New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2025 two disc "Definitive Edition" reissue.

Slant magazine called this album "the real beginning of New Order’s career" and I must concur. Leaving behind the "Joy Division music with New Order vocals" sound of Movement, we start to hear the group's take on the emerging synth-dance music coming out of the UK at that time. They added their own spin on that sound and this album ended being highly influential. The music seamlessly combined post-punk, synth-pop, and dance music into a style that influenced alternative rock, indie dance, and electronic music for decades. The influences of records such as this often end up sounding somewhat obvious not because they lacked imagination, but because everyone else spent the next few decades borrowing from them. Somehow I never had a copy on my shelves; an oversight corrected with the purchase of these CDs.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone (★★★★): "This record is a quantum leap over Movement, the band's first album, and over most of the music coming out of Britain lately."
• Smash Hits (6½ out of 10): "mainly murky and dull"
• Billboard: "insistent, danceable rhythms and melancholy harmonic colors coexist"
• Trouser Press: "a distinct improvement over New Order's debut album"
• Robert Christgau (B+): "I find it relatively gentle and melodic in its ambient postindustrial polyrhythms, their nicest record ever. I also think it sounds pretty much like the others."
• New Musical Express: "I suspect it'll prove one of the best records made in England this year."
• Record Mirror (+++): "a severe disappointment"

Power, Corruption & Lies placed at #262 on the 2020 edition of Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and, in 1989, was placed at #94 on that magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s, calling it "a landmark album of danceable, post-punk music."

I call bullshit on this reissue for not including
"the HIT Dance Single 'BLUE MONDAY b/w THE BEACH' (FACTUS 10)."
Those tracks were originally on the cassette and
there's plenty of room on these two discs ferchrissakes.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: I gravitate towards the dancier stuff which, to my ear, is Age Of Consent, The Village, Your Silent Face, and Ecstasy.

Bonus tracks: I can't resist the siren call of bonus tracks, particularly if the reissue carries a designation such as this "Definitive Edition." It's just too much for the collector in me to pass up. Unfortunately, all we've got here are demos which they've titled "writing session recordings" and they're about as exciting as reading the unedited first draft of a young adult novel. The exceptions here are tracks 7-10, the John Peel session from 1982. The band delivers more relaxed versions of four tunes: Turn The Heater On, We All Stand, Too Late, and 5-8-6. Turn the Heater On (a Keith Hudson cover) and Too Late were only ever recorded for the Peel session and neither were ever performed live.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I have a particular memory of this album and the first time I held an import copy back in late '83, but that tale is rather mean-spirited and I gain nothing from sharing it here. I'll just mention that all involved were knuckleheaded teenaged boys and leave it at that.

Previously revisited for the blog:

Waiting For The Sirens' Call (2005)	Republic© (1993)
Get Ready (2001)	Bizarre Love Triangle (1986)
(the best of) New Order (1995)	Brotherhood (1986)
(the rest of) New Order (1995)	Movement (1981)