New Order - Music Complete

Hm and here we go.

https://twitter.com/neworder/status/613030050582134784

Track list:

Restless
Singularity
Plastic
Tutti Frutti
People On The High Line
Stray Dog
Academic
Nothing But A Fool
Unlearn This Hatred
The Game
Superheated

Tutti Frutti

hope this is a silicon teens style cover in honor of their jump to mute

I need to lower my expectations for this but right now I'm really excited.

I'd like this to be like the last Pet Shop Boys album where I can say it's my favourite album by them in forever and really mean it.

ha ha People On The High Line

+ yeah hyped

I'll give it a listen, of course, but I'm not expecting anything Earth-shattering at all.

£65 gets you

Double lp
6 12" singles of extended versions
And a box. Plus download.

I'm sure I'll listen to this at some point, but excitement level is low. Peter Hook has turned out to be a pretty big dick irl, and I'm sure the new NO bassist won't have any trouble mimicking his sound, but I'm pretty sure Hook was integral to how the songs were written and he'll probably be missed.

Even though it's the most cliched opinion to have, I really haven't cared about New Order since Technique. I'm pretty sure I've heard the last three albums, but I couldn't tell you what a single song from any of them sounds like.

I just listened to Krafty and Crystal last week because I couldn't remember how they went. Turns out they're still better than serviceable, but I had no desire to explore the rest of either album.

I went up to Republic before getting off the bus.

Your loss guys

Should I go and see New Order if they play near me? The only time I ever got to see them was Glastonbury 2005 and I remember them being quite rubbish.

There are a bunch of great songs from Get Ready and Waiting For The Sirens Call. The new tracks were the best songs they played on their recent, but short US tour. I'm very excited for this and hopefully the dust-up with Hooky has given Barney some nice venomous lyrics to match the music. Plastic, Stray Dog, Nothing But A Fool, Unlearn This Hatred and Super Heated could all be about the disintegration of their relationship.

Aw, I love Crystal! And side one of Waiting for the Sirens Call. Plus: Return of Gillian! Also last time I saw them live they absolutely killed it.

Get Ready has their best songs since 1989 with their worst production since Brotherhood.

I even heard "Lost Sirens" it was alright, you know..

http://i.imgur.com/YbJo4lJ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YbJo4lJ.jpg

love how dorky Steve is on all these promos

Very much worth seeing live, they were great even without Hooky

I'm not sure why people would assume that Hook was more integral to their songs than the other three. If the album turns out to be crap it won't be because Hook didn't play on it.

Steve, Gillian, and Barney have all done great music outside of New Order. Hook's solo stuff has been mostly crap, outside of that one Monaco song with the singer that he pre-programmed to sing EXACTLY like Barney Sumner. From that I'd conclude that Hook misses NO more than vice versa.

Revenge did have a couple of good songs ("Slave", "State of Shock")

Man, the title of this thing, though.

"What shall we call the record?"
*looks at the tracking sheet* "Music complete?"
"Yeah, that'll do."

Man, the artwork of this thing, too.

"What shall we do for the packaging?"
"Well, y'know, that Split Enz album, True Colours?"
"Yeah, that'll do."

Plastic

Here comes love, it's like plastic
It's not stretchy, like elastic

seems like a good ILX pre-cover candidate tbh

I've spent far too much of the day pondering that press shot (without the CSI addition), partly in a "How do I want New Order to present themselves in 2015?" sort of way.

Turrican, I find the comments you're making quite odd considering what a massive OMD fan you are. Music Complete is pretty much on the same level as History of Modern and English Electric. Same with the artwork which is extremely similar to those albums.

I don't.

Its New Order.

First thing I thought of was the OMD cover too. Saville's return to the theme isn't surprising (if this is Saville). The die-cut sleeves of 83 and the flowers from Talking Loud and Clear/PC&L.

I did like those OMD covers and I like the cover for Music Complete too. I much prefer it to the artwork on Get Ready and Siren's Call.

this is the worst album name ever

is it supposed to be a reference to Musique Non-Stop by Kraftwerk?

this is the worst album name ever

are you sure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Enemy_discography#Albums

Not a ref to "Music : Response" ?

why is new guy up front in that picture

new songs were ok live

don't expect this to be any better or worse than sirens call or get ready, both of which were eh. fine, they're still great live, even with no hook, if this gets them on the road again I'm happy.

"I really haven't cared about New Order since Technique. I'm pretty sure I've heard the last three albums, but I couldn't tell you what a single song from any of them sounds like."

Even Regret? If nothing else that justifies their not splitting for good after technique; it's probably the best song NO ever did.

I'm tempted to make a "latter-period New Order" playlist to try to change some minds but IIRC most of Republic isn't available on US Spotify so I'd have to leave out "Ruined in a Day"

that's a weird album to leave off. I think there is one great solid album to be culled from those three records.

Republic suffers from an embalmed production that was out of fashion in 1993; it sounds like a Bernard Sumner solo album on which the band was allowed to participate. But the Sumner of 1993 was still writing songs as good as "Regret," "Special," "Times Change," "Ruined in a Day," and "Everyone Everywhere" (the secret highlight, like "Some Distant Memory" on the Electronic album).

if New Order had released "World (The Price of Love)" in 1990 it would've been an amazing barnburner of a single; on this album it's a throwback to other times. I still love it.

total aside: I didn't realize that "World In Motion" was their only UK #1

some distant memory is the best song ever

It is.

Crystal was such a great comeback and the way it all LOOKED was incredible!

http://img-cdn.jg.jugem.jp/966/819789/20130209_353003.jpg

came across this last week. saw the same show a few months later at Ally Pally on NY Eve. SUCH a great show, sounds freaking amazing here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJjkU9bTqlU

^^^ I've got that DVD; it's indeed amazing. The '81 Taras Shevchenko show also included!

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.

no one considers Republic the best NO album, or even one of the best,

At some time every album b/w 1982 and 1993, including Electronic, has been my favorite NO album.

On the 2013 tour they were playing Regret and World from Republic, which is nice. But yeah... nothing from Technique at all. I don't mind, I like Republic better anyway.

I would beg them to play a concert that was nothing but Movement and Technique

I saw Hooky doing the whole of Movement with The Light about 3 years ago, that was good in a slightly karaoke kind of way, and his voice was suffering by the end of the set

Saw them in Manchester Saturday and beforehand I was fantasising about a set of just Technique with an encore of Tutti Frutti. But yeah, no Technique at all. Your Silent Face was unexpected and good. Encore was just Decades and Love Will Tear Us Apart which was a bit of a buzz killer tbh. On a positive note it was some buzz they'd built up by that point to kill.

Would love to hear some first album Electronic songs mixed into a live show. It's the great lost New Order record under a different name. Anyone who needs a refresher course on who drives the creative of this band really need to go back and listen to the debut albums of Electronic and Revenge. God damn the Revenge stuff was embarrassing.

Johnny Marr played some Electronic on tour.

Bernard played Tighten Up on the Bad Luetinent tour.