let's discuss New Order's 'Republic'

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)

ok yes i have heard that song. def not rocketing to my top list for new order, but it is fine (note: i am not actually making a firm pronouncement because i am stuck listening to it on my iphone speakers at work, so im thinking some nuances are getting lost)

ok second listen and i am liking it quite a bit more. theres still something a little incidental john-hughes-soundtracky about it that is keeping me at my distance, which is the best explanation i can come up with.

fwiw I think the song is a total earworm grower, especially that chorus

this was the second new order i got, as it was cheap, waaay back in the mid-90s. i remember liking regret and world immediately, but being somewhat disgusted by the rest of it. so slick. so i ditched it when i got the best of, and all the songs i liked were on there. then i REALLY grew to love new order. and so i bought republic again. and, for a while at least, it was my favorite new order album. what doesn't stick on first listen opens up after a while. the melodies are so effortless and confidant. it's got this light air of impending doom. such a strange album. (and liar is my favorite these days).

I've noticed that at least 50% of New Order's drum tracks on the last two albums were more or less exactly the same as those on "Regret." It really jumped out at me that last two times I saw them live.

Anyone else notice the awkward/desperate marketing of Bad Lieutenant as the next step in Joy Division evolution, and the stressing that JD/NO classics will be played live? Actual start of the recent press release:

2010 marks the 30th Anniversary of the critically acclaimed band, New Order!

They will be playing San Francisco, Coachella, Chicago and New York only (see below for dates). The set will include hit songs from Joy Division, New Order and from the new CD as Bad Lieutenant: “Never Cry Another Tear.”

yeah impending doom captures it nicely. I know I'm in the minority liking this song but "Times Change" is pretty symptomatic of that whole vibe on the album. I can kinda picture this album being played at dusk before a motherfucker of a south pacific storm

"Times Change" is yet another Sumner song that uses oboe quite well (Electronic's awesome "Some Distant Memory" is the other).

never heard this album but 'regret' is total classic, probably the first NO song i "really" heard (i knew 'blue monday 88' but not sure what else). even kinda liked the other singles but not enough to pursue further.

I can kinda picture this album being played at dusk before a motherfucker of a south pacific storm

Oh right:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzNQMW7-9Mw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOAd2dwuhAc

"Everyone Everywhere" is a fabulous song...

Loved this version, esp. Gillian's legs guitar playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KO0zeP6ftY

I almost posted that version. I especially love the part where Gilbert mimes strumming the guitar.

(also note barney's witty lyric change - oh, he's such a wag)

Gilbert's guitar ability is best described as 'basic,' innit?

This album was the first time I was disappointed by New Order, which I'm sure was completely devastating to the band. In all seriousness, though, I never fully got back on the bandwagon after Republic, the odd great single aside.

"Regret" and maybe "World" excepted, it just sounded flat and bland.

But this thread has made me want to return to it.

I guess that's what they all say...

"Regret" evokes a time and place to me that no other New Order single does. I love where it takes me. Sigh.

I remember thinking the song sequencing was a bit off on this album. A friend of mine re-arranged the songs to positive effect. I'll have to pull it out to remember how it went.

Anyone else ever notice a fleeting resemblance between "Regret" and the Pretenders' "Talk of the Town." The riff, at least. Though every time the latter comes on I wish it was the former.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1316831073

disliked this album when it came out, like it a lot more now, thought I'd feel that way about get ready but never happened.

never really spent time with this but just went through and I'm sorry but liar is a jam.

Liar and Chemical are the only two songs I could do without here

"Regret" is terribly awesome and means a lot. "Times Change" is vastly underrated despite Barney rappin on tha mic.

When this album came out it felt pretty much like a betrayal to me but damn if I can remember the exact reasons why now beyond the fact that I was bored stiff by it at the time. Suspect, as mentioned above, that the production on it (and I actually kinda liked Hague at the time) and the relative lack of Hooky was part of the issue, but it also seemed a lot more half-assed from a songwriting perspective. My disappointment at the time was so profound that I couldn't even appreciate the good moments. I wasn't able to get fully onboard again until Siren's Call.

I've mentioned elsethread that I've recently noticed "Regret" playing a lot over the PA systems at malls and shops and such, and when hearing it I've been saying to myself, "You know, that song is really quite amazing." So in the spirit of reappraisal, and with all of the good words for the album around these parts lately, I've just bought the album again (after 16 years removed from my collection) and will give it another listen.

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.