Sub-culture (New Order) (LP 3352)

New Order  Low-Life (Vinyl, Factory Records, 1985) ****  

Genre: Alt-rock, synth-pop

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: The Perfect Kiss

Gear costume: Love Vigilantes 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I've never been much of a New Order fan - I prefer Joy Division. When I first met my wife in 1983, she was quite into the band via Blue Monday and Power Corruption & Lies. I wasn't that fussed with the latter.

Fast forward many years later to the late nineties and Roger was getting rid of vinyl to embrace CDs and DVDs and he gave me this copy of Low-Life - the album that came after Power Corruption & Lies. I kept it and played it quite a lot and while it still didn't get me hooked (sorry) on the band, I did enjoy it.

Side 1, track 1 (Love Vigilantes) does, after all, start with a Beatle homage. Then The Perfect Kiss (some heart in the synth-pop) completes a great one two punch of rock electronica. Yes, it's dated - no mistaking this as an album of the early eighties, but it holds up in 2025.  

Where do they all belong? My only New Order album.

I see a ship in the harbour (New Order) #293

New Order  Blue Monday/ The Beach (Factory, Good 10, 1983)

Some songs just immediately suggest a time and a place. This is one such song.

The time is 1983 - my first year of teaching at New Plymouth Boys' High School and I'd met a woman in New Plymouth, fallen in love, and moved into her flat at 31C Lorna Street - a nifty little two bed detached house at the bottom of a leafy shared driveway.  

Both sides of this 12 inch single were part of the soundtrack of those times - the first days of a relationship that has now passed thirty years together.

The song? Oh yeah - it's still the catchy beast it always was. So radical for the time, and so different to Joy Division (who I love in a different way). It seemed to be of the time, at the time, but it still sounds remarkably cool after 30 years.


Hidden gem: If anything, The Beach is even better and fresher sounding than the A side. It's basically the same song but a more instrumental version so it's those synths, robotic drum and amazing bass sounds to the fore along with some processed vocals. This sounds so great LOUD too.