A question to Joy Division fans - what do you really think of New Order?

I went off New Order after their second album, and apart from the occasional single, never rrated them afterwards. It wasn't their fault, they just happened to lose an irreplaceable frontman.

 

Me, for one. Count me in the "love 'em both" crowd. Two very different bands, even though yeah, there's some overlap in the earliest New Order stuff. In general I'm not a fan of most other artists who have a style similar to New Order, but it's their music I like, not the fact that they're the successors to Joy Division.

 

Like Comparing Evil's Toy to Toy

 

They're different bands that serve different functions. There is room for both in my world.

 

I like them both. New Order took what was beautiful about the music at the end of Closer, namely 'the Eternal' and 'Decades' and then lightened the palette. They did it organically, seamlessly and very elegantly. Who knows what would have happened had Curtis continued, but I can't imagine they could or would have just returned to remaking Unknown Pleasures ad infinitum. Amazing as Joy Division were, I think New Order became a much more interesting proposition musically. 'Bizarre Love Triangle', 'Perfect Kiss' and 'Thieves Like Us' are gorgeous pop songs. To go in a dance-oriented direction was a stroke of genius, light out of darkness. They couldn't maintain their early creativity but I'm glad they went in the direction they did.

 

Love Joy Division. Love New order up to and including Republic.

New Order was a true extension from Joy Division.
Movement is like a JD album.
PC&L is a natural progression with more synths,
Lowlife and Brotherhood they were easily the most innovative and best band in the world, Technique still has the edge and conviction
Republic is excellent but the start of the downward trend where innovation started to take 2nd place.

They probably should have retired after Republic and their NO career would have been even more perfect than JD.

 

I like the direction they took with "Everything Gone Green" and Power, Lies And Corruption. Long instrumental grooves, sparse lyrics. After that, I lost interest.

 

This pretty much sums it up for me. I love them both but given the choice, would take the New Order of 1980-89 to a Desert Island. Yes, the lyrics are often a bit lame (though their often cryptic nature appealed to me hugely back then and still does to this day) but the music very often is "gorgeous", with lovely long synth passages underpinned by "that" bass - especially on LowLife and Brotherhood, which I think were their peak album-wise. With hindsight, they were an important part of the musical path I followed from the my first love for the Beatles to my ultimate destination as a fully-fledged Prog fan!

To the songs mentioned above - and the other 12" singles, which I snapped up gleefully as each was released - I'd add tunes like All Day Long, Sunrise, Sooner than You Think and Vanishing Point; with their long, sweeping and majestic instrumental passages. They still pound forcefully and magically out of my speakers some 30 years later.

As earlier posters have mentioned, Movement is somewhat of a transitional album between Joy Division and the "true" New Order. I think the production is subdued and "grey" compared with the bright colours that followed, and also the live performances of the time, but it's tone appealed greatly to my angsty teenage psyche and still holds a very dear place in my musical heart.

Side 2 of Closer is also one of my all-time favourite album sides - stunning words and sounds,set apart in a desperate world of its own.

 

I very much agree. Now I may be mistaken in this but I believe that in the U.S. it wasn't released until later, rather than as the first New Order release,
so that the progression would be missed. Am I mistaken in this? Now personally, I happened on it when it first came out as an import and my response
was as you say, that it was a natural progression from Joy Division. I loved it then and still do.

 

Joy Division are titanic; but for me NO are el blando.

 

I love them both to be honest and for different reasons.
Listening to Joy Division coincided with my early university years and accompanied (added to? Lol) a generalised introverted depressive phase I was going through, something about their music just resonated with me and my life at the time. Thankfully I can still listed to them now and still love them.
As others have said I feel that there is a progression from Closer to the early New Order albums that may still have happened if Ian hadn't passed away. Certainly the lyrics and singing would have been different! I've never been into dance music but there is something about New Order that just gets me and I find myself regularly putting one of their albums on and that includes the lastest ones. Strangely I have always considered their albums as "growers". They've one of the few bands I will be prepared to continue to listen to a new album even if at first I think it's shyte. They have an unexplainable crazy knack of winning me around!

 

Two aspects of the same thing. For those of us who listened to the records as they came out, each record seemed like a natural development on what went before - it was (mostly) the same musicians. It wasn't until True Faith that I think they plateaued and, as someone posted above, started reshuffling the pack rather than innovating.

 

NEW ORDER GOING DUB BECAUSE OF IAN CURTIS?? YES!

The most odd song of the musical career of New Order is the song 'Turn the Heater On', a cover (out of 1982) of the reggae musician Keith Hudson. This song is ONLY TO GET as John Peel session and never being put at one of the compilations of New Order. This was also the last song of New Order INSPIRED BY IAN CURTIS because it was meant as a musical tribute to him while that song was one of Curtis' favourites (yes, Curtis was, as many musicians of the post-punk scene, a reggae fan!). And, as fan of both reggae/dub and JD/NO, it I have to say its done very well.... Always loved this remarkable cover!

I'm sometimes even dreaming about a third album of Joy Division which would be totally dub inspired.... Well, 'Dreams Never End', as a certain band wrote.
Enjoy:

 

Get Power, Corruption & Lies LP, first. It will tell you more than any compilation. After Low-Life, they got boring

 

They were intellectually honest and they changed their name from Joy Division to New Order once their frontman died, so I have respect for them. But I am not impressed with what I heard.

 

Your Bono comparison, is way off.

Bono is a bone.

 

On the one side NO did what hardly any band has done in surviving the death/leaving of their very essential front man and having a great career, producing some wonderful records in the process (nowhere near the Doors comparison IMO).

They established themselves as one of the most interesting and enjoyable bands of the 80's - a prospect which in 1980 must have seen impossible.

Records like the amazing Blue Monday, groundbreaking at the time, stuff like Temptation, Low-Life, etc. Some great records in their catalogue.

Even when most bands really go off the boil after 6-8 years they didn't, they still made worthwhile records like Technique, which is a great pop album.

Remember these were the same musicians who created all that, IMO, groundbreaking music for JD, and each one is very talented in their own way.

Having said all that I do prefer JD much more, their music is at a level very few have ever reached, so NO will always seem a lesser band, and some of their stuff I do find a little lightweight. I don't really consider Bernard a great singer or lyricist, their stuff works best maybe when the track relies more on the music side.

If you love JD then you should own the best of the NO stuff.

 

Scorecard : JD 10 NO 5

 

Love them both equally .
Also Electronic as well.

 

PCL is the peak for me, but the pre-PCL singles like "Everythings Gone Green", "Possession" and "Temptation" are fabulous as well and really show how the band was able to evolve from Movement.

All the transitional material is on the bonus disc to Movement, but back in the day the 1981/1982 FACTUS 8 EP nicely captured it:



Not sure what to say if this does not appeal to some of the JD fans.

 

I have never liked them. Bernard's dull vocals, the absence of guitars, the absence of Ian (his force, voice, texts).

 

Love them both, but Joy Division clearly wins in any competition.

Had New Order stopped after Brotherhood they would have ended perfectly.

 

Good band, JD was a great band. But I'll still take it---usually when the great bands go they fall further than that.

 

Love both bands. JD might be my favorite band of all time but like most things that are special to me I don't put them on as often as I used to. I probably listen to New Order a lot more than JD these days.