let's discuss New Order's 'Republic'

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

this period of Saville/ New Order is very similair to Erasure's Chorus album era which was 2 years before, 'stock photo' type stuff etc:

http://eil.com/Gallery/32703b.jpg

http://s.dsimg.com/image/R-972557-1179522706.jpeg

Hah, you're right there. Who was me company (the Chorus designer/s) anyway?

Patiently you wait for me.
You're so blind.
I thought it couldn't be,
then changed my mind.
Drowning in the endless sea.
Line all those lines.
The traces of your memory,
don't belong with mine.

you've got your finger on the pulse
and in my pocket, yes of course

i'm not sure why Liar is so hated. I love that song. Wish someone had asked Tony Wilson what he thought about it.

I think "Chorus" and "Love To Hate You" were when I really started to "get" Erasure.

like for real, the vocal arrangement on "Chorus" is fucking genius

I absolutely adore "Love To Hate You." I had the same experience re finally "getting" them.

a very fun karaoke number too

amor y odio

The singe for Chorus was great. The Justin Robertson remix of Snappy (I think) is still killer. Wild is probably my favorite album of theirs but Chorus was great too. The one that followed was better than expected. After that, I lost interest. Feels like a thread hijack though, and a bit insulting to the most underrated New Order album. Republic is a great album. Could use more Hooky. I'd love to heard demos or early mixes of the tracks from Republic.

I dunno – lots of these tracks sound created in the studio. I could be wrong.

Part of what distinguishes this album from the rest of their catalogue is its cobbled quality.

um, I kind of think everything they did sounded cobbled together up until Technique

Nah. They've all said repeatedly in interviews that Technique marked the first time they worked in shifts. Before they actually played live.

(not at all suggesting the strength of the music reflects this)

I think i read there was a premix of Republic. Guess Steven Hague had a big role in creating the album, not just producing and mixing.

Yeah – he gets co-writing credit on the bulk of the material.

The artwork for this album and singles is my least favorite of any New Order era.

mm Me Company? i wonder who that was. either way the vibe was stock-photos-from-the-world-of-advertising-that-actually-aren't-real-stock-photos. Saville would have seen all that stuff as Erasure were huge at the time. posters, tv ads, poster campaigns everywhere. Blur's 'Great Escape' era also did the same kind of thing.

x-post I think the relative lack of Hook is also Hague's fault. Supposedly he hated his bass tone.

You know, I've never really scoured the New Order credits (not that there's a lot of information there). Is the band generally credited as an entity? How often are there obviously credited co-writers? I suppose I always though of each producer (name producer, at least) as a tacit ghost writer. Esp. '90s New Order and beyond, the arrangements and songs are so much more ... sophisticated, I suppose, than prime New Order. Not better, mind, just all around slicker. They sound less like the product of a band and more like the product of studio.

Seriously, though, is there any other major band short of the Velvet Underground where the behind the scenes machinery is more mysterious? Like, who does what, who plays what, how much, that sort of thing?

Every album b/w PCL and Technique bears the mysterious "written and produced by New Order" credit. They're pretty good at acknowledging co-writer and co-producers (Arthur Baker, Robie, Stephen Hague).

As far as who plays what: twenty years ago I assumed the guitar parts were split pretty evenly between Bernard and Gillian. But every live clip I've seen has shown how limited Gillian's playing is (she holds it as if she's looking at it for the first time).

At the same time, there sometimes seem to be (uncredited?) backing vox, and the guitar on occasion seems above Barney's abilities as well. I'd love to see some fly on the wall clip of them working (Perfect Kiss video sort of does this, but it still gives no idea where the song actually came from). Do any of them do the programming, or do they farm that out, too?

The primitiveness of the early recordings speaks to the DIY nature of their programming. Morris and Sumner have gone on record explaining how they built their own sequencers.

If their solo careers and interviews are any indication, NO comprises three songwriting entities (Sumner, Hooky, and the Other Two). Bernard writes all the lyrics.

Their mystery is their charm. I love how any one of the three guys could have sung on "Ceremony."

Steve Morris and Barney did most of the programming, from what I understand. Morris was quite a computer enthusiast, and Sumner was pretty interested in the electronic side of the band from an early stage.

Who was me company (the Chorus designer/s) anyway?

er, a design company. had links to One Little Indian, still do Bjork's stuff to this day AFAIK

I went to the hotel that's the setting of the "World" video today, did the walk from the stairs to the beach into the hotel & to the right to the stairs...maybe the goofiest rock pilgrimage ever? But it was gorgeous. I also took a boat ride & got the view from the sea as at the start of the video.

can you feel it?

is the place still in black and white or have they finally updated the environs to color?

euler i salute you

It was strange to see it in color! There were lots of people taking photos of the main door but I doubt anyone else was there because of NO---prob film festival things take place at that door? I confess I know nothing about the festival; I went to Cannes today pretty much only because of this video, & Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" (and I was in the neighborhood already).

You were once the main attraction
But all that's in the apst

the past too

Just wanted to say that just because someone "looks as if they are holding a guitar for the first time" does not mean that they *sound* as if they are holding a guitar for the first time.

And to call Gilbert's guitar playing "limited" in a band where Bernard Sumner is a guitarist takes some nerve. The whole thing of why New Order *work* is the ability to do amazing and unbelievably lovely things, with some very "limited" materials.

I pretty much haven't listened to this album since it came out (mostly because I had it on cassette) but I listened to it *so much* when it was released, that I wonder if it has been coded specifically to that time and place of where I was living and where I was at when it was released. Like, if I listen to this record, am I going to instantly smell the New Town Sewer and taste the odd slightly metallic aftertaste of lithium tablets. I do wonder, because I don't really remember much beyond Regret. (Which is so world-breakingly huge and definitely Imperial Phase New Order that it overshadows everything else in its path.)

(Yay! Another thread for me and Alfred to argue about New Order. This is my all-time favourite aspect of ILM. Also, Daniel Kessler remains hotter than Ezra Eyelash-face whatever his name is. So there.)

Republic is a great album. I can listen to it start to finish and I can't say that for many of their albums. Lyrically it's one of Bernard's best efforts. The demise of Factory and the Hacienda provided enough material for him to write about.

Yeah, I felt kinda cheated when it came out (for being too synth-heavy and Hooky-less, which I all interpreted as NO "selling out" - lol) but the years have been very kind to this album, surprisingly. It captures a late summer elegiac feeling, which these days is how I remember my teenage years.

I like this album better than the comeback.

Next comeback, I should say. Get Ready, which has a couple of my least fave NO songs of all time on it.

Oh! I went looking for Get Ready and discovered that, mysteriously, I *do* seem to own this album (second hand CD from Amoeba? When did that happen?)

Up as far as Young Offender, it is way, way better than I have recently given it credit for being.

I think I was just traumatised by Baywatch or something.

so playing this last week, I'm starting to think this is actually one of their best - "Liar" and "Chemical" are the only throwaways.
And for all the talk of Technique and Ibiza, this to me is the real balearic NO deal. That late-summer sunset vibe is all over the album.