let's discuss New Order's 'Republic'

(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.

Oh, and fwiw at the time I HATED the cover of this album, which probably didn't help with my appreciation for it.

It is a really poor album cover... especially held against the very high standard of their previous covers!

What is the symbolism of the cover?

is it a literal interpretation of certain song titles?

It's a visual interpretation of "Just wait till tomorrow/I guess that's what they all say just before they fall apart."

So I think.

xp

Seems to me to be a modern equivalent of "Nero fiddles while Rome burns" but even so it's poorly executed.

I love the cover and the all the artwork Saville did around this album (singles, etc.). Retrospectively, it seems to echo the aesthetic David Lynch was pushing on Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, ie. L.A. - the glamourous illusion and the dangerous underbelly.

I can see where you're coming from with that but the styling of it reminds me more of before and after shots in a Viagra ad or something like that.

the singles

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2609/3823145064_0793a81d85.jpg

I do like the "Regret" cover a lot

tbh - the other covers don't carry this bliss/doom duality. There's a coherence in the merging of images and the "Hollywood blockbuster" framing and titling - but I don't really see any overall message (why should I, right?).

Saville:

“To escape the recession in Britain and to escape Pentagram (the London design group) where I’d ended up, I had a kind of Hollywood fantasy. I’d gone to Los Angeles to do a television identity in 1991 and been fascinated by the way Hollywood makes the world look. It’s quite interesting that you feel a bit cheated when you first go to Los Angeles because you realise that to make television and movies they just go out in the street, the whole place is just like a 24 hour movie studio and you drive around Los Angeles and you just keep seeing locations from movies. I came back to London and there was a New Order album (Republic) to do so I did it as a parody of the way the media repackages the world, with slightly cheap titles that look like an HBO movie. It’s what seemed to happen every year in Malibu. Every autumn there are bush fires and everybody’s house burns down and it’s OK because everyone just goes to the beach and builds a new house. It was very strange to us, this was a kind of fantasy. The images came together because Brett was experimenting with what you could do with the blend filter in Photoshop. Within a year we were living in LA. Brett stayed and I didn’t. I couldn’t bear it actually.”

the regret cover kind of echoes richard prince

still stand by my original post itt - in addition to that saville quote, I recall he was pretty obsessed with hyperrealistic, stock photos during this period

I kinda like how Saville leaves out the minor fact that New Order were kinda gods in LA to start with.

haha and we're back to that Baywatch video

It seems that copies of this are a mandatory presence in Canadian used CD shops.

Nothing much new to add to the chorus here. Hearing some of these songs live (notably on the common 'Electronic Ecstasy' bootleg of their Reading '93 performance) made me a lot more sympathetic to the songwriting on this album. Everyone Everywhere is lovely.

Innit that album cover supposed to be full of (accidental) symbolism? Everyone having fun at the beach while the home (Factory) burns down or something to that effect?

I kinda like how Saville leaves out the minor fact that New Order were kinda gods in LA to start with.

were they running the design house he was leaving in London, or the TV station he was doing an ident for in LA?

The "Regret" cover is fantastic. It seems to me to embody the idea of putting the past behind you. The "Ruined in a Day" cover is just awful; a total affront to class and taste.

don't like the droplets on the side of Regret cover - seems more tacked on than the others. they're all so 'we just got photoshop' as to look quite poor and (obv) dated but the strength of the original images survives.

yeah, that water thing is completely unnecessary. it would have worked on the back of the single, i suppose... though the tones of the images are kind of dissimilar.

Suddenly the house-y piano bit in "Spooky" gets me excited.

I've been having the lyrics of Spooky in my head all week

When we kiss we speak as one
With a single breath this world is gone

Happy 30th anniversary.