N is for New Order

When Blue Monday by New Order was in the charts, it spurred us on to develop the robot dance at school. I was passable but self conscious. Elicit cider supping helped. In contrast Pete was a dream in his white gloves. We would all form a circle while Pete worked his jerky moves. He was also a whizz on the running track.

Sadly Pete was in the slow lane in the classroom. I didn't stay in touch but could imagine him working in a packing factory or under a car. Then my imagination would kick in and I'd wonder if 20 years later, Blue Monday would be played on the radio one day and he'd wistfully remember when people formed a circle around him in his white gloves.

Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks that way and Pete forgot about Blue Monday years ago.

I'm not sure how big New Order were in the US, but they were ground breaking in Britain for a while with their electronic, industrial sound that was influenced by the German band Kraftwerk. And perhaps there were more sinister German influences at play.

Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris were originally members of Joy Division, a band whose gloomy sound was at odds with their name.

Lead singer Ian Curtis had suffered from ill health including bouts of epilepsy that sometimes took place on stage. Members of the audience wrongly though this was part of the act. Amid a marital breakdown he committed suicide in 1980.

The 1983 single Blue Monday became the best-selling independent 12 inch single of all time in the UK, the won;t mean a lot to people under a certain age. The general public were somewhat dischuffed to find it wasn't on the track list of the album Power, Corruption and Lies, resulting in a sticker appearing on unsold copies of the album that said: "DOES NOT CONTAIN BLUE MONDAY.

New Order and Factory Records were instrumental in setting up the famous Hacienda club in Manchester in the days when a wealth of alternative talent led to the city being dubbed "Madchester."


New Order - True Faith by hushhush112


True Faith became New Order's first American top 40 hit, although Ruined in a Day performed better stateside.

In more recent years New Order have done the usual band thing, namely splitting up and falling out. NME.com reported in July 2007 Hook had posted a message on his MySpace blog, claiming he would take steps to prevent Morris and Sumner to continue as New Order, writing "This group [New Order] has split up! You are no more New Order than I am! You may have two thirds, but don't assume you have the rights to do anything 'New Order-ey', because you don't. I've still got a third! But I'm open to negotiation."

They got together soon afterwards. Then split.

Curious face about New Order: Critics claimed the band had fascist undertones. The term "New Order" was featured in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as "the new order of the Third Reich" while the name Joy Division originated from the prostitution wing of a Nazi concentration camp mentioned in the 1955 novel The House of Dolls.