Hosted by self-confessed pop rambler Iain McDermott, ‘Back To NOW’ is a podcast that celebrates all things related to the variously compiled world of pop, how our favourite compilation albums shaped our lives and now fondly stand as time capsules for our own musical journeys.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s Chi Ming Lai and Ian Ferguson were extremely pleased to be invited as guests on ‘Back To NOW’ and opted to choose the 2022 release of the ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’ 4CD set and its companion 3CD set of “Extras”. One of the reasons it was chosen was because, as described by the Now Music official website , “it was a watershed year for pop with new British artists emerging from the ashes of punk and disco by way of the New Romantic movement”
1981 saw key albums by ULTRAVOX, SIMPLE MINDS, HEAVEN 17, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, JAPAN, NEW ORDER, OMD, DEPECHE MODE and SOFT CELL as well as Gary Numan and John Foxx, released within a 10 week period that Autumn. The year also saw the return of KRAFTWERK and Jean-Michel Jarre after an absence of 3 years while DURAN DURAN issued their self-titled debut long player.
Among the discussion points in this episode are how the affordability of synthesizers was changing the musical landscape, Midge Ure was becoming particularly ubiquitous as a producer, ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’ album and how progressive rock elements were seeping into the sounds of the year. This was the year 1981 B.C.C. – before CULTURE CLUB!
Of course, the ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ series did not exist at the time so there is room for chat about the compilations of the period, in particular K-Tel’s ‘Modern Dance’ of 1982 which provided a near-definitive snapshot of electronic pop of 1980-1981. Featuring DEPECHE MODE, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, OMD, VISAGE, HEAVEN 17, JAPAN, SIMPLE MINDS, LANDSCAPE, FASHION and THE CURE, Radio1 DJ Peter Powell declared that ‘Modern Dance’ was “The best of total danceability, the sounds of modern dance, on one LP!”.
The trio also get to discuss what songs are missing on ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’ and ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’Extra’ be it be to licensing or artist veto, and in a year when quite a few brilliant songs did not actually get chart recognition, they each choose their three tracks which they would like to have been included.
The broad church of the UK singles charts at that time meant that it was not all good, with easy listening Radio 2 tunes, soppy Motown ballads and medley records dispelling the rose-tinted myth often portrayed by today’s internet radio DJs that the 1981 charts was full of synthpop! This becomes one of the talking points, as does the fact that heavy metal, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, jazz funk, disco, reggae, ska, post-punk, AOR and mainstream pop sat significantly alongside the New Romantics and Futurists.
1981 was a dazzling 12 months where the decade began to take shape and form an identity that remains with us today. Grab some blank tapes, switch off one of the 3 channels on your TV and join us as we head back to a glorious year in pop, 1981.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Iain McDermott
Following the ‘Technique’ album released in early 1989, NEW ORDER were in something of a state of flux.
Bernard Sumner had already opted for what was planned as a solo album but became ELECTRONIC after meeting up with Johnny Marr, then a free agent having left THE SMITHS. Peter Hook responded with the fittingly named REVENGE. Even the band’s manager Rob Gretton had his own adventure with Rob’s Records. But what of Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, THE OTHER TWO?
Having soundtracked the BBC’s comedy drama ‘Making Out’ and youth culture show ‘Reportage’, the NEW ORDER couple had been composing and stockpiling various sketches and instrumentals pieced together at their home studio near Macclesfield in the event of future commissions, as happened later with ‘America’s Most Wanted’.
However, following the Italia 90 World Cup song ‘World In Motion’ which was supposed to start the process towards making the follow-up to ‘Technique’, Gilbert and Morris found themselves with time to kill having turned down a film soundtrack to accommodate the now false start. ‘World In Motion’ had actually mutated from the ‘Reportage’ theme which Gilbert had mostly written, so Factory Records’ Alan Erasmus suggested that some of this stockpiled material could be released as an album.
In a 2011 interview, Stephen Morris told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “They start off as these things for TV, you get really attached to them and you twist one or two of them into being songs. Some of them never turn into songs but you get persuaded by the record company or someone that you have to get a singer! So we tried to get a singer and then Gillian ended up doing it which is great, she’s really good at it.” – that singer they tried to get was actually Kim Wilde!
But when that idea never got beyond a meeting, Gilbert took on the role of lead vocalist, helped along the way with some singing lessons. The brilliant debut single ‘Tasty Fish’ released in late 1991 was superbly catchy and had The Kylie Factor. But with the ongoing problems at Factory Records, the single never made it to many shops and stalled at No41 in the singles chart.
The subsequent album which had actually already given a catalogue number of Fact 330 never got released on Factory as planned, while the couple’s attentions were turned to NEW ORDER for what was to become ‘Republic’, produced by Stephen Hague. In the fallout that came with talk of London Records buying Factory out, the iconic Manchester record label collapsed and NEW ORDER signed with London direct.
THE OTHER TWO ‘& You’ finally appeared in late 1993 on London Records seven months after ‘Republic’ and had been tweaked from its original Factory configuration by Stephen Hague. Opening with a new version of ‘Tasty Fish’, although Hague’s additional production neutered the dynamics of the original Pascal Gabriel single mix, the song still stood out, a well-deserved hit if ever there was one, but not to be.
Following it was the dancey DUBSTAR of ‘The Greatest Thing’, a joyous music statement about the power of love. Its sampled acoustic guitar lines could easily have been represented by Peter Hook’s bass and highlighted the couple’s contribution to NEW ORDER, despite some reports to the contrary.
‘Selfish’ made it three in a row for the start of THE OTHER TWO ‘& You’; rich in synthetic strings and lively but unobtrusive machine driven rhythms. Gilbert’s resigned vocal about “someone I hate” reinforced to the inherent melancholy in a fabulous song with an exquisite understated quality. On the moodier electro-acoustic strum of ‘Movin’ On’, it wasn’t difficult to imagine Sarah Blackwood and the usual cup of tea, with Gillian Gilbert’s singing lessons proving effective and highlighting her as actually the best technical vocalist in NEW ORDER.
With soundtracks having been their main compositional forte during this period, there were naturally instrumentals; the uptempo pulse of ‘Ninth Configuration’ wouldn’t have sounded out of place as a NEW ORDER B-side circa ‘Technique’, ditto ‘Spirit Level’, although the eerie interlude ‘Night Voice’ pointed more towards filmic ambience.
Meanwhile the widescreen synthpop of ‘Feel This Love’ foresaw a future Stephen Hague produced act called TECHNIQUE; a female electronic pop duo comprising of Xan Tyler and Katie Holmes, they were to name themselves after the NEW ORDER album and later morphed into CLIENT featuring Sarah Blackwood! The charming ‘Innocence’ with its lovely OMD-styled string melody embraced a subtle Italo house staccato, but closing the album was the brilliant ‘Loved It (The Other Track)’.
With its hypnotic digital slap bass and club friendly vibes, it had been composed to celebrate the opening of The New Factory, a building in Charles Street which became a white elephant and ultimately contributed to Factory Records’ collapse. Featuring cut-up speech from the likes of the late label co-founder Tony Wilson shouting “Any one of you miserable musicians want any more pills?” as well members of NEW ORDER deadpanning “Not my idea!” and “Are you sure?”, time has made the track an amusingly ironic musical document of that carefree Factory period.
Better than REVENGE but not consistently soaring to the heights of the ELECTRONIC debut, THE OTHER TWO ‘& You’ did however show that Gilbert and Morris had often been overlooked in the NEW ORDER story.
Over the following years, work continued on THE OTHER TWO’s second album ’Super Highways’. It eventually surfaced in 1999 and was perhaps less immediate than its predecessor. The realisation of their original guest female vocalist idea came to fruition with Melanie Williams from Rob Records signings SUB SUB on the excellent ‘You Can Fly’ and the very DUBSTAR sounding title track.
Gilbert sang on the lovely orchestrated electropop of ‘The River’ while there were also various experiments in drum ‘n’ bass like the mighty ‘One Last Kiss’. However, the record had been overshadowed by the reunion of NEW ORDER with their triumphant comeback gigs at Manchester Apollo and the Reading Festival in 1998.
Family matters led to Gillian Gilbert departing NEW ORDER before the guitar heavy ‘Get Ready’ was released in 2001. The void left the band in a much tenser masculine environment and the sad untimely death of Rob Gretton in 1999 left the now well-documented conflicts between Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook without a referee.
Fast forward to today, Gillian Gilbert is back in NEW ORDER and the electronics have returned in style on 2015’s ‘Music Complete’ released on Mute Records. “I’m on all the best records” she amusingly quipped to Q magazine on her return. And now, THE OTHER TWO ‘& You’ gets a well deserved reissue, revamp and reappraisal on Rhino.
But if NEW ORDER hadn’t made a return in 1998 and THE OTHER TWO had been able to be a full-time occupation, could they have been as successful as DUBSTAR or SAINT ETIENNE? “No, we’re completely the wrong kind of people!”,Stephen Morris said adamantly. “I’ve tried but it never works… we’d never be popstars!”
Just as it looked like it would be safe to come out to play, there was uncertainty within the music industry again.
What had become the artists’ favourite platform thanks to its low commission and 0% Fridays, Bandcamp was taken over by Epic Games in 2022 but then following a move by employees to unionise, was sold to Songtradr who immediately dismissed half of its staff… in hindsight, despite its proclamation that this platform cared about the music, it looked like this had been yet another start-up by tech venture capitalists. Just as many acts dropped their own websites in favour of Facebook over a decade ago but were then trapped into sponsored posts to reach the majority of their own fanbase, online shops had been dropped for Bandcamp. So, things are back to square one as many consider a rebuild of their web presence.
Meanwhile, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino made a controversial declaration that concert ticket prices were generally too low and that artists could easily “charge a bit more”. While THE CURE notably refused to do this and capped their face value tickets at $20 for their US tour, the Live Nation sister outlet Ticketmaster applied excessive booking extras of more than $20 per ticket for a “service fee”, “facility charge” and “order processing”! With dynamic pricing in place at a number of high profile events and so-called VIP tickets on the rise (which didn’t actually include a meet ‘n’ greet but only a nearby bar and a lanyard), fans had their “FOMO” anxieties triggered and simply paid up!
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
Another artist who kept ticket prices low was Midge Ure who embarked on the successful ‘Voices & Visions’ tour after a year’s delay due to uncertainties over the Covid situation in 2022. Complimented by a straightforward but very effective light show and material from his second and third long players with ULTRAVOX ‘Rage In Eden’ and ‘Quartet’, it was a triumph. He was rewarded with a 70th birthday show celebrating his career at The Royal Albert Hall, which despite its plush surroundings was also kept affordable.
Who says an artist has no control over retail pricing? But one band who were shamelessly happy to charge more for concert tickets, more for merchandise and more for physical releases were DEPECHE MODE. For their first album and tour since the passing of co-founder Andy Fletcher in 2022, the remaining members played the death card with ‘Momento Bori’ and managed to plonk an even more underwhelming arena show into the stadiums of the world… at least the ‘Global Spirit’ tour featured risers!
With renowned UK venues such as Printworks and Moles closing down, as had already been highlighted by Juls Garat of US goth band PILGRIMS OF YEARNING via social media in 2022: “If you’re spending a kidney on DEPECHE MODE tickets and not attending a local show this weekend, I don’t wanna see you complaining that there’s no scene, local venues or new music anymore”. However, one seemingly oblivious Devotee said about the inflated ticket prices: “Really don’t know what the issue is. Happily paid £108.00 for a DM ticket. Would have paid more!!”. And therein lays the problem… DEPECHE MODE played a date at Stadion Wankdorf in Bern and that said it all! As the man who Devotees call a genius once wrote: “Some great reward will be coming my way…”
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
As The Devotees wallowed in their collective misery during 2023, the Stockholm Syndrome was stronger than ever. On the Bratislava leg at the National Football Stadium, one of The Black Swarm commented to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “I was there… I must admit, a bit disappointed… but I still love them!!!”. It was business as usual for DEPECHE MODE, with “business” being the operative word. It was reported that so much money had been sucked out of the European alternative music market in particular that a number of acts had to schedule their planned tours to 2024, while others who had made good albums worthy of attention in 2023 got lost in the sea of DM propaganda on the web.
Despite increased ticket prices at all levels, gig etiquette declined to the worst possible standards with the constant chatter and bad manners among some attendees. Surely if you have paid upwards of £30 or more for a show, you might want to pay more attention and enjoy it? ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has never seen it this bad in the 43 years it has been going to concerts, but this entitled arrogance to talk extremely loudly about total bollocks is a undoubted legacy of Brexit and Covid which in combination has normalised a lack of social graces in gathered environments… and when challenged, these total numbskulls become aggressive, pitifully unaware that they are ruining the evening of those around them.
Meanwhile, there was another undesirable element who only go to gigs to post selfies and badly distorted footage on their socials… these were often the sort of people who actually hated the band back in the day, but after 40+ years realised they like the song on the Vitality or Waitrose advert so are sudddenly giving it the big “I AM” about being a fan… but BECAUSE they are only there for one song, they then treat the rest of the gig like they were out with their mates in the pub! 🤬
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
The best live shows of the year came from PET SHOP BOYS and DURAN DURAN with their arena extravaganzas full of hits, classic fan favourites and great staging. Among the album celebrations, CHINA CRISIS ran through their second long player ‘Working With Fire & Steel – Possible Pop Songs Volume 2’ on tour to celebrate its 40th anniversary and founder bassist Peter Hook took the first NEW ORDER compilation ‘Substance’ out on the road to coincide with its expanded 4CD reissue.
“Sweden’s best kept pop secret”KITE impressed with an imitate headliner for their debut London gig and later at Cologne’s Amphi Festival to a much larger crowd, while the return of Ollie Wride to the London stage at The Scala illustrated why he has potential to be the next synthwave artist to crossover into the mainstream.
Photo by Ed Miles
‘Time’s Arrow’, LADYTRON’s second album since their return from hiatus proved to be something of a disappointment while fairing slightly better with its anti-Brexit sentiments, ‘Bauhaus Staircase’ was touted as the final album from OMD; now kissing the strict machine, having previously been supportive of new electronic pop via ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK championed acts MIRRORS, VILLA NAH, VILE ELECTRODES, METROLAND, TINY MAGNETIC PETS and SOFTWAVE, their choice of art glam hipsters WALT DISCO as opening act on the UK leg of the 2024 tour was symbolic of the general poor state of modern synthpop ie pop music using synths, particularly within the narrow-mindset of Brexit Britain.
Although the UK was continuing to party like it was 1933, the incendiary language that Cruella Braverman was using was so extreme that she was even dismissed from fronting the Conservative Party new wave covers band A FLOCK OF SIEG HEILS… as a trio of poets from South Yorkshire once said: “BROTHERS! SISTERS! WE DON’T NEED THIS FASCIST GROOVE THANG!” ✊
Reflecting a wider issue, 2023 also saw ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK publish its fewest number of ‘Introducing…’new artist articles since its inception in 2010 with only Brigitte Bardini and Madeleine Goldstein featured. There were a number of possible reasons…
Photo by Bella Salvatore
“The technology leads the art form and it always has” said veteran producer Steve Lillywhite on a recent Rockonteurs podcast, “if the technology allows you to reference other people’s records… you WILL do that!”. This was summed up by an Apple Mac advert featuring sample-based British pop singer PinkPantheress demonstrating how to have a hit by appropriating a topline from Kelly Rowland and plonking it into GarageBand before processing her voice through AutoTune and nabbing the intro of ‘Gold’ by SPANDAU BALLET… you said it yourself Miss Walker, IT SOUNDS LIKE GARBAGE!
While the accessibility, usability and sound quality of modern tech has totally democratised music making, as another veteran producer Stephen Hague put it to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK “it’s made it far too easy”, with the end result being familiarity and imitation rather than innovation. Now that an acceptable sound is able to be obtained fairly quickly on software such as GarageBand, the level of songwriting has generally declined in many genres. Artists abstain from putting in the hard work towards the actual songcraft because they think their track is already great, as it sounds like someone they’ve based it on!
However, the misuse of “synth” as a description reached a new nadir in 2023. There were those using “synth” or “synthwave” in their brand identity who proudly revealed via their Spotify Wrapped that their Top Genre was actually rock or made bizarre comments like “What I like most about synthwave is the guitar solos”. Meanwhile one artist declared they were synthpop because they had spent their youth “listening to too much Madonna”! But synth music as an enduring form is ultimately doomed when social media platforms using “Synthpop” in their idents think that guitar-based bands like BIG COUNTRY and COCTEAU TWINS are part of it, or compile acoustic playlists!! 🤦♂️
“Synth” has now somehow become is a general term for any retro-flavoured pop with an element of shiny artifice whether synthesizers have been used or not! These artists and “content creators” are now too young to understand what “synth” in music actually once meant and probably think the term is short for “synthetic” as in clothes and hair products, as opposed to “synthesizer”.
That said, 2023 was not all bad and there was a lot of excellent music. The song of the year was by the unlikely synth hero in glum rocker Lloyd Cole; while guitars made a more prominent but limited return on his album ‘On Pain’ following 2019’s electronically-dominated ‘Guesswork’, the standout song ‘The Idiot’ saw him provide a touching narrative on the relationship between David Bowie and Iggy Pop as they relocated to Berlin in 1976.
Swedish veterans PAGE took the Numanisation of their poptronica to its zenith by bringing in former imperial phase Numan band members Chris Payne and RRussell Bell on their new album ‘En Ny Våg’. Across the Öresund Bridge, Danish synthpop couple SOFTWAVE showed the world the ‘things we’ve done’.
Photo by George Tripodakis
Another music veteran Ricky Wilde teamed up with NINA to reveal their ‘Scala Hearts’; full of classic pop references and a modern sheen, this was the record Wilde had wanted to make for a few years but hadn’t been able to with his sister Kim. Its creative drive showed and this was also the best long player that NINA had been part of since she launched her solo career in 2011. In a busy year, NINA also found time to satisfy many a red blooded fantasy by collaborating with Kid Moxie on the ‘Lust’ EP released by Italians Do It Better.
The Finns were strong too, with Jaakko Eino Kalavi and Jori Hulkkonen producing two of the best albums of 2023. The former’s eclectic ‘Chaos Magic’ featured Alma Jodorowsky, Mr Silla and Jimi Tenor as special guests while the latter’s ‘There Is Light Hidden In These Shadows’ brought in John Grant, Ralf Dörper, Jake Shears, Jon Marsh, Juho Paalosmaa and Tiga.
While maintaining his front man role in MESH, Mark Hockings presented his solo project BLACKCARBURNING in long playing form and was ‘Watching Sleepers’. Also going it alone, Alison Goldfrapp squarely hit the dancefloor via ’The Love Invention’ with Kylie Minogue’s similarly glitzy ‘Tension’ as its companion. But with ACTORS still busy touring the world, the planned long playing debut from LEATHERS was yet to emerge but there were two new singles in the interim.
METROLAND and side project 808 DOT POP ambitiously released albums in five different formats with exclusive tracks on each between them simultaneously, in a move that had not been seen since 1978 when all four members of KISS released solo records on the same day. Much more discretely, ITALOCONNECTION came up with ‘Nordisko’ which comprised of Nordic pop disco covers. More ambient experiments were served by John Foxx, Vince Clarke, Patricia Wolf, Johan Agebjörn and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, while putting those ethereal textures into song was Hinako Omori with her appropriately named second album ‘stillness, softness…’
Germany’s BEBORN BETON offered bleak commentary on the state of the planet with ‘Darkness Falls Again’ but encouraged everyone to be dancers in the dark while Chinese band STOLEN highlighted this ‘Eroded Creation’. Within their ‘Circle Of Doom’, NNHMN had pressing matters closer to home while ZANIAS emerged from her ‘Chrysalis’. FERAL FIVE confronted and worked with AI to declare ‘Truth Is The New Gold’ and Finlay Shakespeare tapped into his ‘Illusion + Memory’.
Photo by Tim Darin
Among the promising emergent acts with debut EPs were NEU-ROMANCER and DIE SEXUAL while German solo artists Jennifer Touch and Laura Dre added to their long playing portfolios, as did OHNOTHING and BUNNY X. Fronted by respectively by John Grant and Neil Arthur, CREEP SHOW and THE REMAINDER outlined the benefits of collaboration while CAUSEWAY joined forces with R. MISSING for the single ‘Wear The Night Out’.
Despite having plied their trade for over 50 years, SPARKS continued to be as eccentric as ever and even had Cate Blanchett appear in the video for ‘The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte’. With ‘*Happiness now completed’ and Dave Ball returning to the live fold after a period of serious illness, SOFT CELL effectively issued another new album featuring a significant number of previously unreleased tracks including covers of Giorgio Moroder and X-RAY SPEX to provide a much more satisfying listening experience than the parent ‘*Happiness not included’ record. Then there was the unexpected recorded return of CLASSIX NOUVEAUX with their ‘Battle Cry’.
Veteran acts who ceased active operations many years ago got worthy boxed set treatments; TELEX provided ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK with the funniest interview of the year in support of their self-titled retrospective on Mute while LANDSCAPE were comprehensively catalogued by Cooking Vinyl. Not to be left out, the trusty Cherry Red via their Lemon imprint showcased how underrated NEW MUSIK and their leader Tony Mansfield were, especially with the latter’s sound clearly audible in today’s pop acts such as THE WEEKND.
Despite the return of Q, the jury was still out on whether music magazines are still desirable aside from their CD and vinyl artefacts. Meanwhile, music-based social media dumbed down its engagement to cut ‘n’ paste Wikipedia snippets accompanying archive photos or artwork, pointless 26th anniversary posts and non-significant birthday celebrations to attract likes. Comments from the public such as “My favourite album… I wish I still had it!” and saying “Happy Birthday” when the platform wasn’t even connected to the artist concerned only highlighted further the continuing inane nature of online interaction. And this was without those irritating “POV” reels and reaction videos on TikTok and Instagram which were unfortunately prevalent!
The less said about the right wing gammon infested sh*t show that Twitter has become, the better but on the new Threads platform intended to take it on, PENDULUM’s El Hornet remarked “omg threads is full of music industry self help w*nkers making lists about things nobody asked abort! ABORT!” 🤣
With such platforms also seemingly centred around the exposure of flesh with photos “just for fun” be the subject a golfer, gamer, painter, baker, comedian, hairdresser, photographer, psychologist, racing driver, book reviewer, poet, dating coach or Lego enthusiast, is it any wonder that several music artists resorted to setting up OnlyFans accounts to sell nude photos!
With pun totally intended, in this challenging climate for exposure, some acts simply got a bit too big for their boots and were unbearably conceited on their socials with their bragging and frivolous chatter to appease a needy flock who hung onto their every word, desperate to be seen to be “friends” of wannabe stars while crowdfunding towards their spa weekenders and vet bills for their cat… it was therefore ironic that one of these acts declared “Music isn’t a competition!” when it appeared that another band might be taking away some of their limelight! Well, stop acting like it’s a 24 hour edition of ‘The Apprentice’ then!!! 🙄
On the other side of the coin, one too cool for school band took a strange attitude to promotion by refusing to accept questions about their influences while trying to come over like total originals. Despite their inspirations being blatant and obvious to hear, they had a misguided self-belief that they were somehow speaking a new language! But everybody knows they started out by purchasing the sheet music to ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ from a New York thrift store! 😆
A few years ago, a lone British artist was complained about the lack of press attention for their new admittedly good album, but then proceeded not to answer emails containing interview pitches. Artists need to engage, no matter how much they say they hate doing promotion, they can’t have it both ways. The days of RADIOHEAD not doing interviews to promote a new album and letting the music speak for itself are long gone…
With the world now making up for lost time since 2020, it would be fair to say that 2023 has been something of a strange year!
As the Yule Tide season gets into full swing, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK presents a collection of modern seasonal tunes with a more artful slant…
With a song to play on each of the 25 days in December until Christmas, some are covers with a modern approach while others gather their thoughts and emotions into original compositions. But each has their own take on the holiday period, whether happy or sad or both.
Synths at Christmas are not entirely new; ‘Last Christmas’ by WHAM! was primarily made with a Roland Juno 60 while BAND AID’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas? was dominated by PPG Wave 2.2 with a percussive sample taken from ‘Memories Fade’ by TEARS FOR FEARS also being key to the intro.
However the traditional nature of Christmas often dictates traditional instrumentation in its songs, which means that Christmas synth songs are comparatively uncommon and a more recent phenomenon.
Whatever your plans whether with the family or in the studio, please remember, a synth is for life and not just for Christmas… may it bring you lots of cheer! The 25 songs are presented in yearly then alphabetical order within…
BE MUSIC Rocking Carol (1982)
A Be Music production given away as limited edition flexi-disc of 4400 given away at The Haçienda on Christmas Eve 1982, with the greeting “Merry Xmas From The Haçienda And Factory Records”, this was NEW ORDER covering the traditional Czech seasonal tune also known as ‘Jesus Sweetly Sleep’ and ‘We Will Rock You’ as a robotic electronic tone poem.
Recorded as part of an album on behalf of Special Olympics that featured U2, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams and Alison Moyet among others, EURYTHMICS’ glistening electronic take on romance during the winter season was cited by ASCAP as now the most played version of the song which was made famous by Darlene Love.
Originally recorded by S.P.O.C.K for Energy Rekords’ ‘Virtual X-Mas 92’ EP and then a bonus song on their 1995 compilation ‘A Piece Of The Action’, this cover of the Irving Berlin standard made famous by Bing Crosby was suitably melodramatic as the holiday season was celebrated in The Neutral Zone while under threat of an alien attack.
Available on the compilation album ‘Virtual 2020 X-Mas’ (V/A) via Energy Rekords
SAINT ETIENNE Featuring TIM BURGESS I Was Born On Christmas Day (1993)
Delightfully catchy with a house-laden bounce, ‘I Was Born on Christmas Day’ was written in acknowledgement of band member Bob Stanley’s birthday for an EP ‘Xmas 93’. Featuring a duet between Sarah Cracknell and special guest vocals by Tim Burgess from THE CHARLATANS, the joyful narrative saw the couple elope, confusing some fans and press.
Originally recorded as a sparse ballad for the B-side of 1990 single ‘Your Sweetness Is Your Weakness’, Pete Burns’ foray into the music for holiday season was given a dancier makeover in 2000 and in hindsight, now sounds like a stylistic blue print for PET SHOP BOYS ‘It Doesn’t Often Snow At Christmas’. The two would later work together on the excellent ‘Jack & Jill Party’ in 2004.
Available on the DEAD OR ALIVE album ‘Fragile’ via Demon Music Group
With their naïve wispiness, understated cinematics and disco beats, if there act who are ably suited to Christmas pop music, it is Swedish duo SALLY SHAPIRO. A cover of a song by fellow Swede Nixon, the lines “The first time that I saw your face on a cold December night, it was a Tuesday on a gig with a band that we both liked” captured an innocent romance and the aural warmth of the named apparel.
Available on the SALLY SHAPIRO album ‘Disco Romance’ via Paper Bag Records
PET SHOP BOYS It Doesn’t Often Snow At Christmas (2009)
Originally recorded in 1997 for an exclusive fan club single but remixed in 2009, ‘It Doesn’t Often Snow At Christmas’ was a suitably cynical offering. Famous for keeping THE POGUES ‘Farytale Of New York’ off the 1987 UK Christmas No1 spot with their cover of ‘Always On My Mind’, while this didn’t hit those commercial heights, it provided a very PET SHOP BOYS take on the madness of the festive season.
Available on the PET SHOP BOYS EP ‘Christmas’ via EMI Records
CHEW LIPS might have disbanded but in 2010, on the back of their only album ‘Unicorn’ and its subsequent tour, they were on a productive high. ‘When You Wake Up’ was a bonus tune recorded and given away as a Christmas gift to fans at the end of that very successful year. Delivered with lead singer Tigs’ usual feisty panache, listening back only highlights how much CHEW LIPS are missed.
HURTS All I Want For Christmas Is New Year’s Day (2010)
With their TAKE THAT dressed as ULTRAVOX template, Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson turned their attentions to memories of “the worst Christmas of our lives”. In true Bros Go To Bavaria style, despite the mournful start, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is New Year’s Day’ transformed itself into a hopeful anthem with a big chorus and lashings of tubular bells.
Available on the HURTS album ‘Happiness’ via Major Label / RCA
LOLA DUTRONIC Another Christmas Without Snow (2010)
In the UK, a wet Christmas is always more likely, but LOLA DUTRONIC’s ‘Another Christmas Without Snow’ resonated with its melancholic yet pretty demeanour. The project of Canadian producer Richard Citroen and using a flexible roster of wispy female vocalists, the tones of Lola Dee came over all dreamy like SAINT ETIENNE and conveyed the season’s mixed emotions.
Andy Bell and Vince Clarke’s version of this traditional Ecclesiastical Latin carol continued an ERASURE tradition that had begun with ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ for the CD edition of the ‘Crackers International’ EP in 1988. With a precise electronic backbeat, ‘Gaudete’ was taken from its 16th Century origins and thrown into the new millennium with a cheeky ‘Ice Machine’ reference for good measure.
Available on the ERASURE album ‘Snow Globe’ via Mute Artists
Whether it was a Casio, Yamaha or Roland, everyone wanted ‘A Synthesizer For Christmas’. Texan couple HYPERBUBBLE took that enduring memory and turned it into a delightful synthpop ditty that could resonate with electronic geeks from 8 to 80 the world over. Short but sweet, it was another joyous “cartoon automaton symphony” from Jess and Jeff.
If ‘Twin Peaks’ met ‘Leader Of The Pack’ under the mistletoe, it would sound like this. Possibly the best Christmas tune of the last 10 or so years, VILE ELECTRODES’ harrowing tale of a departed loved one is strangely enticing, with the beautifully haunting echoes of Julee Cruise’s ‘The Nightingale’ lingering over the frozen lake.
‘Find Peace’ was a Christmas song longing for the cold but merry winters of yesteryear under the modern day spectre of global warming, armed conflict and political tension. The off-kilter analogue buzzing and almost random sequences made for a striking listen as a frantic percussive death rattle and an emotive synth drone take hold to provide an appropriate backdrop for the eerie but beautiful voice of Hannah Peel.
Available on the HANNAH PEEL single ‘Find Peace’ via Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club
MARSHEAUX We Met Bernard Sumner At A Christmas Party Last Night (2015)
‘We Met Bernard Sumner At A Christmas Party Last Night’ was a wonderfully whispery synthpop number that was classic MARSHEAUX. The lyrics were constructed from the song and album titles of NEW ORDER to provide an imaginary narrative on Marianthi Melitsi and Sophie Sarigiannidou surreally bumping into the Manchester combo’s lead singer at a Yule Tide function.
On 1974’s ‘Kimono My House’ album, the Mael brothers recorded a song called ‘Thank God It’s Not Christmas’, a typically perverse SPARKS romp that had nothing to do as such with the holiday season. After their FFS collaboration, Russell and Ron ended the year with ‘Christmas Without A Prayer’, a fitting offering which also amusingly outlined that albums by WINGS were actually unwanted gifts.
“A twisted cover of a cover of a cover”, this synth laden reinterpretation of the tune based on a traditional Czech carol made famous by a bizarre but highly enjoyable version by David Bowie and Bing Crosby, saw former ABC stalwarts Mark White and Stephen Singleton reconvene as VICE VERSA to wax lyrical about 303s, 808s, 909s and a “shiny new Roland toy”. It was a fabulous combination of sleigh bells, squelching arpeggios and of course, drum machines…
When you’ve had enough of Christmas shopping and the in-laws, there’s probably nothing better to let off steam than a bit of ASSEMBLAGE 23. While not exactly seasonal, Tom Shear’s Futurepop discoscape captured many of the mixed emotions endemic with the final month of the year, all “Silent and alone, trying to make sense”.
Available on the ASSEMBLAGE 23 album ‘Endure’ via Metropolis
A cover of Finnish metal glamsters HANOI ROCKS, this take on ‘Dead By X-Mas’ from the nocturnal synth duo SIN COS TAN aka Juho Paalosmaa and Jori Hulkkonen came over a bit like Billy Idol gone electro, but with an elegiac twist. Bizarrely in 2006, the former William Broad issued his own collection of seasonal themed tunes entitled ‘Happy Holidays’ … it’s a nice day for a ‘White Christmas!
With female empowerment lyrics like “I don’t need any money or a new handbag, I just need a kind of thing I’ve never had, who says you have to have some shabby gifts”,FERAL FIVE attacked tacky commercialism in a sonic cacophony of crunchy bass guitar, big beats, sparkling electronics and chilling string machines for an alternative take on festivities.
Available on the FERAL FIVE single ‘I Want U’ via Primitive Light Recordings
Made famous by Greg Lake, CIRCUIT3 used analogue synths such as a Sequential Pro-One, Roland JX10, Korg Wavestation and Moog Sub37 to add an eerie chill to the already cynical song protesting at the commercialisation of Christmas. The lyricist was Peter Sinfield who later wrote the words to BUCKS FIZZ’s No1 ‘The Land Of Make Believe’ which warned against the evils of Thatcherism.
Written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film ‘The Snowman’ which later added a cameo intro by David Bowie, ‘Walking In The Air’ became a hit for Aled Jones although the original version was actually sung by choir boy Peter Auty. Tom Andersson is the Swedish synthesist and retro gamer known as WAVESHAPER and his symphonic instrumental synthwave cover was both respectful and beautiful.
If ACTORS did Christmas songs, then it would have probably sounded like this gothic motorik number from the ever cheerful Rodney Cromwell. Written for by Cherryade Records’ ‘A Very Cherry Christmas’ compilation, its chilling ARP synth strings and driving bass guitar was in total antithesis to Cliff Richard with bleak observational lyrics “like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ turbo-charged for 2022”.
Available on the RODNEY CROMWELL single ‘Cold Christmas’ via Happy Robots Records
SOFTWAVE featuring Barney Ashton-Bullock Will It Ever Be Christmas Again? (2022)
Presented as “Probably the first synthpop Christmas song in Danish music history”,SOFTWAVE provided a hopeful message to hold back on overindulgence. ‘Andy Bell Is Torsten’ writer Barney Ashton-Bullock made a cameo as Santa Claus to remind everyone that “Self-service, doesn’t mean self, self, self…” and that joy comes from being able to give to others.
Something of a tradition having covered ‘Walking In The Air’, ‘Lonely This Christmas’ and ‘Deck The Halls’ in previous years, Gemma Cullingford took Christina Rossetti’s poem and Gustav Holst’s musical arrangement of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ into darker and colder electro dance territory, reflecting today’s divided world in a cost of living crisis.
What began as a request by Factory Records impresario Tony Wilson to play NEW ORDER’s singles on the CD player that came with his brand new Jaguar XJ6 Coupé led to what was to become the band’s biggest selling album.
Originally released in Autumn 1987, ‘Substance’ was a compilation of NEW ORDER’s 12” singles to date and it is to finally get the reissue treatment. Although at the time, NEW ORDER had already released four albums ‘Movement’, Power, Corruption & Lies’, ‘Low-life’ and ‘Brotherhood’, the Manchester quartet comprising of Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert could often be better represented by their singles rather than their albums, as many were standalone non-album releases and quite different in musical style, being often more electronic and danceable.
‘Substance’ was issued in a variety of formats including double vinyl, cassette, DAT and CD, the latter three variants made use of the extra playing time available and included bonuses such as B-sides, tracks only previously issued in Belgium, instrumental versions and those rarely essential dub experiments. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, despite its flaws with re-recordings, edits and omissions, it went on to sell around a million copies worldwide as many fans’ entry point into NEW ORDER.
The new deluxe 4CD reissue includes a live disc of the band performing the entire ‘Substance’ album at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in California and a bonus disc of tracks omitted from the original edition of ‘Substance’ such as the superior original hit version of ‘Ceremony’ and the mournful if excellent B-side ‘Mesh’, as well as the original 12” versions of ‘Temptation’ and ‘Confusion’.
The world knows what happened on 18th May 1980 and with the tragic passing of charismatic front man Ian Curtis, the end of JOY DIVISION led to the formation of NEW ORDER. Produced by Martin Hannett who had produced most of JOY DIVISION’s recorded portfolio, the guitar driven first single ‘Ceremony’ was one of the last songs written with Curtis and a magnificent start. But as the first purely NEW ORDER material was being written, the former members of JOY DIVISION were struggling to escape the shadow of their previous incarnation.
Although the often forgotten second single ‘Procession’ showed progression with a greater use of synth and backing vocals from Gillian Gilbert, it paled next to ‘Ceremony’. The fraught debut NEW ORDER long player ‘Movement’ was underwhelming, confused and perhaps too close to ‘Closer’, the final JOY DIVISION opus. Among the reasons were ongoing tensions in the studio with Hannett and the internal dilemma as to who was to take over the mantle of front man from the dearly departed Ian Curtis.
While Stephen Morris was originally mooted to become lead vocalist, Bernard Sumner was eventually settled into the role at the behest of manager Rob Gretton. Having already sung on the JOY DIVISION track ‘Interzone’, Peter Hook tried out for the role and provided lead vocals on two of the best ‘Movement’ tracks; the solemn ‘Doubts Even Here’ also included a stark Bible reading by Gillian Gilbert while much more spritely, ‘Dreams Never End’ was later appropriated by THE CURE for ‘In Between Days’.
But the pointer to the future of NEW ORDER was not on the album but the ‘Procession’ B-side ‘Everything’s Gone Green’. Introduced to European electronic dance music like Giorgio Moroder by his friend Mark Reeder, Sumner had become more interested in synthesizers and sequencers. Meanwhile, as Stephen Morris had used Synares and early Simmons drum synthesizers in JOY DIVISION, his progression into the purchase of a Boss DR55 Doctor Rhythm was only natural.
Using the Doctor Rhythm to pulse sections of their new ARP Quadra synth which replaced their stolen ARP Omni, the throbbing sequencer-like backbone on ‘Everything’s Gone Green’ was a pointer to an exciting new direction. Stephen Morris told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in 2011: “With ‘Everything’s Gone Green’, you had a Moog Source doing a 1/16th pulse and the Quadra doing the ‘da-dah, da-da-dah’. Then what you’d do is take the ‘CV’ out of the Quadra and take that into the Moog so that the Moog is playing a different rhythm but following the pitch of the other thing. That’s what we used for ‘Temptation’ as well.”
A self-produced electronic breakthrough away from the haunting legacy of JOY DIVISION, ‘Temptation’ was NEW ORDER’s only single of 1982. The recording itself was marvelously flawed, with Stephen Morris’ overdriven Simmons snare panned too far to the right while band members could also be heard calling instructions and tutting. The pulsing hypnotism of the triggered electronics and the iconic “oooh-oo-ooh” vocal refrain made ‘Temptation’ joyous and magical.
There was further trailblazing with an actual sequencer on the ‘Temptation’ B-side ‘Hurt’ as NEW ORDER grappled with a Powertran 1024 Note Composer. Home-built from a kit by Bernard Sumner, it was customised by the band’s electronic boffin Martin Usher to expand its memory. However, it was cumbersome to use and had to be programmed in hexadecimal! Around this time, NEW ORDER recorded a self-produced John Peel radio session that showcased the band’s transitioning sound with the throbbing sequences of ‘586’ highlighting a proto-dance direction.
Also part of the session, ‘Turn The Heater On’ was a cover of the Keith Hudson reggae song in tribute to Ian Curtis and ‘We All Stand’ which had avant jazz overtones. But ‘Too Late’ was significant, sounding like it could have come off ‘Movement’ with its lingering gothic doom, but later discarded as if a relic from another era; it was to remain unreleased until 1986 and never to actually appear on a NEW ORDER album or single…
Things were changing in the drum department too as Stephen Morris saw Stevie Wonder demonstrate the Linn Drum Computer on ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’. Eventually plumping for the slightly cheaper Oberheim DMX, programming it was like Morse code; The Human Drum Machine later quipped in his 2020 autobiography ‘Fast Forward: Confessions Of A Post-Punk Percussionist – Volume II’: “I always found the record and erase buttons a little too close together for comfort!”.
With NEW ORDER making use of the solid bass possibilities of the Moog Source and expanding their synth armoury to include an E-mu Systems Emulator, Pro-One and several Prophet 5s, in tandem with the Oberheim DMX, they put together ‘Blue Monday’ to help discover how all this equipment worked! Originally conceived as a cheeky self-playing jape on the audience who were complaining that the band did not do encores after their 10 song gigs, this 7 and a half minute slice of doom disco was a combination of several key pieces of music.
The ‘Blue Monday’ bassline and chord structure came from ‘Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’, the frantic drum attack was inspired by Donna Summer’s Giorgio Moroder-produced ‘Our Love’ and the groove off Klein & MBO ‘Dirty Talk’. Meanwhile the ominous bass guitar motif was based on an acoustic six string line off ‘Paying Off Old Scores’ from the Ennio Morricone-composed soundtrack to ‘For A Few Dollars More’. More obliquely, KRAFTWERK made an appearance via a choir sample taken from ‘Uranium’, an interlude art piece on their ‘Radio-Activity’ album.
Despite being effectively an ideas mash-up, ‘Blue Monday’ was to be influential itself with THE CURE playing their tit-for-that game with NEW ORDER with the heavily sequenced ‘The Walk’ while the Bobby Orlando produced ‘Love Reaction’ for Divine was much more blatant. And that was just the start…
For the companion album ‘Power Corruption & Lies’ released in 1983, KRAFTWERK were to have a big influence on the record’s best song ‘Your Silent Face’; with the working title of ‘KW1’, it was the ultimate homage to Kling Klang and the romantic ‘Trans-Europe Express’ era of the Dusseldorf quartett with a replication of the pulsating Synthanorma sequence and Vako Orchestron strings from ‘Franz Schubert’ using a Sequential Polysequencer and Emulator.
‘Power Corruption & Lies’ was not entirely electronic and there were still guitar driven songs such as ARP Quadra assisted ‘Age Of Consent’ and synth-less ‘Leave Me Alone’, as well as hybrids like ‘Ultraviolence’ and ‘The Village’. Speaking of the former in 2023, Peter Hook said to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “‘The Village’ has got an amazing sequenced keyboard line by Bernard, he really went to town in programming that! The way the keyboard line builds and the way that it changes over those 4 and a half minutes…”. Not every track was a success and strangely ‘586’ lost its menace in re-recorded form while ‘We All Stand’ laboured when compared to its Peel session premiere.
Although ‘Power Corruption & Lies’ showed NEW ORDER had not left alternative rock music completely and would go on to maintain a balance on their next trio of long players, with an increasing interest in dance music from some members of the band and having opened The Haçienda with Factory Records in the vein of the clubs they had visited with New York, there was collaborative union with electro producer Arthur Baker who had worked with Afrika Bambaataa.
Baker wanted to make ‘Blue Monday’ while NEW ORDER wanted to make ‘Planet Rock’, so the result quite literally was ‘Confusion’! Stephen Morris in particular was frustrated during the sessions as Baker would not let him alter his Roland TR808’s pre-programmed patterns which were a major part of his sound. However, there was plenty of fun had and if you listen carefully, you can hear the band and Baker shouting “W*NKER” as it heads into the final straight.
The 1984 interim non-album single ‘Thieves Like Us’ offered a lusher sounding NEW ORDER that recalled THE HUMAN LEAGUE and a Hooky bassline borrowed from HOT CHOCOLATE’s ‘Emma’. But the third NEW ORDER long player ‘Low-life’ saw for the first time, a single taken from an album as a compromise following a new US deal with Qwest Records, a joint venture between Quincy Jones and Warner Brothers. Opting to replace their Prophet 5s with rack-mounted Octave Plateau Voyetras in their synth armoury, ‘The Perfect Kiss’ came in the usual 12” version as an epic 9 minute sequencer adventure but was sympathetically abridged for album consumption.
‘Low-life’ featured several other highlights and opened with the Country ‘n’ North Western ghost story ‘Love Vigilantes’. The mighty ‘Sunrise’ was another number in the tit-for-that exchange with THE CURE which was clearly influenced by ‘A Forest’ while the brilliant ‘This Time Of Night’ exuded a throbbing post-punk growl to shape one of NEW ORDER’s most underrated songs.
The influence of Enno Morricone returned for the gloriously emotive instrumental ‘Elegia’ while the HI-NRG sex anthem ‘Sub-culture’ provided a potential hit single, although this was not realised despite a club enhanced remix by John Robie featuring additional soulful female backing vocals which dismayed many NEW ORDER fans. However, the dreadful closer ‘Face Up’ proved to be the low-point in an otherwise good record.
The link with Qwest opened up doors to Hollywood and although THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS and OMD bookended the 1986 John Hughes teen movie ‘Pretty In Pink’, NEW ORDER contributed three tracks to the soundtrack including a brand new single ‘Shellshock’; produced with John Robie, the 12” version was painfully overlong and while the final mix was also very busy and messy. It would take another year for NEW ORDER to get that mainstream pop hit.
NEW ORDER were gaining momentum and this put them in good stead for their next album. Deciding against the purchase of the very expensive Fairlight, they went for the more cost-effective Yamaha RX11 drum machine and QX1 sequencer combo with Emulator IIs. Although technology was now a major part of their modus operandi, NEW ORDER continued with their original band-oriented sound which could make them quite unique compared with their contemporaries. This existential compromise was made quite explicit in the concept for their fourth LP ‘Brotherhood’.
Divided into distinct rock and electronic halves, although it suffered from comparison with ‘Low-life’, ‘Brotherhood’ contained one of NEW ORDER’s most enduring tunes in ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’; the rugged self-production was a glorious electronic number with a slight mechanical offbeat while providing space for Hooky’s distinctive bass. Here was another potential hit but the version released for single consumption was a frustrating, four-to-the-floor remix by Shep Pettibone which took all the character out of the song with a barrage of overdriven percussive samples. A belated 1988 remix by Stephen Hague which eventually appeared on a free cassette with Select Magazine in 1991 was much better and in slightly reworked form, resurfaced in 1994 for ‘(the best of)’ compilation.
While ‘Brotherhood’ did not consistently reach the heights of ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’ or ‘Low-life’, it did feature a number of other brilliant songs; although ‘Paradise’ featured on the rock half, a sequenced bassline provided its hypnotic core thanks to the acquisition of the Roland SPX Sync Box which could clock sequences from a live drum track. On the other side, the beautiful ‘All Day Long’ combined THE VELVET UNDERGROUND with New York electro and soaring classical melodies while the amusing ‘Every Little Counts’ synthetically pastiched Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ at funereal pace with a hilarious scratched vinyl ending.
The inclusion of the pre-album single ‘State Of The Nation’ on the CD edition of ‘Brotherhood’ had signalled how marketing releases with bonus songs was to be a lucrative strategy thanks to the extra playing time accorded by the silver discs. So for the release of the ‘Substance’ compilation, there came a new brand single ‘True Faith’ which proved to be NEW ORDER’s most immediate and accessible pop song yet.
Co-produced by Stephen Hague who had worked with OMD and PET SHOP BOYS, the band were transformed without hindering their ethos. During the recording, Hague insisted that Bernard Sumner laid down his lead vocal early on so that the instrumentation could be built around his voice. The result was that there was a more subtle dynamic space in ‘True Faith’ compared to the occasionally messy wall of sound effect that had been a characteristic of NEW ORDER’s self-produced recordings.
On the B-side was ‘1963’, a song driven by E-mu Systems SP12 sampling drum computer that some reckoned was even better than ‘True Faith’; Stephen Hague felt it should have been an A-side. Much to Hooky’s annoyance, his contributions on ‘1963’ were virtually written out, only making a brief appearance at the end. However, the bassist had the last laugh when ‘1963’ was belatedly released as a single in its own right in 1994 as a more Hooky audible rework by Arthur Baker.
Arthur Baker himself had developed an enduring relationship with NEW ORDER, having co-written ‘Confusion’ and ‘Thieves Like Us’ like he was a member of the band. Working as the music supervisor for the movie soundtrack of Beth B’s parody of televangelism ‘Salvation’, he invited NEW ORDER to contribute 5 tracks, the best known of which was ‘Touched By The Hand Of God’; in a sign of the future, its title was inspired by the controversial Argentine footballer Diego Maradona.
Not featuring on ‘Substance’ but mixed by Baker for single release to coincide with a three date European tour in late 1987 that included the band’s biggest headlining UK concert to date at Wembley Arena, ‘Touched By The Hand Of God’ was another of NEW ORDER’s more underrated singles. With a synth riff borrowed from Shannon’s ‘Let The Music Play’, it successfully combined some gritty rock energy to a solid Italo disco backbone featuring a great sequenced bassline.
Meanwhile, ‘Blue Monday’ got a second life and an edit in a remix supervised by Quincy Jones, but by the end of 1988, the world was gripped by acid house with The Haçienda becoming its UK Mecca. NEW ORDER decided to record their next album on the sunny Balearic party island of Ibiza. But with its various hedonistic distractions, the band got very little done apart from a couple of drum tracks! So recording began in earnest at Real World Studio in Box near Bath, the renowned state-of-the-art and pricey studio complex owned by Peter Gabriel.
A sly send-up of the acid house scene, one track inspired by all the partying was ‘Fine Time’. Utilising Akai 900s samplers, it featured a pitch shifted vocal sounding like an inebriate jackmaster impersonating Barry White, while the untidy backing track was complimented by some bleating sheep. Bernard Sumner admitted ‘Fine Time’ was “a novelty record” to Melody Maker and luckily the single edit was one and a half minutes shorter than the album version, which with its overlong bass drum breakdown, spoilt the start of what was an otherwise excellent album in 1989’s ‘Technique’.
With its combination of alternative rock, electronic and hybrid tracks mixed with greater clarity by Alan Meyerson, there was a sunny vibe, even on the melancholic glory of ‘Vanishing Point’ which appeared in instrumental form as the end credits theme to the BBC comedy drama ‘Making Out’. ‘All The Way’ was another tit-for-tat jibe at THE CURE resembling ‘Just Like Heaven’ while the wonderful countrified ‘Run’ was similar enough to ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’ that John Denver sued the band successfully to bag a cut of the publishing.
A development of ‘Paradise’ from ‘Brotherhood’, ‘Dream Attack’ was an ecstasy song but with acoustic guitars syncopating off the deep synthesized bass although in a sign of developing tensions, Peter Hook’s sliding melodic bass could barely be heard. Among the other highlights of ‘Technique’ were ‘Mr Disco’ and ‘Round & Round’ which saw NEW ORDER in their glitterball disco prime; there were tongue-in-cheek holiday romance lyrics and syndrums on the former while on the latter, its orchestral stab-laden Europop prowess made ‘True Faith’ sound like ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, especially in its later Stephen Hague produced single mix.
However, some of the band’s hardcore following were dismayed these songs’ sonic affinity with PET SHOP BOYS. With NEW ORDER in hiatus after an appearance at the 1989 Reading Festival where he announced that the band were not splitting up, Barnard Sumner did a whole album of electronic disco with Johnny Marr in ELECTRONIC, aided and abetted by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe!
Dismayed, Peter Hook formed the appropriately named but less well-received REVENGE, supposedly a statement for “real guitar music” as a reaction, according to Stephen Morris, to NEW ORDER’s “synthesized sequenced sh*t” but ended up using “synthesized sequenced sh*t”! Meanwhile, Morris himself and Gillian Gilbert settled into domestic bliss on a farm near Macclesfield with a home studio, doing TV soundtrack work and their own pop project THE OTHER TWO.
But during this break, NEW ORDER reconvened temporarily having been commissioned by the Football Association to record a song in support of the England World Cup team for Italia ’90. Based on a theme that Gillian Gilbert had composed for the BBC Youth TV magazine show ‘Reportage’, ‘World In Motion’ was released 4 days after the 10th anniversary of Ian Curtis’ passing and hit No1. Sumner told NME at the time that ‘World In Motion’ would be “the last straw for JOY DIVISION fans”. Meanwhile, in another end-of-an-era moment that was not apparent at the time, ‘World In Motion’ was to be the final NEW ORDER release to have a Factory Records catalogue number, although MCA handled the wider manufacturing and distribution responsibilities on behalf of the FA.
By the time of the next album ‘Republic’ where NEW ORDER were persuaded to make a new record to recoup some of the money that Factory Records still owed them for the success of ‘Substance’. Much of the cash had been syphoned off to fund the label’s less viable acts, The Haçienda and a lavish new HQ in Manchester’s trendy Charles Street while the band were still kept on a modest wage.
Although an attempt was made to start recording the album with Pascal Gabriel, Stephen Hague was brought in to helm the ‘Republic’ sessions at Real World. However, with the various band members not speaking to each other, the American producer (who was also an accomplished musician) took control to get ‘Republic’ finished on time and within budget. Two notable session musicians, David Rhodes on guitar and Andy Duncan on percussion were even brought in. Hague would later lament that ‘Republic’ featured too much of him and not enough of NEW ORDER.
However, it was all too late for Factory Records which collapsed towards the end of 1992. Released in 1993 on London Records, while it was to become a highest charting album in America, ‘Republic’ was a lukewarm record although there were some high points. The bittersweet first single ‘Regret’ sampled ‘Atmosphere’ for its intro and was a fabulous band centric opening track that had haunting echoes of ‘Ceremony’. ‘World’ though could have been ELECTRONIC and was notable for its absence of Hooky’s bass, while the serene ‘Ruined In A Day’ took Ennio Morricone’s influence on the band to its zenith despite also not featuring the bassist.
Actually featuring Hooky, ‘Young Offender’ was one of the album’s few non-single highlights, but the troubled atmosphere and financial turmoil that was lingering could be sensed lyrically on songs like ‘Times Change’ and especially ‘Chemical’. While ‘Liar’ was possibly a scathing attack on Tony Wilson, the song itself was poor while ‘Special’ was an attempt at MASSIVE ATTACK’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ but less successfully realised.
An indicator of how different ‘Republic’ could have turned out was when ‘Spooky’ was released as a single. Underwhelming as an album track, it was remixed by house dance trio FLUKE who provided a more spacious rhythmic backdrop, with the song-based ‘Minimix’ allowing the best elements to shine.
NEW ORDER went into a second lengthier hiatus after another Reading Festival appearance in Summer 1993 but they had already made their mark on popular music. They had been at the forefront of adopting early affordable programmable technology in music. During a period when bands like OMD, SOFT CELL, DEPECHE MODE and YAZOO used backing tapes, NEW ORDER risked all by taking this equipment, complete with their mini data cassette dumps, out on the road and using it on stage! They had furthered the cause of electronic dance music by introducing the sound of New York electro and Italo disco to UK audiences from within their own work. They even made a football record that was actually very good and captured the zeitgeist.
But while NEW ORDER remained credible thanks to their independent Northern English bloody mindedness and not playing the game, with the reality of having to pay the bills, they eventually headed for London. Against the odds, NEW ORDER were reunited in 1998 at the instigation of Rob Gretton after a headlining offer was made by the promoters of the Phoenix Festival. Although that event later collapsed, there were triumphant shows at Manchester Apollo and another Reading Festival that summer. However, the quartet were less impressive at Manchester Arena for the ‘Temptation’ dance event before New Year’s Eve.
But the untimely death of Rob Gretton in 1999 and the departure of Gillian Gilbert latterly from the band for family reasons changed the dynamic of the band considerably. Ultimately, it left a power struggle between Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook to fester, with Stephen Morris stuck in the middle and unable to referee.
As their imperial phase proved, despite all the creative and personal tensions, the band were better together than torn apart. But as Peter Hook remarked in his 2016 ‘Substance: Inside NEW ORDER’ memoir, “chemistry is combustible”. A second more joyless division was on the horizon, but that is another story…
‘Substance’ is reissued on 10 November 2023 as an expanded 4CD set as well as double CD, blue + red double vinyl LP and double cassette formats by Rhino
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