The Best of New Order [Qwest/Warner Bros., 1995]
Marvel all you want over Ian Curtis's desperation--I dig the band on the matched Joy Division comp Permanent and prefer detached techie Bernard Albrecht here. Where 1987's Substance showcased the music's remixed, interwoven glory, this pushes Albrecht's mild-mannered vocals as far front as they'll go. Turns out he has normal feelings about love and rejection and such, dislikes war and guns without getting preachy--just super-unassumingly super-catchy, as befits Britannia's ranking pop group. I mean, could Blur or Oasis write a World Cup anthem so rousing, danceable, and informative? A

>cuckgau has a hateboner for Ian Curtis
what a nerd

nu pop producers have been trying for 20+ years to copy NO and still fail at it

>>126991699
his Bright Lights review is an absolute late-career masterpiece

Turn On the Bright Lights [Matador, 2002]

They bitch because everybody compares them to Joy Division, and they're right. It's way too kind, and I say that as someone who thanks Ian Curtis for making New Order possible. Joy Division struggled against depression rather than flaunting it, much less wearing it like a designer suit. What's truly depressing is that, just as the hairy behemoths of the grunge generation looked back to the AOR metal they immersed in as teens, these fops tweak the nostalgia of young adults who cherish indistinct memories of much worse bands than Joy Division, every one of them English--Bauhaus, Ultravox, Visage, Spandau Ballet, Tears for Fears. At a critical moment in consciousness they exemplify and counsel disengagement, self-seeking, a luxurious cynicism. Says certified British subject Peter Banks: "Emotions are standard and boring. I'd like to find another way to live." That's thinking either big or very small. C+

>>126991941
>Joy Division struggled against depression rather than flaunting it, much less wearing it like a designer suit.
And that's why I have never been moved by Korn.

>>126991941
tl;dr grunge bands and BL didn't listen to enough black music their influences were too white