POLLS Even Here: New Order '80s Studio Albums Poll

today it's Power, Corruption & Lies. i have probably played Low-Life the most with Technique being the late bloomer.

so it goes:

1. Power, Corruption & Lies
2. Technique
3. Low-Life
4. Brotherhood
5. Movement

1. Power, Corruption & Lies
2. Movement
3. Technique
4. Low-Life
5. Brotherhood

Technique
Brotherhood
Low-Life
PCL
Movement

man, having this thread and other NO threads and the Bimble thread on SNA is almost too much. this poll is dedicated to you, bimble.

Technique
Low-Life
Power...
Movement
Brotherhood

Technique
Low Life
PC&L
Brotherhood
Movement

I love them all though.

I'm surprised there aren't any ridiculous options for album covers just to ruin the vote.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/New_Order_Movement_Cover.jpghttp://pixhost.info/avaxhome/a6/81/000981a6_medium.jpeghttp://images.uulyrics.com/cover/n/new-order/album-low-life.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/NOBrotherhood.jpghttp://farm1.static.flickr.com/37/74401638_6bbbe89d5a.jpg

PC&L's cover wins by far, 3-way tie in the middle for Movement, Low-Life and Technique, and then Brotherhood in last place.

Low Life really is special with the multiple inserts and velum paper. I have a copy on vinyl that has a full velum sheet over instead of just the strip. Technique looks most like the album sounds. Movement and PC&L are rip-offs. The original metallic Brotherhood is really cool.

Sleeves:

Low Life (combined CD w/ inserts + vinyl with velum
Technique (for representing the sound of the album)
Brotherhood
Movement (I prefer the white/burgundy combination)
PC&L (never got the love for what is a cropped photo of someone's painting)

The PC&L color wheel and inner sleeve are magical though.

NEW ORDER
TECHNIQUE
Factory

It begins. It thumps with glee, it swirls with lackadaisical
intensity. "You're much too young to be a part of me, you're much too
young to get a hold on me." And never have veterans sounded so
brilliantly arrogant, masters so eager. Jesus. "Technique" is so
effortlessly GREAT, so languidly heroic, so vibrant and thrilling
despite itself, that one wishes one could weep.
As the Austrian philosopher Rose Royce once commented: "I'm in love
(and I love the feeling)." That's what this is like. I first hear it on
a train from Waterloo and as the power stations and football pitches
fly past, I want to get out and race the train to the sound of this
perfect, perfect music. New Order know that the times throw a
malfunctioning grey electric blanket over our emotion, but also that
the slightest wriggle could be the one to turn it on again. They do
this wriggle repeatedly, on every jauntily fatigued song, like they've
done it many times before. Only on "Technique", they do it more
skilfully and confidently than ever. This leads not to plushness or
sumptuousness, but to a tumbling pumping river of their strengths,
their weaknesses, their glib grandeur. Never have New Order sounded so
little like people from Manchester, so much like gods.
It's clear by now that, though they seem able to clean up in any
medium, there are two bas(s)ic New Order modes of transportation - the
pop one which is like The Cure ripping off New Order, and the disco one
which is like Shannon ripping off New Order. Both are severally
represented here without any falling between two stools. Their feel is
whisker-fine, their surges are princely.
Albrecht's fragmented and victimised, but resilient, paper-mache
poetry hauls itself up for what stings like one final summation of the
shameful agonies of being male, of being prey to love and lust with
equal sincerity/severity. Of acknowledging a bewildering sense of
futility but still for some reason writing things down. When I say "male"
I don't mean to imply that a "female" couldn't have written these
simple yearnings and elegies, but that she wouldn't have started from
the same angle. Undoubtedly "Technique" is inspired by a vulnerable,
peculiarly boyish, somewhat petulant romanticism. from start to finish,
from (heart on) sleeve (a cherub) to beaty monster inside. "I can't
find you, I can't find my peace of mind without you."
As ever New Order temper Barney's pseudo-metaphysical couplets with a
deceptive flippancy. (this is what always made them better and deeper
than Joy Division.) "Fine Time " bubbles in, fascistically and
facetiously making you dance. "Sophisticated lady, you got style and
you got class, but most of all..." We strain to hear the punchline. We
want to hear the punchline. We need to hear the punchline. "...Love
technique." Ah, that'll be the title then. I am fully prepared to
believe the lamb bleating at the end of this track is Christ
applauding.
From then on it's irresistible, New Order marching through eight
effervescing asphalt plains. There isn't a sub-GREAT moment to be
found. When the majestic swooning "Run" "takes it down" you know that
if the modernist ensemble come rushing back in with all swooshes
blazing before the song fades, you'll start giggling at how marvellous
all this is getting. They do. You do. you're sold. you're buying.
You're coming out for spring.
"All The Way" is gently awesome, precision guitars and rhythms
levitating Albrecht's camp grandiloquence: "It takes years to find the
nerve to be apart from what you've done, to find the truth inside
yourself and not depend on anyone." There are many confessionals
regarding strain, age, doubt, determination. "Love Less" and the
probable next single "Round And Round" (a shimmering white funk
whirlwind, if whirlwinds can shimmer, which I'm sure they can) build an
apposite bridge between sentiment and dynamism. The latter is again
evocative of travel, of flirting with life's hugeness. New Order are
all about those minutes when you feel like a winning underdog and you
knew all along you could do it.
Of course, there's some miserablism. The beautiful (no other word)
"Vanishing Point" and "Dream Attack" allow the lights up at the end of
the party and, well, things are really quite manageable. They don't get
morose. They get serene. Authentically. Before this there's a snarling
"Guilty Partner", a bloodrush rather self-effacingly called "Mr Disco",
and the aforementioned and utterly regal "Run", possibly their most
poised and potent sculpure since "Thieves like Us". Play it loud and
obsessive.
Ultimately New Order are a subjective experience. A hundred lines
here provoke productive self-examination and the hygiene of the sound
encourages more anima projections than "La Boheme". I'm not being
indulgent here (not by my standards) but you should be when you listen
to it. And it swings, did I say it swings?
"My life ain't no holiday, I've ben through the point of no return.
I've seen what the man can do, I've seen all the hate of a woman too."
Yes Bernard, we're all growing up. England's finest reluctant pop poet.
I mean it. When he hits menopause there'll be a hell of a novel in this
man. Meanwhile, the propulsion of the grooves is crisper than ice, more
active than anarchy, swaggering on crutches.
When New Order are this GREAT, this effortlessly, the rest might as
well go home and peel onions or something. "Technique" is the state of
the embers of the Eighties, mystique and mistakes merging, kissed by
the ruby lips of God.
"Technique" is a rare and ravishing triumph.
CHRIS ROBERTS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjpCr8wh6zE

.. my fave pop album ever bar none. possibly my fave albunm ever in fact.

man..

1. Low-Life - fave album of all time
2. Brotherhood - fastest; contains their greatest song, "All Day Long"
3. Power, Corruption & Lies - gets the edge over #4 cuz the filler speeds by, save for the DOA "We All Stand"
4. Technique - not grand/pretentious enough; too...can it be?...pop; masterpieces = "Vanishing Point" and "Fine Time"
5. Movement - left off 'Bowel' from the title; sorry I just don't get this one

Technique is my favorite album by anyone.

1. Low Life
2. Technique
3. Power, Corruption & Lies
4. Brotherhood
5. Movement

Though having watched the advert for Technique above I'm now tempted to switch my top 2.

FYI, I'm gonna tally up the rankings afterwards to get a true idea about the order of things. so lurkers, speak up! make your vote count!

1. Low-life
2. Power, Corruption and Lies
3. Technique
4. Brotherhood
5. Movement

Movement = Power, Corruption and Lies > Low Life > Brotherhood > Technique

Voted Movement because it won't get much love.

Movement and Techique always get love (technique)!

1. Technique
2. Power, Corruption and Lies
3. Low-life
4. Movement
5. Brotherhood

Technique might be my favourite album of the '80s, all told.

1.Technique
2.Low-life
3.Power, Corruption and Lies
4.Brotherhood
5.Movement

New Order is one of my favorite bands (lol ILMer, right?), high on my last.fm all-times, etc., but I don't think any of their album-albums are masterpieces (Substance, on the other hand,...).

That being said, I'd rate the albums being polled here as follows.

1. Low-Life
2. Technique
3. Power, Corruption & Lies
4. Brotherhood
5. Movement

I agree with what Scott said re. the singles on Low-Life (not enough Substance) but "Love Vigilantes" is a danceable solution to warmonger revolution, "Elegia" is a joyful division of the album into halves, "Sunrise" is kinda the ultimate NO album track, and "Face Up" is great, come on; I love it when Bernard hoots & hollers (like on "Age of Consent" too, which along with "Leave Me Alone" elevate PCL over Brotherhood).

I want to like Technique more than I do & I probably would have if I'd heard it before the first Electronic album but I didn't & so I always compare it unfavorably to that album, which mines similar emotional space but strikes much deeper ore. "Round and Round" is an ace single though.

I don't really get Movement; I like JD at their poppiest rather than their sludgiest & Movement sticks mostly to the latter, although "Dreams Never End" is a monster & has gotten me to listen through the album many times despite my best intentions.

Love Vigilantes" is a danceable solution to warmonger revolution

Well put.

I too prefer the first Electronic album to Technique: its key is Sumner's singing, his best to date.

i looked up the one with bizarre love triangle and voted for that

Technique is my favorite album by anyone.

I too prefer the first Electronic album to Technique: its key is Sumner's singing, his best to date.

One of these is a lie then...

Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself.

Voted Low-Life, really tough though.

1. Low-Life
2. Power Corruption & Lies
3. Brotherhood
4. Movement
5. Technique

Low-Life was the first of their albums I owned, after someone dubbed me a cassette copy of Substance 1987. I bought Movement next and hated it, but then they released Technique and that was fucking awesome. Still, this is my ranking (with, honestly, Substance outranking all of 'em just because that's what I heard first):

1. Power, Corruption & Lies
2. Technique
3. Low-Life
4. Brotherhood
5. Movement

Power C&L

with, honestly, Substance outranking all of 'em just because that's what I heard first

But that would also be true for me.

I hate the remixes on Substance, but I didn't realize it until I heard the originals on the albums/singles.

1. pc&l
2. movement
3. low-life
4. brotherhood
5. technique

I love the substance mix of "temptation" so much. It's overcooked and messier than the original, but so exuberant

I'd say "Low Life".

my go:

1. Power, Corruption & Lies - too huge
2. Technique - exc+
3. Low-Life - for "Love Vigilantes", one of the the best "first track" openers ever?
4. Brotherhood - don't know it
5. Movement - had it,didn't like it.

In what way is the 87 mix of Temptation messier than the original? That's the exact opposite way I hear them.

i dunno, to me it sounds like they took the original and added a shit ton of layers to it? (and new vocals, obv)

these albums gave me so much pleasure in the 80s I can't even begin to judge, it's all tied up in a jumble of memories, dreams and meh, nostalgia

anyway...

1. power corruption & lies
2. low-life
3. movement
4. brotherhood
5. technique

but my favorite by this crew will always be the eternal 1981-1982 New Order (EP) perfection

1. Power, Corruption & Lies
2. Technique
3. Low-Life
4. Brotherhood
5. Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2g9UJdH4MM

Not quite sure I understand all the anti-movement sentiment. It's their best by far.

The best tracks they wrote after Joy Division but before PC&L were not on Movement. Ceremony, Procession, Hurt, Temptation, Everything's Gone Green, Cries and Whispers, Mesh. Each of those tracks beats everything on Movement.

Ceremony & Procession & possibly Temptation were all written as Joy Division, no?

not voting in this poll, I kinda got off the bus after Low Life - heard & enjoyed Brotherhood but my interests had gone elsewhere by then, didn't really pay any attention again until Republic - finally heard & like Technique in I think '95 but never really spent a whole lotta time with it

Pretty sure only "Ceremony" and "In a Lonely Place" were written with Curtis intended as singer. Everything else came after, including "Procession" and "Temptation."

cool, writing down one vote for 'brotherhood' courtesy of aerosmith

1. Movement (favorite album of all time)
2. Power Corruption & Lies
3. Low-Life
4. Technique
5. Brotherhood

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that how much you like Movement is proportional to how into Martin Hannett you are.

this was the most enjoyable & rethink-provoking poll in ages. thanx dayo

hah np! wish more lurkers would have come out and given rankings. also if EZ Snappin had given the split to PC&L we would have had a tie for first.

Wait what are these other rankings? Where are the points coming from? And why don't people like freakin' Brotherhood? Not goth enough? Too fast?

FYI, I'm gonna tally up the rankings afterwards to get a true idea about the order of things. so lurkers, speak up! make your vote count!

― br8080 (dayo), Saturday, April 30, 2011 7:46 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

Ah! I didn't see that! That's hilarious! You're craaaaaazy, dayo! xoxoxo

that is really all I could have hoped for from Movement tbh

I wish everyone loved that album like I do

movement? more like SNOOZEMENT amirite

yourRONG

I'm with you DJP. I said Movement wasn't going to get much love but Alfred didn't believe me.

yourRITE, dayo

all of you have broken ears and keep your souls locked away in boxes made of leprechaun bones

or we just think goth is mostly stupid, undanceable caca

I will say that movement is a better goth album than anything the cure ever did

(oooohhhhhh)

It is!

keep your souls locked away in boxes made of leprechaun bones

Would love to have a box like this.

If you think goth music is undanceable, you can't dance

Also if you think Movement is a goth album, you don't know what goth is.

goth is for sad people

goth isn't sad, goth is angry

So does that mean we can dance to Movement, or we can't?

I can dance to Movement but not every track on it is a dance track

all goth tracks are dance tracks but some dance tracks are not goth tracks yet some tracks are goth and dance tracks and other tracks are dance tracks and not goth tracks

ALWAYS SHOULD BE SOMEONE YOU REALLY LOVE

oh sorry wrong band

is the dude on the right goth?

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk39/vallejo33/bugs1.jpg

"Neeh, what's up goth?"

No, he's clearly showing too much enthusiasm to be goth.

I dunno, he looks like he's asking Bugs to sing "This Corrosion" to him.

I want to know what goth is. I want you to show me.

GOTHIK 4 LIFE, BITCH

Let's rank and annotate the order of New Order's best, hm?.

probably a proper ranking though i might move PCL higher, and i can't really argue except on the finer points and reasons since i'm a fan of pretty much all their work to varying degrees. i even like the Iggy Pop one from Music Complete.

You know what? I listened to Movement for the first time in 30 years and it's a fine album!

Opinion revised.

Might strug through the JD ones next!

Love's got this thread in motion!

Alfred OTM about Power, Corruption and Lies - the highlights are stunning, but I find Brotherhood a better start-to-finish listen, and I think it would be higher regarded if people didn't find the muddy sound alienating. Having said that, it's one of those albums that really does sound better on vinyl, if only because all CD masters of it have been gash.

No mentions of Get Ready or either of the Sirens sets, Alfred?

I like them!

But not enough to include?

Alfred, I've just noticed you've got two albums as #6!

Get Ready and Waiting for the Sirens Call aren't really albums that I feel like playing from start to finish. There's some very good stuff on both, though. There's one or two nice things on Lost Sirens too. I'll have to try condensing the Sirens albums down to 8 or 9 tracks - I'm sure there's a great 40 minute LP there.

I loved 'Waiting...' although it's squarely in dad rock territory.

These days I take Siren over Get Ready for its creamy mix.

Alfred, I've just noticed you've got two albums as #6!

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican),

fixed! Thanks.`

The title track of Waiting always raises a lump in my throat, it's almost embarrassing. I really wish they'd ended with that, Music Complete has never clicked for me.

TU-TTI.
FRU-TTI.

Seeing them tonight, first time. I can hardly believe it.

My 2016 show was more fun than it had a right to be, and they played almost the entirety of the new album.

I'll give it another listen before tonight. Fingers crossed for "Mr Disco," though I'll be happy with anything.

Really good show last night. High points: "Your Silent Face," and encore of three Joy Division songs (including, unexpectedly, "Decades"). Low points: back-to-back "Superheated" and "Tutti Frutti" was a reeeally draggy stretch (other new stuff sounded great) and "Vanishing Point," a favorite, just didn't sound right, too many parts lost in the mix.

Dunno if there's a dedicated "PC&L" thread. I'm sure there is but I'm a few drinks in and too lazy to dig. Had no idea there was a new remaster with extras. Has anyone heard it/got it? Verdict?

not as much of a buffet of interesting unreleased stuff as the Movement set was, but I ordered it anyway

I'm Not the Kind That Needs to Tell You Just What I Want to Do: New Order, "Power, Corruption and Lies" Poll
i'm trying to like power, corruption and lies. tell me why you like it. thankyou

The work in progress versions of blue Monday and thieves like us are pretty special