Let's determine the best moment of New Order's The Perfect Kiss on Substance

Oooh. I'm tempted to say the stiff funk bass or Hooky's noodling. Or maybe the space blaster FX and warm pad breakdown? Or maybe Gillian's majestic synth stack? Is that when the disco bassline pops back up before Hook's noodling?

"Bass descends into nothing" is a good way to put it.

I keep clicking but I can't seem to work out a way to vote for ALL OF THEM. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

Huge fan of the double handclap. Also the frogs. Every time I hear the frogs I can just see the 'serious trying not to laugh' face in the video. The second cowbell solo towards the end is magnificent, too. Just every moment of this song is so perfect. Even Barney's useless singing is perfect.

The genius of New Order is that half of the songs are rock songs and the other ones are testing out the presets on their new tech.

The return of the cowbell after the frog chorus is timelessly thrilling.

Ctrl-F Frogs

the whole second half of the song is meteoric

going in totally blind, no memory if I've ever heard this song, and tracked the options while listening. Voted frogs not only for the frogs but that whole minute is fantastic, like Gimbel said with the cowbell coming back, other changes behind it. but also frogs

Goddamnit voted for “bass descends into nothing” because I missed the choice for frogs. But it looks like frogs will win in a walk, anyway. So I don’t regret my choice at all.

the video version

I knew going into this that there was one bit above all the others but I had to listen first - it's Gillian's majestic synth stack 6:12. Oh but wait, when that's joined by the bass riff again at 6.59...

immediately opened the thread, scrolled down to frogs and voted without even thinking, but yeah the 6:12 synth stack is one of the things that can stop me dead just going like "jesus fuckin christ" however many times I hear it

Yeah, the whole sequence of frogs -> second cowbell solo -> slow build -> Gillian's full synth stack is one of the most exciting and dynamic musical builds ever committ3ed to tape. Extended yet economical, not a beat wasted and when the riff finally hits, it's magical and transcendant and honestly feelsl ike my soul leaving my body and ascending to a higher plane of existence.

And then just when you think it can't get any bigger, Barney's windmill guitar chords come in and it's the most galaxy brain YES! YES! YES!

and I couldn't hear the windmill chords until I finally watched the video version.

the video version (and the video) is peak New Order for me

love the gritty synth bludgeons and the stiff funk bass at the beginning. the "bass descending into nothingness" is such a fascinating way to end a song, though. i'm gonna vote for that one to be a little different from the multitude of froggies

wall of synth strings!!

excellent poll, voted majestic synth stack

Video directed by Jonathan Demme!

I vote for the double handclaps. The video is fascinating. It captures just how difficult it was to play synthpop live in the 1980s. Getting everything synchronised, and having to switch from one instrument to the next, none of that was easy. It also illustrates why sampling keyboards were a godsend, because instead of having lots of separate instruments the band could just have a single keyboard loaded with lots of different samples instead.

There's a famous clip of the Pet Shop Boys on the Old Grey Whistle Test a year later with the rhythm track mostly sequenced live with a Fairlight, but they do appear to be playing live:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0mF9soHA8M

Depeche Mode had a similar setup. It still wasn't easy because they had to remember that e.g. the lower octave was the bass, the middle octave was piano, the top octave was strings etc. The video also had a rare shot of the Voyetra 8, a rack-mounted synthesiser with a separate keyboard. Gillian Gilbert appears to only be playing the white notes, presumably because she had to stay in the same key as everybody else.

@seth716
2 months ago
I'm disappointed that I only recently learned, after almost 40 years of loving this song, that the frog sound effect was used because of the metaphor of kissing a frog.

frogs 5:13 is my favorite bible verse

frogs moment was an essential wait-for-it in my clique's dance floor excursions in the 80s.

...just READING that list put every moment in my head perfectly. (Impossible to choose just one.)

I've loved that PSB clip for years -- one of the few times in their history when you see Tennant playing live keyboards.

The return of the cowbell after the frog chorus is timelessly thrilling.

Mm. Relatedly, Dan Selzer, who will doubtless chime in at some point directly, said just now "Missing 5:43 freestyle italo-bassline."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW4JDcmWoAw_1sg?format=jpg&name=large

This is such an unfair poll! My favorite moment (triumphant return of the bass riff at 6:48) not included, so voting for the synth stack, but it could be most of these. I love the italo bass line too, and how it signals that frog fun time is over and it's time to get "serious".

In sharing this list on FB, I can scientifically say that the runaway post in my responses, to quote one of them directly: "IT'S OBVIOUSLY THE FUCKING FROGS"

what do I get out of this?

it signals that frog fun time is over and it's time to get "serious".

Lol yes perfect description

no correct answer obv but I think I have to go for “space blaster fx and warm pad breakdown”

I still remember listening to this song for the first time and that is the exact moment i started to go from “wow cool song” to “omg am i experiencing some kind of synaesthesia”

The synth stack and noodling really should be together. When they crash in, it's like a tsunami making landfall.

A suggestion elsewhere based on the video: "It’s when Peter Hook starts playing the bass with a pick in his mouth, looking like he just walked in from a Blade Runner cosplay event"

In sharing this list on FB, I can scientifically say that the runaway post in my responses, to quote one of them directly: "IT'S OBVIOUSLY THE FUCKING FROGS"

I was worried when making the poll that that would be the overwhelming opinion, so I'm happy to see several answers being discussed. Definitely I missed including the 2nd cowbell part, mea culpa

Am I making this up, or did they show this video at screenings of Stop Making Sense?

The timing is off by a couple of months, but maybe they added it after Stop had been in theaters for a while.

I voted Hooky noodling, but thought hard about going with cowbell/percussion

_@seth716
2 months ago
I'm disappointed that I only recently learned, after almost 40 years of loving this song, that the frog sound effect was used because of the metaphor of kissing a frog._

How'd the hell I miss this poll til now? Last three minutes of the full nine-minute 12" are my favourite moment in New Order's, possibly anyone's*, body of work

*Certainly feels that way when I listen to it, so

I voted for when the title turns up.

This was the first time the title was part of the lyric, wasn't it? (Ok, Confusion, but that was more the backing...)

Frogs.

Honestly, how many great records have a chorus of actual frogs in it?

the frogs are cool but thread may be overrating them a tad

I'm between these--

arpeggiated synth bass fades in 0:50
bass riff and wall of synth strings 1:17
strings jump an octave 1:24

If this song had been recorded with 2025 technology, and I was in charge, I admit I'd have nudged the "was deranged" vocal to the correct key, but that's just nitpicking. Otherwise, a perfect song

didn't mean to make a half-assed "tadpole" pun up there

descending bass at the end, sorta unbelievable that Hooky managed to come up with an ending for this song that didn't sound like an anticlimax

A few months back I found myself rewatching the video repeatedly, trying to figure out what makes it so spectacular. It’s better than most other videos of studio performances because it enriches the song to realize all these sounds can be made by four people. But then watching NO live footage of the era isn’t as special, even if it can be as fascinating. So there’s the beauty of the direction and production values, yet also it’s such a happy coincidence Demme came in for a song that is more complex than it sounds, with a stoic band that lets the playing speak for itself. Maybe not their greatest track but the way the vid all comes together it might be their best moment

Also: the video's a film, therefore we're not watching it in "real" time.

xpost The great Muppet single "Disco Frog" has frogs.

Did the internet ever figure out who the guy in the doorway is?

iirc it's the ghost of Ian Curtis

OK, after a full listen it was a tie between "slappy syncopated guitar and punctuating bell 2:16" and "gritty synth bludgeons in 4:13", and I went with the latter.

Important frog info from board vet donut bitch: “My favorite trivia tidbit around the frogs in the “Perfect Kiss” bridge is that they were co-recorded in Santa Cruz, CA by Greg Freeman, later of Lowdown Studios in SF and bassist of the bands The Call and Pell Mell.”

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Etherwave: I was just thinking about the extent to which the synthy New Wave bands had at their core at least the ghost of the idea of a four-piece rock band playing live rock.

Even if the bleepy bloopy instrumentation on the records was all straight outta Fairlight, when they went on the teevee they tended to set up not much differently than the Beatles. Devo, Flock of Seagulls, Human League, Duran and Depeche. JD/NO and the Cure for obvious reasons.

The lone keyboard genius who plays everything (Thomas Dolby, Howard Jones) stood out as exceptions.

See, to me, I see the dividing line in a different place. I remember 80s new wave being a mixture of 2 different things:
-postpunk bands who added synth elements (New Order, Duran, Flock of Seagulls)
-synth duos consisting of a charismatic frontperson singer and a synth boffin or 2 (Suicide, Cabaret Voltaire, Soft Cell, anything Vince Clarke was involved in)

So it's weird to me, to see PSB, who were very firmly in the 'charismatic singer and synth boffin' group, bouncing around and performing keyboard riffs like Proper Musicians.

Depeche Mode, it feels to me, spent much of the first decade and a half of their career, assigned to the 'charismatic singer and synth boffin' group because they couldn't shake the association that Vince Clarke gave them: 3 guys with keyboards / drum machines and a gyrating singer. When they clearly thought of themselves and wanted to be a 'rock band with synth elements'. Even after they added live drums and the banging of sheet metal to their performance, they were still seen as 'synth boffin and sexy singer' and really struggled to escape that image.

While New Order had established themselves so totally as Rawk Band with their Joy Division heritage, that they could literally record a song with no live drums at all, and their drummer standing there triggering frog samples - and still be seen as 'proper postpunk band with synth elements'.

Cabaret Voltaire really belong in the first category.

Remind me again who their live drummer was?

Still a post punk band (guitar/bass/keyboards) who added synth elements, they hardly used synths at all till ca. 1982.

My girlfriend bought me this collection I think so she had something to listen to when she came over. Turned out I loved it as well. Voted "HAVE some fun"

It's a stretch to say Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were "bouncing around" lol

In that specific Old Grey Whistle Test performance, compared to their usual stage presence? Are you joking? I've never seen them so animate.

Oh, I guess you mean they moved.

Cabaret Voltaire’s live drummer was usually Alan Fish.

Thanks! OK, then I will mentally reassign them to the 'postpunk band with synth elements'. Unfortunately this board does not have an edit post function so I can't correct the list

But feel free to add better examples of boffin / singer synth duos if you can think of any

Yello and Telex.

... and Human League of course.

Blancmange

Sparks circa No1 in Heaven

Sparks arguably invented it if you want to assume Silver Apples had little impact (sadly true) and Suicide where not “pop”, although they clearly had influence in that realm, esp as most of those synth duos and the like developed out of more experimental post punk projects, see Soft Cell and Foetus doing Ghost Rider…or Paul Haig doing the same.

There's a part of me that wants to say that the Synth Duo didn't develop out of experimental music. But rather out of the classic lounge combo of singer plus accompanist. I feel like it's a much shorter leap from a lounge singer with an accompanist using one of those Bontempi style organs with chord buttons and preprogrammed rhythms. Which might explain why synth duos were held in contempt and viewed as somehow 'not proper music' by rockist music press?

I think synth duos were held in contempt because it didn’t look like anybody was playing a real instrument. A lineage to lounge may exist, but history and discographies show they all came out post-punk/new wave.

Other examples include Eurythmics, Ph.D, Naked Eyes, Nitzer Ebb, Blue Mercedes, Climie Fisher and Underworld. If you want to expand it to trios there's Bronski Beat, One Dove and Venus Hum.

To Dan - if you're tracing the lineage back to Sparks (who actually were a 'Proper Band' rather than a synth duo; and vastly predated new wave or punk) I feel like you have to admit the camp lounge element is there.

Silver Apples had a synth and were a duo, yet were not a Synth Duo because they had a drummer rather than a frontperson singer. Which got me thinking about DAF, who were definitely a trope-definer in the Synth Duo genre. But again, defying the trope by having a live drummer with the sexy gyrating singer. (Because they started as a full postpunk band, and stripped back the lineup to become a duo)

Do we need a synth duo thread to hash this out?

Sparks only works during their Moroder period. Suicide are the obvious forerunners, even if they weren't pop ... though sometimes they were, of course!

Suicide and DAF are definitely the earliest forerunners of the Synth Duo that I can think of - which is funny given the aggro reputation / stage presence of both bands. Where 'synth duo' definitely has the connotation of being a bit soft

I feel like that was why the aforementioned Soft Cell and Paul Haig both covered Suicide. Probably sick and tired of being called lightweight by the rockist press.

This thread that was awesome just pressed the awesomeness accelerator, thanks Etherwave.

You're right that I was missing the sexy singer / synth boffin duo in my taxonomy. Also the first and most iconic one in my memory has to be Eurythmics.

My rockist childhood brain seeing one guy with a typewriter-thingy apparently making all the sounds struck me as revelatory.

Especially once we started seeing Casiotone keyboards available commercially, with their buttons for preset sounds like "guitar" and "clarinet". I was like nine years old and remember thinking, "gee, why aren't all records made that way?" Little did I know how simultaneously wrong AND right that was. Yes you could make a record with a Casio from Toys R Us, no it would not be a good record.

I dunno, Trio's "Da Da Da" is pretty cool!

Yeah this seems like a skills issue to me haha!

Sleng Teng rhythm and the Casiotone MT-40 would also argue with that

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

Added bonus that it was meant to sound like David Bowie's Hang on to Yourself.

I actually had that Casio when it was new. Wish I still did.

I had the SK-1 where you could make stupid burp noises and pitch them up and down

Also hexagonal orange drum pads for boomp tish boomp tish

Added bonus that it was meant to sound like David Bowie's Hang on to Yourself.

I actually had that Casio when it was new. Wish I still did.

Wait what

Re: hang on to yourself

After the worldwide success of Sleng Teng many speculated as to the ultimate source of the "rock" preset.
[...] In 2015 Okuda was quoted as saying the source was a track on an unnamed 1970s British rock album.[17] This was later speculated to be the intro to David Bowie's "Hang On to Yourself"
[...] However, responding to the same question in 2022, Okuda said, “I did use to listen to a lot of British rock, so I’m sure there must have been songs that influenced me. But really, the bassline was something I came up with myself. It wasn’t based on any other tune.”[19]

i'm sticking with the bowie story, it's more fun.

You're right that I was missing the sexy singer / synth boffin duo in my taxonomy. Also the first and most iconic one in my memory has to be Eurythmics.

It certainly rules out OMD.

and David Stewart wasn't much of a synth boffin (Lennox played most of the keyboards/synths).

what the hell did he do then

He was very good at looking impassive in photos and videos.

Plenty! He played guitar, noodled a bit on synths, arranged and wrote half the music.

Stewart was way too busy in videos. He couldn't stop mugging!

https://unobtainium13.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/vlcsnap-2017-07-22-16h53m21s400.png

Don't come around here, you bore

I always forget early Eurythmics was produced by Conny Plank.

with Jaki on drums!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I voted for "Gillian's majestic synth stack 6:12", however:

1) I'm content with this outcome; other than that

2) I'm sad that neither "stiff funk bass 0:29" nor "cheeky reference to masturbation? 2:56" got a vote.

Aw, now I wish I'd voted for brake squeal and car crash. But I went with my heart and voted 'bass riff and wall of synth strings' because that exact moment crystalises the whole of the New Order sound for me!

why dont' t more songs have frog in them

stiff funk bass was my second choice. need a ranked choice system for a song like this

Yeah the funk bass is pretty high up for me too, a brilliant red herring. Shame it didn't get a vote though I'm impressed how few choices got no votes

certainly no disrespect intended to Snare Enters or Cheeky Reference to Masturbation in my frogs vote

for some reason I had thought this was agogo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRfPMnAtX5M