New Order

It looks like New Order have split... again. I emphasised the looks bit, as they've been down this road before, in 1993. However, the difference now is that they're actually telling us about it. Or rather, Hooky's blurted it out during a radio interview with Clint Boon. No doubt they'll be back when Bernard wants a new Yacht, or Steven a new Tank. But for now, that's it. Below, then, is a short piece about what New Order meant to me:

BRIT Awards, February 1988. New Order casually saunter to the stage to collect the best video award for their 1987 single True Faith. The singer makes some half-hearted crack about Andrew Lloyd Webber. They look, well, ordinary. No massive hair, no shoulder pads, no lycra, no fluorescent bangles, cheekbones, eyeliner, ties with keyboards on, ripped jeans - they just look really, um, normal. They look like a bunch of student teachers. 'Imposters, they don't belong here', the 13-year old me thinks: 'This. Is. Fucking. Great.' And that video was amazing. I didn't have a clue what it was all about but it looked arty, it looked clever, grown up and, though I couldn't then work out why, visceral and incredibly moving. On reflection I suspect that it's the first time I'd encountered the visual married to the aural in such a beautiful, sychronised way. I mean, unless you knew what you were looking for in those days - and who does at 13 - pop videos on the telly mainly consisted of Wet Wet Wet 'frolicking' about on a beach, Mel & Kim dancing in the rain or Spagna with her mad hair (I may be wrong but if memory serves, she kept True Faith from getting to No.1). Ok there were The Smiths too, but they'd recently split and, anyway, this isn't about me and them (plus, New Order got to me first, by a number of weeks).

The next day, after school, I stayed on the bus all the way into town where I bought a copy of True Faith on 12" from HMV. I can still remember the journey home, opening up my carrier bag, taking the record out to inspect the sleeve as I always did in those days. But it was the shock that made this journey so memorable. There was nothing on the sleeve. No lyrics, no photos, no band information. Nothing. Just a blue background with a golden brown leaf sat in the middle of it. On the back it read: New Order a) TRUE FAITH b) 1963) Fac 163 (though I'll check the Fac no later). This was disappointing, to be honest; coming only weeks after picking up 'All The Best', Paul McCartney's then recent greatest hits, which had come with all kinds of paraphernalia. The next few weeks were spent in a vacuum, listening to True Faith and 1963 almost constantly. My next purchase was a cassette of the double album Substance from a second-hand record shop near my Nan's house. From there it was about five years of greatcoats, 'Bernard' haircuts and trying (unsuccessfully) to work out how to play New Order and Joy Division songs on my black and white Hohner Stratocastor - because that's what Bernard used (well, ok, his was a Fender).

I'm glad they've packed it in, and I hope this time it's for good. I can well imagine that Factory's collapse in the early 90s left them on dodgy ground financially, and probably necessitated the last few albums, and for those, like me, too young catch them live first time around, their return was welcome. But the thing is, although there have been a couple of decent songs in recent years; really, they haven't been the same since 1989's Technique. There was nobody to touch them in the 80s: nobody was as willfully individual, creative and experimental as them. In the same way that The Beatles had twenty years earlier, New Order changed the parameters of pop music. And the fact is, once new ground has been broken, it's been broken - there's no going back and breaking it again, no doing it better - there is only adaptation, reproduction and remediation.

My 5 favorite New Order songs:

1) True Faith
2) Thieves Like Us
3) Run
4) Ceremony
5) Bizarre Love Triangle

And this is the best live performance ever put to tape.

Though this could well be very different tomorrow...