New Order - Music Complete

They're both really, really good at playing New Order songs after many years of practice, but you wouldn't want either one teaching musical technique in schools.

Who said anything about competence? One of my favorite thing about the band is that everyone except Stephen is really to some degree of rudimentary. But she doesn't move, and while she did add a third guitar to Ceremony, her keyboard is always set up so that I literally have no idea what she is doing. I mean, I know she's triggering some stuff, but there were times when Stephen and Phil were doing that, too, and l couldn't discern what she was adding. Like Fletch in Depeche Mode, but even more hidden. Doesn't hurt the band, but it's strange to see a group with an added member and the return of a longtime member that sounds exactly the same as before. Maybe they are just all doing less, and she didn't do much before?

how do you know Stephen and Phil weren't playing stuff either?

Judging from videos she's usually playing one particular synth part with the rest being additional sequencers or backing tracks. It's not surprising it'd be hard to tell which one though, especially when a few of them are on keyboards.

Gillian doesn't have to sing, does she?

Xpost I could see them playing. Phil's rig is turned to the side, and Stephen is hitting everything in sight. But you're right, it's possible no one was doing anything! Hence the genius of New Order.

And no, she doesn't sing. Can she?

Anyway, it reminded me of when I saw the Beach Boys a few years ago and 7 people on stage were holding guitars.

I know she's on "Ceremony" single, and she does sing a lot on The Other Two records.

No, it's because of someone saying about the triggered female backing vocals..

Yeah, that was me. It's weird to hear female vox and they're not coming from her. Not that I expected them, but it's conspicuous.

Anyway, it reminded me of when I saw the Beach Boys a few years ago and 7 people on stage were holding guitars.

If this was the Brian-band+others 50th anniversary reunion Beach Boys, Al Jardine was low in the mix apart from a wee solo or two, but was playing when he actually had a guitar, Mike's bandleader guy was there for his vocals, but was playing, David Marks was v obviously there for solos and additional leads as nobody knows who he is and you could hear him scrobbling away over the top of the rockier songs, and Brian's multi-instrumentalists played as and when.

But if you're talking about mysterious deceptive stage keyboards, Bruce Johnston's electric piano was at most appearing in his own foldback, and may have been made of cardboard.

(If you mean Mike Love's Contractually Legal Beach Boys Band, I can't imagine he'd pay anyone to tour who wasn't playing 99% of the time, and possibly driving a truck as well.)

(Well, there's that thing again: Mike Love being right about dropping the "real" beach boys, but boooo anyway)

I actually might give this another listen later on and give it another chance.

Hray!

I think I've actually warmed to it a little this go-round, but mostly on the more electronic tracks rather than the guitar-led ones. I still don't think it's anywhere near Technique or the first Electronic album, and I still think the best of Get Ready and Waiting For The Sirens' Call are better than the best on this. But, the first half of the album (well, actually from 'Singularity' to 'People On The High Line') and 'Superheated' didn't sound all that bad to me this time around. Weirdly, I quite enjoyed 'Academic' the most of the guitar stuff... that one just passed me by when the album first came out.

'Restless', 'Stray Dog', 'Unlearn This Hatred' and 'The Game' all had me reaching for the skip button, tbh.

I already forget what new songs they played last night, besides "Tutti Frutti." I do know they played pretty radically remixed versions of "Waiting for the Sirens Call" and "True Faith," the former sort of in line with the stuff on the new album.

They also renamed "Blue Monday" "Green Thursday" and passed around a silly plastic St. Patrick's Day hat.

I like the relentlessness of "Academic," as if it wants to prove its title right. It doesn't change temp.

I love "Unlearn This Hatred". "Nothing But A Fool" is a forgotten favourite, I don't like the start but once it gets going I get into it. Nice wee "Everything's Gone Green" nod at the end and as clunky as the lyrics can be this one has a little personal relevance at the monent.

'Nothing But A Fool' has a nice ending section, it just seems to take an eternity to get there!

I still have no idea why 'Academic' completely just went by me without leaving any kind of impression months ago, but this time around the opening guitar lick just drew me in. I've just had to listen to it again!

I think the nice ending section is a reward for patience.

The extended mix of Academic turns it into a long-lost Technique classic. It's improved in the remix, in my opinion.

post it

I'm surprised it's not on youtube.

I'm really struggling to imagine what 'People On The High Line' would have sounded like with Hook on board. It sounds like the kind of track they couldn't have made with him, or if they had it would have sounded very different.

TOOTI

FROOTI

Stumbled across this thread tonight: as a fan since Power, Corruption, & Lies, I would say that there's one 10/10 song here in Tutti Frutti, which would have sat proudly on Technique. Plastic might be another great song if they had dispensed with its coda: most of the songs here would benefit from editing - for example, Nothing But A Fool could say everything it has to say in 3 or 4 minutes instead of 7. Still, as someone said above, when a band has been part of your life for decades, you're just glad that they made a new record with one great song on it.

'Tutti Frutti' has a great chorus, but I think the verses could have been better.

http://pitchfork.com/news/64491-new-order-announce-expanded-edition-of-music-complete/

Yep, here comes "Complete Music" - all the expanded versions from the big box.

looks like after they get this release out they're going to become realtors.

The 10-track EP of "Singularity" remixes that is now up on Spotify is a slog to listen to in one sitting, but the Errol Alkan Extended Mix and a couple of the other mixes that reframe the song as more of a pure synth/sequencer-driven track along the lines of "Plastic" are an improvement over the album mix, in my opinion.

The 10th track is a Tom Rowlands remix of "Tutti Frutti" that throws everything and the kitchen sink into the mix, but is pretty fun to listen to.

Tried this album again last night but couldn't get past the third track IIRC.

The running order for this album could be re-arranged in any conceivable way, and I still wouldn't be able to get past three tracks.

your loss
I feel like a sucker but caved in and impulse-bought the new extended version

Is that 'extended' as in extra songs, or as in average track-length now 12 minutes?

New Order - Music Complete

Extended versions are on the whole fantastic - loving this album more than ever ("Superheated" probably the only song I never warmed up to).

Really ended up loving the first four songs of this album and not really enjoying the rest. But wow, those first four were the most New Order-like compositions in 25 years.

Something I've noticed over time is the similarity of "Restless" to Technique's "Dream Attack". In fact, the more I've listened to it, the more it seems like "Restless" is an attempt to fix a problem that Bernard identified with "Dream Attack" in that he felt the song had "no chorus!"

I think it's most obvious after the second verse of the album version when the strumming and strings come in at 2:34

https://play.spotify.com/track/0tE2jOqAMQxLhWD1sKQxBS?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open

(Including the Spotify link there because there doesn't seem to be a YouTube of the album version out there!)

"Dream Attack": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDXBPZoV2jw

screw you bernie dream attack is perfect

when did Sanders hate "Dream Attack"

I think "Dream Attack" is basically perfect too. I've grown to love "Restless" over time but probably not as much.

dream attack was one of the first new order songs I really loved

Dream Attack is still my favorite New Order song.

once again bernie is outvoted

I doubt I'm alone in saying part of what makes "Dream Attack" so good is that the chorus is so understated

I saw them live at Bilbao BBK last week, it was a really great set if only an hour long. They were doing interesting things with the older material, they seemed to have made it sound a lot more chunky than the recorded versions, and it was interesting that they kept to the more electronic side of their back-catalogue. The newer material was more faithfully rendered.

I'd like to know why they never play anything from Technique, and haven't since reuniting in 2001 (afaik?).

That's utterly baffling, I would have thought songs like Run and Love Less would be fixtures in a live set. I see they dragged out Round & Round once in 2012, noted as "first time since 1993". Maybe they hate that period of the band's history, or the lyrics are too related to Barney's divorce ... ?
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/new-order/2012/vector-arena-auckland-new-zealand-3def10b.html

Same for Republic, including Regret (at least on this tour)

Yeah, but no one considers Republic the best NO album, or even one of the best, save for Regret. Makes sense it would be ignored; I mean, nothing from Movement, either. But Technique is all killer, no filler.

They played "Regret" when I saw'em in March.