262. New Order, "Power, Corruption & Lies"

 


When you hear the opening riff to "Age of Consent," the first song on this album, do you immediately think you're in an 80's movie?  Are you trading barbs with John Cusack or maybe plotting to bring down Molly Ringwald?  She thinks she's just so great, doesn't she?  No?  Oh, I don't either.

You know the story by now.  Joy Division ended when Ian Curtis, the lead singer, killed himself, and then the remaining members formed New Order and became more popular than Joy Division ever was and are absolutely iconic now.  So this was New Order's second album and the company line on this one is that it's a move away from Joy Division's sound and into their own, more poppy, dancey sound.  Listening back to it now for legitimately the first time in 30 years, I can sort of see that but I was also struck by how much some songs sound like Joy Division with a higher-pitched singer, like "Ultraviolence."  Take Bernard Sumner's voice down like 3 octaves and pull out some of the pew pew synth sounds and that is straight up a Joy Division song.

Others are clearly way more cheery and poppy than anything Joy Division ever dreamed of.  That first track, a fun, bouncy song that has been interpreted to be about everything from a relationship ended by a phone call to restrictive British age of consent laws that were lower for straights than gays.  "Ecstasy" is a pure dance bop, almost wordless except for a robot voice intoning "You....were...so...blind."  Is it about the drug, which was just becoming available in England?  PROBABLY!!

Anyway, although this is pretty much not my thing it was fun to go back and relisten after all this time.  (I remember buying Low-Life on vinyl in 1986 or so when it came out in America and playing the shit out of it; maybe that'll be on the list somewhere.)  

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yeah, I guess so.

Comments

  1. StephenNovember 10, 2021 at 10:06 AM

    Editorial meeting:

    "Are we sure 'Power, Corruption & Lies' is better than both 'Help' and 'Hard Day's Night'?"

    "100%"

    "OK"

    ReplyDelete

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