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IVH: New Order // Substance 1987 [1]
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Date: 2023-04-27
New Order at the SFX Dublin, 1983
Tonight’s selections from New Order’s 1987 collection of 12” singles, Substance.
If you went to an alt, new wave or goth dance club in the late 80s or early 90s chances are you danced with a cute boy or girl to one of these tracks. For this GenXer — and surely many others — these songs transport the listener to a long gone time and place.
In 1987 there were two records that stood head and shoulders above the pack: Substance by New Order and Sign Of The Times by Prince. Two double albums that defined the state of transatlantic dance music before E fully took sway and beats went forever baggy. In the 80s, New Order were yer actual ultimate singles band. Although you forced yourself to love their individual albums (Power, Corruption and Lies and Low-Life come close to being great), there was always something missing. That's because their greatest tracks had been used on 45s. And in those days, the two were kept largely separate. And then, finally, as Factory's 200th release, they celebrated themselves with Substance - an apt title if ever there was one. Released on a chunky-packaged CD, it offered a disc of A-sides and a disc of Bs - simple and somehow quite perfect. All the band's 12”s were lined up in a row, and the opening six tracks of the first disc are as sublime a run as you are going to get in popular music, even with the dodgy rerecords of “Confusion” and “Temptation”. Here, they quickly got out of the shadow of Joy Division and found a robust dance-driven sound. And then, there it is, monolithic almost: “Blue Monday”. Reviled by the group themselves, as it was something of a try-out for their latest equipment, it became their anthem and fully explored the possibilities of the 12” single format. But it is the two singles on the way to this - “Everything's Gone Green” and “Temptation” that find the group at their best, with Bernard Sumner's naïve lyrics set against a brooding cauldron of electronica that became their trademark. A new single came out to accompany Substance: “True Faith.” Never had their pop sensibilities been so perfectly honed. Although the group enjoyed many great moments after this point, Substance should still be their time capsule release. Almost taken for granted, the way New Order brought the underground dance sounds of the US to the indie mainstream could well make them one of the most significant groups ever. — BBC
Temptation
Sooner or later, someone was going to write a song like New Order’s 1983 alt-dance classic “Blue Monday.” The conditions in the early ’80s were just right, as musicians on both sides of the Atlantic piggybacked on disco and punk—the genres that had revolutionized the music industry the previous decade—and began inventing new ways to warp sounds and move bodies. But no one could do it quite like New Order, a forward-looking UK guitar group uniquely qualified to bridge the worlds of post-disco and post-punk. With a runtime of seven minutes, 29 seconds, and no real chorus to speak of, “Blue Monday” is a pulsating, enigmatic curiosity that was initially released only on 12” vinyl, the preferred format in the world of dance music. Radio had no interest in the song, but club DJs spun it like mad, and the single entered the top 10 in the UK. It eventually became the best-selling 12” single of all time. — Mental Floss
Blue Monday
It is rare that a band’s biggest hit is known more as a single than for the record. But, that’s the case with New Order’s Blue Monday in 1983. After its release, it was added to some cassette and CD versions of the Power Corruption and Lies record, but most people know it from the cart destroying single. To say Blue Monday is an iconic electro dance track is like saying Michelangelo’s David is a nice piece of stone. Blue Monday shaped music for decades and it still covered and featured in films to this day. There is some blinding neon synth, but the key is how this Spaghetti Western bass line gives the track a sense of gravity. The bass line really grounds the track and provides a great foil to [Bernard] Sumner’s steal robotic vocal delivery. The groove is incredible with lush landscapes and dripping synth chords, but cymbals and Sumner’s vocal gives the track a punk vibe not too far removed from Joy Division’s Interzone. It is the intersection between electronic decadence and punk rawness that gives the track its complexity. — CigarJukebox
Ceremony
[T]hey made Substance 1987. This was set up like a “Best Of” compilation, but it included the lengthier, 12″-club versions of their singles, all of the collected b-sides, and even a newly recorded single, and it was issued on the new, longer-playing CD format for the first time. Because this collection charted the progression of the band’s sound and featured longer, remixed versions of their songs, Substance 1987 was the perfect mix of New Order’s post-punk influences and dance style. It was their own twist on a career retrospective. Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that their album was a “pure rhythm machine with an ironically mysterious overlay of schlocky melody to help it go down. This album is a case study in sensationalist art, and I say the world is better for it.” — Flypaper
Bizarre Love Triangle
The group released their debut album, Movement, in 1981. Shortly afterwards, they visited New York City, which would inspire a tremendous stylistic shift in the group as they were introduced to the exciting sounds of electro, freestyle and post-disco. Added to this new way of thinking, [Stephen] Morris taught himself drum programming, and together with the addition of [Gillian] Gilbert, who was a master of the synthesizer, these elements altered the direction of the band’s career and, by proxy, changed popular culture forever. Following that period where the band found their stride, they went from strength to strength, releasing a plethora of classics, including ‘Age of Consent’ and ‘Temptation’. Although the band have been very consistent over their career, it was the 1980s and 1990s in which they really shone, and one of their most iconic cuts came in the form of the uplifting 1987 hit ‘True Faith’. One of the definitive tracks of the decade and of New Order’s back catalogue, it features a classic Bernard Sumner chorus, one that is simple but incredibly effective, coming with the memorable opening lines: “I used to think that the day would never come / I’d see delight in the shade of the morning sun”. It’s one of Sumner’s best vocal performances, and now, luckily for us, his isolated vocals have been unearthed so you can understand how they’d sound without the textured instrumentation, shedding light on how strong his voice actually is. — Far Out Magazine
True Faith
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