New Order

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

New Order, that is, the survivors of Joy Division plus the keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, took off in March 1981 with an excellent posthumous Ian Curtis release, Ceremony, quickly converting to the new musical trend in the United Kingdom: synthpop. The scandalous milestone was Everything's Gone Green (September 1981), which showcased a strong electronic pulse and the production typical of disco music. Gilbert and Sumner had switched to synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines.

By reducing the emphasis on lyrics and increasing that on danceable rhythm and electronic arrangement, New Order were able to easily sell in discos the anguish that had killed Curtis. Their insight proved crucial in revitalizing dance music, suffocated until then by the banalities of Duran Duran.

The first album, Movement (Factory, 1981), merely reaffirmed this concept through a series of brilliant harmonic solutions: the bouncing boogie of Dreams Never End, sung with a zombie-like air; the electric tribalism à la Suicide of Truth, derailed by a neurotic guitar strum; the lugubrious country & western of Chosen Time, worthy of Stan Ridgway. The whirl of rhythmic and electronic inventions culminates in the schizophrenic dances of Senses and Denial. At the very least, this is auteur disco music, meticulously composed and produced according to an anguished vision of the world. Far from being a masterpiece, the album demonstrated that there was still room to experiment with the form of the old punk-disco of the Cars and Blondie.

The emphasis on melody increased with Temptation (April 1982) and especially Blue Monday (March 1983), over seven minutes of layered synthesizers that propelled a driving ballad marked, beneath its electronic opulence, by a Duane Eddy-style guitar twang. The repetition of a simple pattern and the almost conversational singing gave the dance an existential quality, the last link to Joy Division. This was also the first dance track composed and performed almost entirely by machines, as the effect was achieved by having electronic instruments repeat the rhythm and melody, with practically no human intervention. With this track, New Order completed a trajectory that had taken them from the ambition of becoming the Doors of punk-disco to the reality of fashionable synth-pop.

The subsequent Confusion (August 1983) and Thieves Like Us (April 1984) speculated on that insight, equally meticulously crafted in the studio although far more tedious.

The new sound drew more from Giorgio Moroder than from the esoteric and psychedelic overtones of Joy Division. This was already evident in their second album, Power, Corruption & Lies (Factory, 1983). The depressed atmospheres of the first album were entirely erased, leaving only the cold craft of pop artisans. On one hand, Your Silent Face, an airy anthem of alienation with organ-like synths and guitar twang, and on the other, Age Of Consent, expansive and chiming, define the two modes of their personal dark dance. Altogether, there are futile yet harmonious dances like 5.8.6. and Ultraviolence, and frivolous fanfares like The Village and Ecstasy, the novelties of synthpop, composing an impeccable product of high-tech dance music. The arrangements are a masterpiece of artificial sound—synthesized string sections, scattered guitar chords, frozen rhythms, concise and measured effects, and subtly affected backing vocals. Spacious and emotive, this is the baroque of disco music.
Particularly influential was the single that would be reissued in its original 22-minute version only many years later, on Video 5.8.6. (Touch, 1998).

Later albums further emphasized the catchy refrains, but the defining element remained the dense and flamboyant mix. Songs were always conceived as complex sonic events accompanied by catchy motifs. Shellshock (March 1986), True Faith (July 1987), and Touched By The Hand Of God (December) leaned toward increasingly carefree disco music. Now settled around six minutes in length, with ambitious instrumental bridges and melodies borrowed from the sweeter strains of soul, these tracks relate to music as sculpture does to an assembly line.

Low Life (Qwest, 1985) continues this trajectory, further refining their tools—synthesizers and sequencers. The album opens with a polyrhythmic mutation of the folk ballad, Love Vigilantes, hitting upon a memorable tune like Perfect Kiss, sinks into the desolate romantic melancholy of This Time Of Night, then soars into the epic gallop of Sunrise, indulges in a Mike Oldfield–style instrumental Elegy, recycles their infallible disco cadences in Sub-culture, and closes with another folk-like electronic nursery rhyme, Face-Up. With an arrangement approach that borders on symphonic, New Order demonstrates that dance music can also convey deep emotions.

Brotherhood (Qwest, 1986), a less “synthetic” album that partially reinstates acoustic drums and guitar, boasts tracks like Weirdo, State Of The Nation, and especially Bizarre Love Triangle. This track is their arranging masterpiece: the airy melody, sung in a Bryan Ferry–style croon, sits atop a frenetically syncopated rhythm, while the electronics seem to almost “boil” under the pressure of the machines.

After having defined their standard for electronic dance music with that trilogy, New Order speculated on that style with the club-oriented synthpop of Technique (Qwest, 1989), further polishing one of the most brilliant trademarks since the days of Pink Floyd. The best outputs from their studio lab—Dream Attack, Fine Time, Round And Round, and Run—essentially recreated their smooth, romantic, and elegant style in the era of techno. Vanishing Point is nothing more than their old funky-soul, albeit cleverly disguised. However, it is the single World In Motion that boasts the catchiest chorus of the period.

Bernard Sumner, singer and guitarist, formed Electronic with Johnny Marr (of The Smiths). Bassist Peter Hook, for his part, created Revenge in 1990, staying on One True Passion (Capitol, 1990) more faithful to the New Order sound. Keyboardist Gillian Gilbert and drummer Stephen Morris released The Other Two & You (Qwest, 1993) and Super Highways (1999), both credited to the Other Two.

With Republic (London, 1993), New Order reunited. Regret (the hit), World, Ruined In A Day, and the other pale ditties flow under a luxurious chic born at the intersection of the pathetic sentimentalism of Every Breath You Take (The Police) and the fatalistic spleen of West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys). In short, it is the “chromosomes” of Electronic that take over. However, it is difficult to distinguish one song from another, and none stands out particularly. For good measure, New Order nod to techno with the accentuated rhythm of Chemical and to hip-hop with the syncopated backing of Times Change. In the end, the most original track on the album (or at least the most romantic) is the closing instrumental, Avalanche.

If the band’s program remains vain and self-indulgent, one must nevertheless acknowledge the class of these veterans of atmospheric dance music. Perhaps they never wrote a song truly worthy of being remembered, but no one embodied the British melodic dance era of the ’80s better than them.

Substance (Qwest, 1987) is an excellent anthology, but it also ruthlessly highlights how few of their songs withstand the test of time. After all, despite their charisma as the “intellectuals” of the movement, New Order had only two catchy synth-pop hits, Blue Monday and Bizarre Love Triangle, no more and no less than humbler groups like the Eurythmics or Wham.