Start Here

This site represents a plan to review every core track ever released by New Order; from Ceremony to Superheated (and hopefully beyond). This may take some time!

This is a personal journey to revisit every song released by a band that has been of such magnificent influence*… to explore each track’s history and context, and to share some subjective opinion. Maybe I’ll then be able to better answer the question: “What are New Order’s ‘best’ tracks?”

I’m purposefully limiting the selection to the ‘core tracks’ as initially first released; i.e no remixes, re-recordings, live performances, or outtakes; with album versions in preference to single edits, and including any important compilation tracks.

Here’s the currently planned list:

Ceremony, In A Lonely Place, Dreams Never End, Truth, Senses, Chosen Time, ICB, The Him, Doubts Even Here, Denial, Procession, Everything’s Gone Green, Cries and Whispers, Mesh, Temptation, Hurt, Turn The Heater On, Too Late, Ode To Joy, Rocking Carol, Blue Monday, Age Of Consent, We All Stand, The Village, 5-8-6, Your Silent Face, Ultraviolence, Ecstasy, Leave Me Alone, Confusion, Thieves Like Us, Lonesome Tonight, Murder, Love Vigilantes, The Perfect Kiss, This Time Of Night, Sunrise, Elegia, Sooner Than You Think, Subculture, Face Up, Shellshock, State Of The Nation, Paradise, Weirdo, As It Is When It Was, Broken Promise, Way Of Life, Bizarre Love Triangle, All Day Long, Angel Dust, Every Little Counts, True Faith, 1963, Salvation Theme, Touched By The Hand Of God, Let’s Go, Sputnik, Skullcrusher, Fine Time, Don’t Do It, All The Way, Love Less, Round & Round, Best & Marsh, Guilty Partner, Run, MTO, Mr Disco, Vanishing Point, Dream Attack, Happy One, World In Motion, Regret, World, Ruined In A Day, Vicious Circle, Spooky, Everyone Everywhere, Young Offender, Liar, Chemical, Times Change, Special, Avalanche, Brutal, Crystal, Behind Closed Doors, 60 Miles An Hour, Sabotage, Turn My Way, Vicious Streak, Primitive Notion, Slow Jam, Rock The Shack, Someone Like You, Close Range, Run Wild, Here To Stay, Player In The League, Such A Good Thing, Soundtrack, Who’s Joe?, Hey Now What You Doing, Waiting For The Sirens’ Call, Krafty, I Told You So, Morning Night & Day, Dracula’s Castle, Jetstream, Guilt Is A Useless Emotion, Turn, Working Overtime, Vietnam, I’ll Stay with You, Sugarcane, Recoil, Californian Grass, Hellbent, Shake It Up, I’ve Got a Feeling, Exit, Hypnosis, Get Out, Restless, Singularity, Plastic, Tutti Frutti, People on the High Line, Stray Dog, Academic, Nothing but a Fool, Unlearn This Hatred, The Game, Superheated

Follow the blog to be updated on each review as it lands, and feel free to provide your own commentary.

Dennis Remmer, February 2016, Brisbane

* As I’m sure is the case with many others, I first became aware of New Order when the Blue Monday 12″ was released by Factory in 1983; packaged in all its colour-coded, record-as-floppy-disk, die-cut, wondrous anonymity… and that’s before you even get to the music: a driving futuristic extended vision of techno, industrial and electronica, with Bernard Sumner dead-panning from a wintery beach on disparate feelings and memories.

To say that Blue Monday was an epiphany for a then-14yo is a gross understatement.

From here I found the band’s earlier work, connected the dots to their previous incarnation (Joy Division), danced through their mid-80s europop, and happily lost myself completely in Technique and the times in which it lived.

Cue a responsible career (and money to spend on collecting music) with involvement in the formative Internet of the early ’90s, I developed the first online discographies for New Order and Factory Records. All of this influenced my own need to produce electronic music, and start an independent record label with my partner Anna; whom I first connected with over music. Recently I was invited to prepare the discography for the official Joy Division website, and produced a coffee-table book and music archive on the development of electronic music in my home city of Brisbane.

All of which can be directly traced to Blue Monday.

My thanks to Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Phil Cunningham, and Tom Chapman. Your work is so very important to so many…

P.S Music Complete is brilliant. Reinvigorated, renaissance songwriting, killer electronic tracks, and rejuvenated performance. But I’ll get to that… I need to start at the beginning…

21 thoughts on “Start Here”

  1. That’s great, mate. I will write a note on your project on my blog (in portuguese) about New Order, Joy Division, side projects etc. Then your site will be known among an audience of readers in portuguese that also reads in english. Cheers.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. oh Dennis…..I dread that day when you have finished with MC …… then what? You could always take on the side project albums one by one, and maybe do them in order of calendar release, instead of by artist. You could then, or concurrently, do collaborations, like Barney with Blank and Jones, etc. We will need more interesting things to read, sir! you have been keeping us entertained and satisfied for so long! No words to express the appreciation from THIS camp…….

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks mate – so glad you’ve been enjoying my irregular ramblings 🙂

      I’ve actually been thinking – once I’m done, and subject to New Order writing more music (surely they will?) – of publishing my blog musings as a book.

      Like

      Reply

      1. omgoodness, I sure hope they continue writing, and quickly. MC was/is just to good to pass on the opportunity, or maybe I should say possibility, for more outstanding creativity. I mean, if we have to wait 4 or 5 years, we will never know what could have been, and then maybe end up with another Get Ready, and I’m getting too old to have the desire to sit and listen to another Get Ready, picking out little pieces of morsels to placate my desire for more New Order. Most of MC is vastly different than anything they’ve done, please god, let the creative stream continue.

        As for your book, I will surely buy it, even though I’ve read it, ha ha…. It’s like Tolkien … I go back and read the LOTR trilogy again every 5 years or so.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Well Dennis as you near the end of your tribute to New Order. (thought I liked them) Just want to say thanks for cataloging a song by song homage to 0ur favorite people to pick up musical instruments. What’s next mate? would love to hear your thoughts on the synth orchestra gigs,
    Jon

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Apologies! Was looking at the list on the homepage. I’m assuming “Hour” will only be added if it gets an official release? Just interested as I’ve often wondered myself on what I would class as a “complete” list.

        Like

      1. Now THERE is some food for thought, what will those extra, unused, secret throwaway songs for each of the album box sets actually sound like? The two from the Movement box set are what I would have guessed. Kinda spare sounding, dark, distant vocals, rudimentary early NO, very much post-JD artifacts. Will the yet unkown tracks for the remainder of the box sets sound alot like the albums they were omitted from? Will there be any actual treasures that we have never been introduced to? Will they be like the NO Rock tracks from their era, or will they be like the NO Dance tracks from thier era? Will they be remixable to maybe make some dj-friendly breakout club music? Could that even happen? I personally only needed to listen to these two MOVEMENT tracks once, and dont care to ever listen again. Will this be the case for all the rest? I guess we have ALOT of time to wait before these questions are answered. sigh.

        Like

      2. As for tracks, its anyones guess….

        The biggest difference between the boxes and anything previously released is that fans have been involved in this project and some real treasures have been unearthed including rare footage and some pictures of artefacts which otherwise wouldn’t have ever seen the light of day anytime soon.

        I was truly honoured to be asked to participate and contribute to a project that ALL NO fans have been asking for for decades.

        Like

  11. Just found your blog today (was looking for people’s opinions on Nothing But a Fool as it happens and that led me to your review – which was interesting to hear as I agree with some, possibly all of it, except for a smidgen about the verse being detrimental to the song).

    As one fan to another I will go through your blog with interest to see if your opinions match mine. They already seem to when you say how NO have been a soundtrack to your life.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment