History New Order Story is Terrible
posted by on September 17 at 13:20 PM
Old news, I’m sure, but somehow I’d gotten the impression (from a friend?) that New Order documentary, New Order Story was, you know, a watchable film. This is sadly not the case, as I discovered over the weekend. The first problem you’ll notice is the narration—a dreadful, breathy female voice over intones pompous crap about the New Order story being “a story about beginnings and ends” or some other daft nonsense. Then, there’s Bono, mugging for the camera in insect shades, who I guess we need to tell us that Ian Curtis’ voice was, in his estimation, “holy.” There’s a little archival footage, but there’s also way too much time spent on the band’s lesser (and poorly aged) music videos. More than anything, New Order Story just reminded me how terribly inconsistent the band was. For every “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “Perfect Kiss,” and “Regret” (“Ceremony” doesn’t count, obvs) there was a “Fine Time,” “Shellshock,” or (gah) “World in Motion.” How is it I’m able to remember them as this untouchably great band when they’re actually so spotty?
I loooooove the bland stupidity of "World in Motion." Cracks me up!
The six songs you stated above proves that you are at least familiar with NO's greatest hits albums, which is basically what the New Order Story DVD is.
But to call a band that has created relevant and influential music for nearly 30 years "spotty" and "inconsistent" is complete critical banality. Unlike super bands like U2 and the Rolling Stones, New Order never became parodies of themselves. Their last two albums, Get Ready and Waiting for the Sirens' Call, were among their best releases.
Kraftwerk may have been the godfathers of electronic music but New Order created the blueprint of how techno and modern dance music are played today. They wrote some of the greatest and most recognizable dance anthems out there yet the band managed to stay away from the mainstream. Get Ready also proved that they could step away from the synthesizers and drum machines and still make outstanding rock music.
But I guess it's easier to judge and a band by watching one DVD instead of looking at the whole picture.
New Order created the blueprint of how techno and modern dance music are played today.
Um, no. That would be Giorgio Moroder and Juan Atkins.
You have a good point with Moroder, Pete. One of New Order's biggest influences was Donna Summer's music. But as far as today's music is concerned, the influence is from New Order, who changed the electronic music landscape with megahit Blue Monday, which is easily one on the most recognizable songs ever.
From Wiki:
"Blue Monday" is often seen as one of the most important crossover tracks of the 1980s pop music scene. Synthpop had been a major force in British popular music for several years, but "Blue Monday" was arguably the first British dance record to exhibit an obvious influence from the New York club scene, particularly the work of producers like Arthur Baker (who collaborated on New Order's follow-up single "Confusion").
According to Bernard Sumner, Blue Monday was influenced by four songs: the arrangement came from Dirty Talk, by Klein & MBO; the signature bassline with octaves came from Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real); the house beat came from Our Love by Donna Summer [Moroder prod.]; the long keyboard pad on the intro was sampled from the Kraftwerk song Uranium, from the Radio-Activity album.
That's right. New Order reshaped the musical landscape and made disco music (New York club scene)cool again.
the DVD is pretty meh. but c'mon eric, as chalupa said above, NO has continued to grow and explore. that cannot be said about a lot of bands. and as far as "world in motion" goes, it just doesn't age well, or translate for an american's ears. i lived in london when it came out in 1990 as the english team's theme tune for world cup. it totally captured the zeitgeist of that particular moment, and at the time and location felt particularly perfect.
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