let's discuss New Order's 'Republic'

http://dkpresents.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/republic-cover.jpg

Always had mixed feelings about this one. I dismissed it when it came out yet listened to it on repeat back in '93.
Hearing it now, I tear up at the sparkly melancholy vibe on that album, epitomized by a song like 'Special' - but I'm not sure whether this is simply the nostalgia speaking.

underrated saville design period imo

"Regret" is one of their best songs, period.

I never really got into this entire album but whenever I stumble across a song from it, it's really really welcome.

"Regret" is one of their best songs, period.

Now we're talking.

Feel free everyone to disagree with me, btw.

"Regret" cannot be praised enough, and I stand by my claim that the final lyric means more to me than the entirety of everything Dylan's ever done.

xp: Yeah I disagree. Not going to do my usual "lists 10 songs he likes better" thing but they've done better songs; doesn't stop this one from being great, though.

xpost Nik Cohn couldn't have said it better.

I always LOVED Regret. Haven't ever listened to this whole album but now that I'm freaking out over the early New Order stuff I guess it's time that I did.

"Regret" is one of their best songs, period.

Seriously, anyone who doesn't love that song is a disgusting savage.

what's the final lyric again?
Just wait for tomorrow, I guess that's what they all say just before they fall apart?

Yeah I always liked that line but no - I can think of a million better Dylan ones.

Yeah but you're not me.

playing "Regret" in a loop with "Mama" by The Sugarcubes

ned breaks just like a little girl.

'Regret' has always been (rightly) praised but it often seems that's the only thing people remember from this album.

"Ruined in a Day" is great, too

the 'World' video is awesome imo but i'm a sucker for one shots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6gBZiiygMk

"Regret" and "Everyone Everywhere" are the masterpieces; "World," "Ruined in a Day," and "Spooky" are filler-plus; the rest is filler, albeit beaty and/or pleasant. Their worst overall since (but waaay better than) the debut.

"All Day Long" will always be my fave New Order but "Regret" probably follows right behind.

It's impossible to assess this album. Discovering New Order in the interim between this and Technique, you couldn't imagine how stoked I was for this. When my college radio station "world premiered" "Regret" in April 2003 I had a tape at the ready. What can I say? I was prepared to love it all.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can hear how the album sounded dated even in 1993. The band's been mum about the circumstances under which they recorded the thing (other than to say that it was recorded in an "atmosphere of impending doom"), but to my ears it'ss mostly Bernard and Stephen Hague with a bunch of keyboards and sequences, with Hooky's bass injected here and there (and neither here nor there for the most part). "Chemical" and "Spooky" are second-tier Electronic songs.

All that said, "Everyone Everywhere" is a fabulous song, up there with "Regret." The fadeout as the guitars and synths merge into that sunlight goodness that's New Order's specialty – it's something special.

Speaking of which, "Special" is pretty good too: one of Barney's dark nights of the soul ("I wake up every night on the stairs waiting for the dawn to come...")

*sequencers

I'm also fond of "World," which was remixed quite ably and is a lost club classic.

I can hear how the album sounded dated even in 1993

Its eternal problem. It's very much a neither here nor there release, and the collapse of Factory couldn't've helped. But the singles all work still.

he band's been mum about the circumstances under which they recorded the thing

prozac, hell of a drug iirc

I never really got into this entire album but whenever I stumble across a song from it, it's really really welcome.

^^^ This. I really didn't like it in '93 (yeah, dated-even-then is a good description) but last time I put it on I was pleasantly surprised.

The album's also an elegy for a certain aesthetic too: how bands mixed keyboards into their arrangements. Think of "Ruined in a Day" or "Regret." They were the last stabs at this sort of thing until many years after the Britpop wave crested and broke.

I really appreciate how they took this album as a launching pad for their subsequent work, combining with Technique to turn my appreciation of New Order from "the band with the epic singles" to "the band that seems to effortless fart fantastic albums". I've been blasting Get Ready all weekend.

You've been rocking the shack?

didn't pulp's chick keyboard player single them out from the britpop herd?

Lol, I remember tuning into Radio 1 for the premier of Regret and being really disappointed. I called my friend and moaned that New Order had "gone grunge".

Which was obviously totally stupid of me. After a few listens I loved it.

The first half of the album is really strong (basically the singles and the singles and "Everyone Everywhere") but most of the second half is fairly pedestrian (for New Order). "Regret" is definitely one of the top five singles of their career.

You've been rocking the shack?

I've been rocking the shack and running someone like you wild like crystal at close range going 60 MPH with a primitive notion of a vicious streak turning a slow jam my way.

There's a common complaint about this album that the production is a bit off - Hooky's bass is pretty low in the mix.

I love Republic. The most hated of all New Order albums according to the bone-headed hooligan pricks (aka Vikings) at NOOL. The tracks mentioned already are great (Regret, Special) but my secret fav. is Liar. Terrific lyric slamming Tony Wilson but nothing fancy about the music. I played this album endlessly in 93 and it's still one of my favorites to play start to finish. I do wish Hague hadn't mixed Hooky's bass completely out of the album but then again, maybe Hooky didn't have any good riffs for the tracks. I have never heard any demos from this album but it would be interesting to see if there were some basslines that got lost in the mixing process.

Steven Morris said used Unfinished Sympathy as his inspiration and blueprint for Special.

I do wish Hague hadn't mixed Hooky's bass completely out of the album but then again, maybe Hooky didn't have any good riffs for the tracks.

A little of both, I'd say.

i like The Other Two 'Selfish' more than anything on this album

"Selfish" isn't even as good as "Tasty Fish"

I like this album a lot, it's probably their most underrated record.

I remember reading a review in Q for the box set saying that it's been scientifically proven that Regret is the best single of all time. I wouldn't go that far but it's a song that I never get tired of and I have to agree with Ned about those last lyrics, I played it recently and they got to me all over again.

I think like Get Ready the rest of the album was overshadowed by the lead single but there's plenty of great songs here. World, Ruined In a Day, Special and Everyone Everywhere would all be fighting for a place on my New Order best of, which would be quite an epic compilation.

I'm not surprised Unfinished Sympathy was named as an influence for Special the strings at the end are a complete rip off.

Selfish" isn't even as good as "Tasty Fish"

rong

"Selfish" is a terrific Saint Etienne single.

hmmmm i have never heard this album AFAIK.

ned and dan will be any minute now to murder me

Amazon always has cheap copies.

It's $0.01 on Amazon.com or 44p on Amazon.

That was 44p on Amazon.co.uk obviously.

ned and dan will be any minute now to murder me

We could do that, or we could let drunk guys call you a Nazi, whatever works.

yeah i think i'll just go do that (amazon). another one of those where the cover art made me sure that the contents were going to go in a direction i wasn't interested in for some stupid reason i think.

xpost thanking you for options ned

Have you at least heard "Regret"?

i dont know? if i have i dont remember it offhand - ill go youtube and report back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgW3_gZwv7o&feature=related

(fwiw I cannot explain why that picture was used for the Youtube)

idk I live in Miami, where "Shellshock" felt of its moment and thrilling -- and, respectfully, sic, they collaborated all the time.

I suppose it could be a function of the moment in which we found ourselves. I lived at the time in Colorado. I had seen them the year before on the Low-Life tour, and that remains a top three show for me. They seemed to fall off pretty dramatically after that. Brotherhood was a return to form, but that tour (at least when I saw it) was lackluster, and nothing they did afterward seemed to have, for me, the same magic.

That said, thanks to this thread I am listening to Republic for the first time in ages, and it sounds much better than I remember.

I'm a freestyle guy, so "Shellshock" was beautifully adjacent.

My closest friend at the time thought it was a joke. She called it their "we hate you Jellybean" moment.

They fruitfully collaborated with eg Hague on a sound for Republic, but the Robie and Baker singles sound more fully like a blending of both writing and production.

(The Hannett-era NO does sound like a different band to JD and later NO — but top of my head the other 1980s albums are self-produced; are there other collab singles I’m forgetting?)

I'd say "True Faith" represents an ideal collab b/w them and Stephen Hague.

Now that we've grown up together
They're all taking drugs with me

I think the consensus is that "Regret" is a cracking tune. Truly one of NO's transcendent moments.

i am pro shellshock

and while i have enjoyed certain tunes since, definitely think Regret is the last unfuckwithably transcendent moment from NO

generally feel that New Order and 90s “4 remixes on CD single 2 of 2” culture didn’t really get on that well, but was surprised to absolutely adore this Weatherall mix of Regret

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

I'd say "True Faith" represents an ideal collab b/w them and Stephen Hague.

Ha yes, I was fumbling in the right direction!

(especially better to cite since by Republic the band weren’t collaborating with each other…)

Shellshock and State of the Nation are their nadir imo. Bounced back nicely after that, peaking with Technique and nicely plateauing ever since

And Republic is the album of theirs I pull out most often these days. Not their best but it really takes me (back) to a place and time.

That's Low-Life for me. I swear, I'm stuck in 1985.

I have tix to see them in October at the Hollywood Bowl, and to see Hooky next month. I'm trying to keep expectations as low as possible.

If I had to pick 'my' album it would be Technique though Brotherhood was the first album of theirs I got and almost wore into the ground. But Technique was the first one I heard as it was released and so it remains a portrait of a moment (followed relatively hot on its heels by the Cure's Disintegration and the self-titled Love and Rockets album a few months later).

love the idea that they peaked in 85, fell off, and returned to form in 86.

I dunno, Brotherhood was kind of the last gasp of their early years, when they were still living under the long shadow of Joy Division. While I like much of what came after, what made them most appealing to me--the tension between where they had come from and where they apparently wanted to go (or at least where Sumner wanted to go)--largely evaporated. Neither Technique nor Republic has much of the kind of gloomy mystique that defined them out the gate, and as someone else noted, not nearly enough Peter Hook. We will not speak of Get Ready.

Plus, as I said, the 86 tour, which tbf is the last time I saw them, just kind of sucked. I know they can be (or at least used to be) an uneven band live, but there was some serious disengagement in 86 that just wasn't there in 85.

Get Ready in the main is terrible but Crystal is one of the best songs they ever recorded (the long album version, not the single edit).

Like, I know how people who hate Republic but love Regret feel.

Technique preserves that gloomy mystique: it's not a cheerful album.

Yeah, "Crystal" rocks. The live version from the Finsbury Park DVD was especially good.

Technique preserves that gloomy mystique: it's not a cheerful album.

Maybe so, but it doesn't really sound much like their earlier stuff. It's a dance record.

In part. "All the Way, "Love Less," "Guilty Partner," "Run," "Dream Attack"?

I like Joy Division, but, really, NO was the realization of Joy Division, with all the inherent tensions assumed.

To a point, sure. And I will gladly admit that my own perceptions of the band were largely shaped by the tragedy of Ian's death, which certainly gave them some sort of halo that most bands didn't have, and which, like all things, faded over time.

Xxxxp it’s no secret why the video of their ‘86 tour is called “Pumped Full of Drugs”

Technique and Republic are just as downbeat as earlier stuff, but in a more sublimated way. In Technique it was sublimated in Ibiza hedonism. Republic I think is especially a downcast record, but has less obvious Angst than Joy Division and a more middle -age stiff upper lip reflectiveness.

Special is such a great song.

I think what I'm trying to get at in my own mind is that neither one of those albums sounds even a little bit like Joy Division. As I said earlier, I think this is largely a function of the submergence of Peter Hook (and, I suppose, the virtual disappearance of any sort of "organic" drum sound from Steve Morris).

I've been thinking about this album a lot in the last 3-4 days.

Because its the only album I can name where everyone can agree on the opening track - not just as a great track, but as the best - but then there is absolutely no consensus as to the ten that follow. Each one of them I've individually seen called a highlight and a dud.

Actually growing up in the 00s I was naively always under the impression this was a well-loved album because of three things
1. Regret, and there being three songs in total on the absurdly compiled (the best of) NewOrder, equal only to Republic in that regard
2. generally pretty good review scores - AllMusic have it at 4 etc
3. it's their biggest-selling studio album I believe

equal only to Technique, ahem

idk "Special" and especially "Everyone Everywhere" come up a lot as keepers

and "World" was a solid club jam in the early '90s, perhaps because it's practically an Electronic track.

Republic is a great album. The best album of lyrics Bernard Sumner has ever produced (tiny, extremely low bar there).

All three of those were ones I was thinking of as I wrote that. To name two fairly recent examples - Uncut's JD/NO album-by-album guide which I have somewhere has Everyone Everywhere and Special (and Times Change) at the bottom of the pile, and World towards the top. TPL's take on Republic is very nice on Everyone Everywhere but writes World off as bland.

I really enjoy all three - World is one of a few tracks (Spooky an obvious other) where, Hooky or no, the rubbery/sloping sequenced basslines really do it for me.

"Everyone Everywhere" is usually top ten New Order for me.

As far as contemporaneous reviews, I remember a sense of "Huh! We get them now!" on the American side (yes-that-Armond-White wrote a lovely appreciation for Rolling Stone) while a lot of "meh" across the pond.

I didn't realize til looking at the cover today that the bodies of the couple with the life preserver between them spell out SOS!

Has Saville (or others) ever explained why New Order are always Neworder or NewOrder from 1988-95? Duranduran did not get off so scot free

I assumed it was just a graphic design choice. Are you suggesting there's a legal reason? What happened to Duranduran? BTW, Do You Believe In Shame? is one of my fav "Duranduran" singles but I never thought their name was being run together for anything other than how it looks.

I remember spending an absolute age a while back trying to find a Google Street View location that would produce the cover image from one of the single releases of "Spooky" breathe in:
https://www.discogs.com/release/95201-NewOrder-Spooky

https://i.discogs.com/xfzwh-zFumPySYQ6jVKuNzr9TX2L47fTCmsNxGS3GGg/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:441/w:504/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTk1MjAx/LTEyODQxOTg2NDUu/anBlZw.jpeg

It's Los Angeles, and by studying the buildings I worked out it was roughly this perspective:
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/JA0T1K/aerial-view-of-downtown-los-angeles-in-1984-southern-california-usa-JA0T1K.jpg

But after driving around in the Google Street View car I couldn't find an uninterrupted view. I did however get to see a bit of Los Angeles. It has hills. It looks weirdly flat and empty. Perhaps it has filled out since then. I remember hearing Republic just a couple of years after it was released, and even by 1995-1996 something about the production sounded old-fashioned. And yet I remember liking "Regret", "World", "Avalanche", and "Special". I always wondered if "Special" was aimed at Tony Wilson. And "Regret", particularly the bit about waiting for tomorrow. That song was an instant classic.

I also wondered if Peter Saville had just got a copy of Photoshop, because the montage in the CD booklet looked like the kind of thing people were doing with Photoshop in the "peak Protools" period when Photoshop existed but digital cameras were still obscure, so it was all about manipulating scanned slides and 100mb .TIFFs.

I can't remember a single thing about the other tracks on the album. I know that Technique gets all the respect, and I suppose it came first so Republic was a retread, and Republic doesn't have anything as brilliant as the beginning to "Fine Time", but I think they have a similar strike rate of good songs. I mean the tick-a-cha hi-hat, then the bass, then drrrrrrrr as the drums come in. It's like Star Wars, where we go from the droids to Luke Skywalker to Obi-Wan Kenobi to Han Solo to the Princess etc. "Fine Time" is genius in that respect. It's a little musical story with sheep noises.

I assumed it was just a graphic design choice. Are you suggesting there's a legal reason? What happened to Duranduran?

Nah I figured it was a graphic decision, but I'm baffled why they stuck with it for so long (7 years New Order, 7 years Neworder/NewOrder) without seemingly(?) ever commenting on it. Was Duranduran a legal thing? In the interviews I've read Simon Le Bon just says they went with it just for a while just because they liked the look of it on artwork (and, to quote him directly, because they were getting 'a little bit edgy').

LOL

Los Angeles is neither flat nor empty. However, there are vast swathes without much in the way of pedestrian traffic.

Liar was the song on Republic most directly about Tony Wilson, but I assume just about all of the songs addressing the collapse of Factory are about Tony in some way.

^^^Oh wait think I get what you mean. AFAIK Duranduran did not become Duran Duran again due to anything legal, just that the shorter name supposedly confused people.

It's a little musical story with sheep noises.

"Fine Time" is a masterclass in coming up with lots of melodic hooks - very great and memorable and gorgeous ones at that - and opting not to develop them into separate songs but have them all battle each other in one collage.

I've been listening to Technique all day.

This Fine Time talk reminded me of the Second-Hand Satellites record from (OMG 20 years ago) that samples Fine Time. Great song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPIoEr_ubEg

Top 5 on the album:
Regret, Special, Everyone Everywhere, Times Change, Young Offender.
Artwork is top 3
Like said above, it is not particularly cheerful album, reflecting the internal mood in the band at the time. And yet it’s such a summer album for me. Feeling maudlin at the beach. The cover precisely zooms in on that

Ashley, presumably an aerial shot of LA

Happy 30th anniversary.