Order’s first line-up change since Gillian joined in 1980. They also started to play Joy Division material more regularly. They had occasionally played “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “Atmosphere,” “She’s Lost Control,” or “Decades” during the ‘80s – though there had only been 31 setlist appearances of those songs across almost 400 shows in the twenty years of New Order’s history. In their 39 shows from 1998 through 2002, there would be 128 setlist appearances of Joy Division material, with the above list of songs being joined by “Isolation,” “Heart and Soul,” “Transmission,” and “Digital.” It was a wonderful revival for that part of the band’s history, so long neglected, and fans happily celebrated its return.

Waiting for the Siren’s Call; Krafty; Turn \ Waiting for the Siren’s Call (2005)

New Order held together to put another album on the books four years later, their first with Cunningham in the studio. This was the work of a mature act in full control and comfort with themselves. While they were not settled in the studio, with the old rifts opening up again resulting in them often coming and going at different times during recording and writing, all members knew their part and seemed to effortlessly produce slickly written, well-produced, impeccably played songs that could only come from this group of musicians. Waiting for the Siren’s Call wasn’t the surprise that Get Ready had been, but for us fans it was nice to be getting new music once again.

Those that grew up on their ground-breaking, punk origins and dark moods may have decried this middle-aged version of the band, but the quality of the music could not be denied. Yes, it was safe, it was familiar, there were no boundaries being pushed, but it was a lovely listen start to finish. My wife and I did a week-long drive through New England in September that year and listened to this album repeatedly.

“Krafty” was the lead single – the title was a tribute to Kraftwerk, a huge influence on the band right from the Joy Division days – travelled the familiar dance environs of Barney’s later work, while the title track was a consummate New Order dance-rock song. “Jetstream” and “Guilt is a Useless Emotion” joined those two to result in four(!) singles released from the album. “Guilt…” was nominated (but did not win) for a Grammy for Best Dance Recording. It’s the only time the band has been nominated.

However, rather than those last two I include in the playlist, “Turn,” because true to my tastes it was more in the form of their traditional guitar-and-bass songs with less electronics and was simply a phenomenal album track. Barney sang with confidence and the song exploded with a great chorus, smoothly riding the full New Order wall-of-sound to the lyrics: “Turn your eyes from me / It's time for me to go / Across the hills and over the sea / I want you more than you know.”

Whether that lyric was intended to be prescient or not, it was; because Waiting for the Sirens’ Call would be it for the original New Order. The band toured over 2005-‘06 (with only four shows in North America, all in the US), but in 2007 Hook decided he’d had enough with Barney and the band and announced in an interview, much to the surprise of the rest, that New Order had broken up. Despite their two prior breaks, it was the first time any member had definitively uttered those words. Sumner denied it and the band sat in limbo until 2009, when Barney admitted he had no interest in doing anything else as New Order.

Hook went on to build a notable DJ career before eventually forming a band, The Light, with his former Monaco bandmate, David Potts, and his son, Jack Bates (who would then go on to join a re-formed Smashing Pumpkins). They tour and perform full album shows of both Joy Division and New Order material. Hook, easily the band member that enjoyed playing and touring the most, has decided he’s not going to regret not getting to play all the great songs he had a part in creating. His band is great, the shows are fantastic, and having seen five of them now, it’s been amazing to hear many early songs that most fans never got to hear live. Hook has said it’s his intention to tour every album and play live literally every song they’ve ever done, and I can’t wait to hear it all.

Sumner briefly formed the band Bad Lieutenant (named after the Harvey Keitel movie) that included Cunningham and Morris and a few other Manchester artists. They produced an album in 2009 featuring the mildly successful single, “Sink or Swim.” My wife and I travelled to Chicago in April 2010, figuring this was as close as I would get to ever seeing New Order again, given there were three current and two original members in the line-up and they would be playing some New Order songs. A volcano eruption in Iceland grounded trans-Atlantic flights and the group was stuck in the UK, cancelling all their North American dates, so instead we had a lovely weekend in the windy city and my hopes of ever seeing New Order again were dashed, for the time being…

Hellbent \ Lost Sirens (2013)

Despite the break-up this was not the last we’d hear of the band with Hook included. The band surprisingly reformed in late 2011 to perform live dates. Gillian returned to the live line-up for the first time in twenty years, with Cunningham staying on as a second guitarist and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman joining to replace Hook. They played a few shows that year and then a full world tour in 2012, headlining many festivals and basking in the glow of their veteran status.

In 2013 they put out a short album of previously unreleased material from Waiting for the Sirens’ Call titled, Lost Sirens. It included this great rocker, ‘Hellbent,’ which had been released in 2011 as part of a compilation, Total: From Joy Division to New Order. Given the time period of the recordings, all the songs featured Hook playing bass and didn’t include Gillian. Despite being discarded tunes, they were a solid batch, including gems like, “I’ll Stay with You,” “Sugarcane,” and “Californian Grass.”

Peter Hook was not happy. Recall that once upon a time they had a pact to not keep the band name if any of them left, and thus the origin of New Order. As an original member – hell, as a founding member, Hook felt it was a travesty that the band should be performing under the New Order name. Also recall the band operated as a business, with credits going to the band and members getting paid out of the revenue pool. Now out of the band, Hook was finding it difficult to get what he felt was his fair cut of the royalties that New Order continued to enjoy (though undoubtedly less so in the new age of streaming). The band was also unhappy that Hook was touring and playing Joy Division and New Order songs and drawing away from their cachet. There ensued a war of words in the media, books with harsh words, lawsuits, and an escalation to one of the more publicly acrimonious relationships in music. Gillian and Stephen have remained fairly silent on the topic, with Barney and Hooky carryong on the exchange. There would now seem to be a snowball’s chance in hell of those two ever performing together again… but they’ve reformed three times before, so who knows?

Outside of all this, I had my happy moment when this new incarnation of New Order came to Toronto for two shows in October 2012. Damned certain I went to both! It was a little sad to not see Hook on stage but great to hear the band again, now cranking out a huge show with impeccable playing and great lighting and visuals.

In 2013, I saw Peter Hook and The Light for the first time, performing New Order’s first two LPs. It was an incredible show and after I met Hooky, getting his signature on my copy of his book, Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. I also have Barney’s signature on a cover of Electronic’s first album that my brother obtained for me in LA, so I didn’t get to meet him. But hey, I have the two signatures regardless!

Restless; Plastic; Tutti Frutti \ Music Complete (2015)

It took until July 2015 for the reconstituted New Order to release new music, with the digital issuance of the single, “Restless.” The album followed a few months later. Purists might say this wasn’t a true New Order album since, for the first time in 27 years, it didn’t have Hooky (unfairly, I didn’t hear anyone saying that when Gillian didn’t play on the prior LP). It seemed that fans had divided into Team Barney or Team Hooky. Yet with three of the four original members, one who’d been in the band for seventeen years and another for four, and the name New Order on the cover, what should it be called? Listen to it! It was a New Order album! I don’t know if it was purposeful, but Tom Chapman did catch a Hooky vibe through much of his playing, but not to the extent that it had the signature, melancholy New Order feel.

What was clear on this album was that Barney was a great writer of dance music. In a hip-hop age when melody seemed to be an intrusion, it was nice to still hear dance beats with great melodic grooves. The album didn’t have a weak track. “Restless” was in the mold of a classic New Order strummer, “Plastic” paid tribute to the Georgio Morodor/Diana Ross vibe of “I Feel Love,” and “Tutti Frutti” (with help from Brit singer Elly Jackson, a.k.a. La Roux) was a funky, New Order dance tune. She also elevated “People on the High Line,” another excellent dance song. Other guests on the album included the legendary Iggy Pop and Brandon Flowers from The Killers, both of whom would perform with the band live over the coming years.

In 2017 there followed a live album, NOMC15, taken from their 2015 shows in Brixton, London, and then a set of shows at the Manchester International Festival with a stage and show designed by conceptual artist, Liam Gillick, and accompanied by a synth orchestra (a dozen players on the keyboards in total – see the 2018 Showtime documentary, New Order: Decades, on how it came together). Certainly not content to sit back and ride their laurels into old age, Sumner and the crew continue to tour regularly. It has given me the chance to see the band no less than six more times, twice in 2018 in Cleveland and Toronto and then for all four shows of a residency in Miami Beach in January 2020 – bringing my total to ten New Order shows – needless to say, my fears of never getting to see them again are long gone.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart”

Let’s finish with the song that, most often, New Order now closes their shows accompanied with a video montage of Joy Division and Ian Curtis images and graphics. It brings the band full circle and touches on where the band is in current times, embracing their past while still forging new paths to the future.

Keeping a band together for thirty years is remarkable – so few do it. Add to that the suicide of an integral band member and what’s now understood as a remarkably caustic relationship between the two most visible players, and New Order’s story becomes more noteworthy. But all that means less next to the music and the impact they’ve had on modern rock and dance music.

At first, they were a unique sounding punk band, then an innovative progenitor of the post-punk and dark wave sound, then a leading new wave act, then the rejuvenators of club disco, and finally the genre-defining players of a modern, dance-rock sound that has influenced much of modern rock in the 21st century. While doing all that they held aloft a renowned record label that launched an entire generation of British indie rockers and a world-famous nightclub in which many legendary DJs and bands launched their careers. New order not only forged a musical path, they revived their city of Manchester into a destination city that is modernizing and is a leading source of music for the entire world.

New Order today: Phil Cunningham, Gillian Gilbert, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Tom Chapman

Today, it doesn’t take long before you hear a song that utilizes Barney’s sparse picking guitar, or a driving, picked bassline with a melancholic lilt like Hook, or a pulsating, furious drum and high-hat rhythm like Morris, or a synth flourish that escalates a song to a new level like Gillian. I routinely comment to my wife, “hear the New Order in this song?” when listening to commercials, songs in TV shows or movies, or in new songs coming out every year. New Order’s songs are covered regularly by major and minor artists alike, they are cited by legions of acts as a huge influence, and their music repurposed in samples and mashups galore. The process of picking songs for this playlist on YouTube was a startling discovery of covers and tributes to Joy Division and New Order by an equally startling array of acts.

As you listen to this playlist, the transition from Joy Division to New Order was minor at first, but as they defined their sound in the mid- to late-eighties the band settled into perfecting their brand and exploring their claimed terrain rather than striking out in new directions. Some lament the move from rockers to dance, and some perhaps don’t even know the band used to play without any keyboards and only know New Order as modern dance pioneers, but to me the sweet spot has always been in the middle – especially when both sides of the band, rock and beats, are in the same song. I grew up listening to punk, rock, new wave, dance, and synth pop, and in New Order I found the one band that did it all.

Clearly, New Order is very special to me. First, there is my brother, who passed away in 2005. Aaron was ten years older than me and was my musical mentor. New Order was, if not his favourite band, certainly among a select few of his very favourites. He introduced me to this band, I saw them for the first time with him, and I listened to them in my early teens via his albums. New Order was one of the many ways in which he and I bonded, and I can’t ever listen to them without evoking his memory.

Second, when I reference New Order as providing the soundtrack to my youth, this is quite literal. While I listened to a lot of music growing up none resonated with me as strongly and consistently as New Order. I have no end of memories associated with their music, whether it was travelling to school on city transit with their music in my Walkman, or playing their albums while studying, or even playing them in Aaron’s bedroom when I was very young and he was home from university for the summer. I would crank their songs on his stereo and pretend to perform a concert, using a wooden yard stick as a guitar and a lamp as a mic, imagining what it must feel like to play such music and to be so creative.

Third, New Order was part of my identity growing up. When I was finding my way in the world I was less interested in what was popular and sought the new and different. Trying to find my place in an all-boys Catholic school in which we all wore the same uniform, my musical tastes (proudly emblazoned on my World Famous burlap knapsack) allowed me to stake my own territory, a way in which I could be different than my peers. This was important to me because I am an individualist. My style is minimalist. I revere the art more than the artist. I have passion, but respect when emotion is harnessed and crafted into brilliant expression and performance. What I liked about New Order wasn’t just the distinct music, it was the lack of artifice. It was the sparse music with ambience and space, the lack of names on the album sleeve and band pictures on the jacket, and then it was the overwhelming, full-band sound in which no instrument, no individual, was set apart but rather all did their unique thing to create a greater whole. It was an exceptional and inspirational approach to art and life, where the individual and the group could both exist contemporaneously, with neither succumbing to the other. In the end, New Order was undone by an inability to get along in the day-to-day struggle of personality clashes, and in a band of such legend, perhaps nothing is more normal and unremarkable than that. But I look past that, because I love the art more than the artist. And maybe it was those personalities – fierce individuals facing many challenges, loss, and pain – that raised them out of the bleak streets of Manchester and made them the most brilliant band of the modern rock era. My favourite band.

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