New Order Gone Green

New Order's first compilation album, Substance (1987), finally broke the group through to commercial success in the U.S. Its second one, The Best of New Order, isn't exactly Substance II. The previous set was a singles collection, and Best Of does pick up that story, including a series of songs - "True Faith" (in a new remix), "Touched by the Hand of God," "Blue Monday 88," "Fine Time," "Round & Round" (in a new remix), "Run," and "World in Motion" - that were bigger hits in the U.K. than in the U.S. (Also included is the group's biggest U.S. hit, "Regret" as well as its charting follow-up, "World [The Price of Love].") But in addition, the compilers have included one song each from the group's albums - "Dreams Never End" from Movement, "Age of Consent" from Power, Corruption & Lies, "Love Vigilantes" from Low-Life, "Vanishing Point" from Technique, and "Ruined in a Day" from Republic…

Everything's Gone Green is the third single by New Order. Originally a B-side to Procession, it now has its own two B-sides, "Cries and Whispers" and "Mesh".
Rising from the ashes of the legendary British post-punk unit Joy Division, New Order triumphed over tragedy to emerge as one of the most acclaimed bands of the 1980s; embracing the electronic textures and disco rhythms of the underground club culture many years in advance of its contemporaries, the group's pioneering fusion of new wave aesthetics and dance music successfully bridged the gap between the two worlds, creating a distinctively thoughtful and oblique brand of synth pop appealing equally to the mind, body, and soul.

A single 20-minute track recorded in the early '80s but never available in anything like its full form, Video 586 is a pure synthesizer track except for Peter Hook's rumbling low-end. Reminiscent of an extended mid-tempo dub of the early single "Everything's Gone Green," the track plods occasionally but is remarkable purely for its view of New Order as a synthesizer band in the midst of the crossover-heavy synth-pop crowd of the early '80s.

Singles is a greatest hits album by English rock band New Order. It was released on 3 October 2005 by London Records. The two-disc compilation includes the band's singles released between 1981 and 2005. Unlike the CD version of earlier singles compilation Substance 1987, the B-sides are not included. While Substance 1987 aimed to showcase New Order's 12-inch singles, Singles instead features mostly seven-inch versions, some of which are rare and differ from the album versions…

New Order's third LP, Low-Life, is, in every way, the artistic equal of their breakout, 1983's Power, Corruption & Lies. Building on the genre-hopping brilliance of the two singles they released in between - the Arthur Baker-produced electro track "Confusion" and the dramatic synth rocker "Thieves Like Us" - Low-Life marks the point where the band's fusion of rock and electronics becomes seamless. It's heavily sequenced and synthesized, but with bravura work from Bernard Sumner on guitar and Peter Hook's plaintive, melodic bass taking a lead role. The record is filled with hooky, hummable pop songs, but just as important are the experimental techniques that the band and engineer Michael Johnson employ…

New Order had been so good at integrating synth and guitars (often on the same song) that fans who greeted 1986's Brotherhood with the realization that it was split into a rock side and a dance side couldn't help but be a little disappointed. Still, the songs and the band's production had reached such a high level that the concept worked superbly, without calling undue attention to itself. The rock side comes first, revealing more of the emotional side of Bernard Sumner's singing and songwriting, even leading off with acoustic guitar for one song. But Brotherhood was also a little harder than what had come before; Sumner often sang with a come-on sort of brio, matching Peter Hook's seething work on the bass…

When New Order returned in 2001 with their first new record in eight years, the album they created (Get Ready) was given a great deal of leeway by fans (if not critics). Was it original? Not very. Although the band never recycled a riff, many of the songs recalled not just the band's salad days, but often specific performances from '80s touchstones Brotherhood or Low-life. What saved Get Ready from irrelevance was a brace of great songs, a new look at the band as capable rockers, and what's more, that uncanny ability to produce timeless, ever-fresh recordings. Almost as surprising as that comeback record was its follow-up, Waiting for the Sirens' Call, which arrived in 2005. If New Order's ambition was only to reinforce themselves in their fans' imaginations as members of a working band (à la their contemporaries Echo & the Bunnymen or even Duran Duran, for that matter), then the album is a success…

Instead of settling down in front of the mixing board for another dance album (a lá Technique or Republic), New Order returned in 2001 with a sound and style they hadn't played with for over a decade. Unsurprisingly bored by the stale British club scene circa 2001, the band opened Get Ready with a statement of purpose, a trailer single ("Crystal") featuring a host of longtime New Order staples: a sublime melody, an inscrutable set of lyrics, a deft, ragged guitar line kicking in for the chorus, and Peter Hook's yearning bass guitar taking a near-solo role. Though there are several allowances for the electronic-dance form New Order helped develop, Get Ready is a very straight-ahead album, their first work in 15 years that's focused on songwriting and performance rather than grafted dance techniques…