Every Little Counts

Angel Dust < Every Little Counts > True Faith

I love this track. I love the humor in the song – its a twisted love song; although I can’t quite make out the target of Bernard’s affection: animal, vegetable or chemical. I love Bernard’s “cracking up” with laughter and I love that they kept this in the recording. I love the melodies and the swirling synths & strings. I love the slow build-up, the pause, and the huge wall of sound finale, and I love the “bumped needle” effect at the end; which I imagine like for so many others had me that first time lurching towards the turntable fearing a massive scratch on the vinyl^*.

I love live footage of this song where Bernard chooses which of the band, and/or the audience (and vice versa), is currently whom he lovingly considers a pig and should be in a zoo. It’s telling…

Every Little Counts closes out side B of Brotherhood with aplomb, underlining this side of the album’s remarkable set of songs; some of the band’s best, and much more inventive, diverse and satisfying than the tracks on side A, which – although as I’ve said before are perfectly fine – seem a little lackluster in comparison. Just a little.

Having said that, Brotherhood is overall a wonderful New Order album and a stunningly packaged Factory artifact. It remains high on my list of New Order albums that gets played end-to-end, and is an album that for me book-ends an incredibly creative four years for the band: 1986 to 1989; probably my favorite period, although its likely that since this coincides with my final year at school and 3 years at Uni, its an obvious sweet spot for (being under the) influence.

^{* What a wonderfully subversive thing it would have been had Factory and the band managed to follow through and incorporate a different ‘defect’ on each media format; i.e the bump/scratch on the vinyl, a ‘chewed tape’ effect on the cassette editions, and of course digital glitches on the CDs. Mind you, it’s equally weird these days to have an analogue glitch sound when listening to a CD or MP3…}

Rating: 

Available on: Brotherhood