New Order: Betraying The Myth

MUSIC fans have a weakness for legends and myths surrounding their favorite performers. I do. Built up by fans and music press or cultivated by the artists themselves, the mythology, in some cases, is so solid and thick that it is an entire world, incomprehensible to the outsider. But then a time comes, when artists either rebel against the image bestowed upon them, or simply grow tired of it. Bits of banal and sometimes miserable truth start to shine thru and eventually completely ruin the aureole of mystery. Let’s take New Order and join their sad journey from the beautiful misanthropy of their early cult days to their bitter material end amidst final recognition and glory, twenty-five years later. Why New Order and who are New Order, some may ask? Well, it is my favorite band that I followed for fifteen years, I saw them live and I pretty much know what a normal person shouldn’t.

The canonical text on New Order states that they were formed from the ashes of Joy Division, a seminal British post punk band, whose lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in May 1980. That was the culmination of post punk momentum the British music press had waited for: finally there was someone who really meant what he sang about. Joy Division’s mummification started immediately. With the group being taciturn the journalists fully embraced their own intellectual visions about the group’s music and aesthetic.

For any group it would be an almost impossible undertaking not only to continue but also deliver high expectations (think about The Doors after Jim Morrison’s death). Realizing the horror of the situation, the three remaining members of Joy Division decided to change the name from Joy Division to New Order, an apt name if not a bit suspicious. Bernard Albrecht, guitarist and occasional synth-player, reluctantly became the leader.

They continued where they left off with Curtis: deadpan looks, gloomy Hitler-youth outfits, no chitchatting with audience (bassist Peter Hook actually stood back to the stage front); rare interviews became even more sparse as the band tabooed any Joy Division references; they also refused to perform any Joy Division material, starting really from scratch. They were a truly cult band: signed by blood to an independent label (Factory Records), New Order also had a luxury of working with an exclusively cool designer (Peter Saville) and a maniac mystic producer (Martin Hannett). The covers of their records did not show the band’s name or picture (only once picture was taken for the 1985 album "Low-life" as part of the design concept) and the records themselves bore cryptic messages scratched out along the ending grooves around the label. New Order also did not include songs off their singles into albums. Song titles didn’t bear any reference to the chorus or the song’s lyrics. Dark and indifferent, New Order really tried to walk in Curtis’ shoes but it didn’t work. While Curtis’ visions were otherworldly poems of eternal despair, Albrecht’s songs were unconvincing muddy rhymes.

“Fuck it”, said Bernard Albrecht who now became known by his real last name, Sumner, and cut his hair short. To cheer himself up, he started to listen to New York underground dance music, next he employed the method of automatic writing that turned his songs into puzzled psychoanalysis that fully freed him from the dark past. He also got rid of fake Curtis-like vocals and fully embraced his own inability to stay in key. New Order’s performances became erratic as Sumner developed a taste for Pernod drinks: a gig could be either utter shit or brilliance beyond expression. No encores. It actually became fun. Sumner got chattier on stage: “Sorry to keep you waiting, we're just waiting for the sequencer to load up. We're not sorry really, we don't give a shit really. I don't, anyway”. The clothing changed too: forget the overcoat-clad young men with the weight of the world on their shoulders; now it was the half-naked tanned body of Sumner that was shining on the stage. The bearded and ponytailed bassist Peter Hook ventured into the macho image on the verge between a Harley biker and a rockabillly cat.

Throughout the 1980s, although evolving dramatically both musically and personally, New Order carried the spirit of independents. Naturally incorporating the elements of electro, techno and house the group created a unique sound, distinguishing them from their genre rivals U2, The Cure, The Smiths and Echo & The Bunnymen. Only by the end of the decade Sumner learned how to sing and control his voice. At that time his clumsy dancing fit in with the Madchester rave craze of the late 80s – early 90s. Their manager Rob Gretton observed these changes with suppressed disapproval: an anarchist, he was instrumental in creating and maintaining the cult image of Joy Division earlier in their career but at this point he could not do much, the game was played by Sumner and if he didn’t want to do something, he wouldn’t. In 1989 New Order undertook a large scale tour throughout America. It was then when the band members decided to go separate ways. Unbeknownst to fans, New Order’s money was siphoned into their own disco club, Hacienda, as well as Factory Records, leaving very little to the musicians and that state of affairs was getting to them.

By 1993, when the group decided to gather together to record a new album, things got even worse. Factory Records, was sold out due to bankruptcy. Their new label, London Records, surely felt lucky to get hold of New Order’s catalogue and had hopes for a new career turn for the band. The first, in 14 years, best of compilation was issued in 1994. By then New Order again were no more.

A happy family reunion happened in 1998 when New Order gave a few successful concerts. In 1999 manager Gretton died and the band was on their own since then. In 2001 they returned with the new, guitar-driven, album “Get Ready”. The band's name and the record's title were on the cover from then on all releases (otherwise, how a buyer would know who is the artist, right?). Songs now were titled after choruses and singles were dutifully issued, with videos and accompanying tours. Now time for recognition came. New Order were included in various polls, lists, they received awards and it appeared they would follow their new single, “Here To Stay”. But after releasing another LP (with a deliberately long title, another punch into their one-word title myth?), New Order disbanded again in 2007, this time for good. Sumner admits the end of New Order was horrible and when he was asked, a few weeks ago, “why then they stayed together”, he disarmingly confesses, “Money. The last few years of New Order were only about the money. We’ve got bills to pay, like anyone else. We had to do it. To be honest, New Order’s been a corpse for a long while.” Their longtime designer Peter Saville, apparently feeling this tension, also became slobby when it came to New Order's latest cover art (in fact, the exhausted aesthete recently blurbed that he doesn't do cover art anymore principally because he's too old (50) for pop music).

In 2002 came “24 Hour Party People”, a comedy film depicting the legends of Factory Records and the related people. Five years later another feature movie was made, this time about Joy Division, “Control”. Definitely, in this age of legend sales, New Order’s cult status of indie dance pioneers became a stock. Endless interviews, describing the same stories, books, documentaries, a flood of DVD of this no so much (anymore) mystery band… Peter Hook published a book about how not to run a club and now tours England with his lectures on Joy Division and Factory Records and will host a tribute night to Joy Division. That's quite contrary to how Bernard Sumner feels about his past: it's impossible to persuade him to work on any project concerning New Order's legacy. The hedonist years of clubbing and ecstasy shocks took their toll...

The question is: should such artists like New Order nurse their myths and stoically follow them and thus keep the greatest legend of independent rock, and thus tight their freedom, or the way things went is just fine? I believe, were their manager alive things would have been different, he maintained that discipline required to follow a legend and, yes, it's a burden and employs a lot of skills not to fall into self-parody (like the Cure did) or get reduced into a small club-only act. Instead we have a bitter end with a bad taste in everyone's mouth.