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From 1976 to 1980, Curtis, Hook, Morris, and Sumner formed a creative and influential band called Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis committed suicide just prior to an American tour and the release of the band's second album, Closer, in May 1980. Intending not to let the band disappear with Curtis, the band rehearsed with each member taking turns at singing, ultimately choosing Sumner as the guitar was an easier instrument to play while singing. The group toured, then recorded a track with singer Kevin Hewick.Wanting to complete the line-up with someone they knew well whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own, New Order invited Morris' girlfriend, Gillian Gilbert from Macclesfield, to join the band during the early part of October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist.Ironically the band had agreed not to continue should any one member leave Joy Division. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over twenty years, is credited for having found the name "New Order" in an article in The Guardian entitled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for ex-Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order.Their initial release as New Order was "Ceremony", backed with "In A Lonely Place". These two songs were among the very last songs written by Joy Division (played and recorded in a rehearsal the week before Curtis took his own life). (In the documentary entitled NewOrderStory, New Order vocalist Bernard Sumner revealed that they had to run the recordings through a graphic equalizer (or EQ) to figure out what Ian was singing due to the poor quality of the recording. These rehearsal recordings are available on the third disc of the Joy Division box set, Heart and Soul.)Movement With the release of Movement in November, 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation (Joy Division), performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of ethereal synthesizers. Highlights of the Martin Hannett-produced album include "Dreams Never End", "Truth" and "ICB".The singles that followed ("Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation") indicated that at this stage the band had begun to change direction, more readily adopting sequenced electronics into their sound.The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order), opened in May 1982 and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. This was the UK's first ever superclub.Power, Corruption & Lies Power, Corruption & Lies was released March, 1983, a synthesizer-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music in with their earlier guitar-based sound, heavily inspired by acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Also, the group had begun to adopt abstract, seemingly nonsensical lyrics, with a curious naiveity to them, effectively the polar opposite of Curtis' brooding poetry. Also, as seen at the end of the emotive "Your Silent Face", Sumner seems to have adopted an ironic, satirical sense of humour, finishing the song with the line "why don't you piss off", a quality that the band has taken to heart over the years.Even farther in this direction was the electronically sequenced, Falklands-themed, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday", which became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time. The 12-inch "Blue Monday" single sleeve was so elaborate, resembling a large 5¼" floppy disk, that the band and Factory themselves were said to lose around £0.20 on each copy sold. However, later presses became less elaborate, and the band reaped large profits from the sales of the single. The American edition of Power Corruption & Lies, released later, featured "Blue Monday" and it's b-side "The Beach" as extra tracks.The hip hop-tinged single "Confusion" (released in 1983 and co-produced by Arthur Baker) firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. It was a crossover success on the club scene, and set a precedent for remixes of rock or pop songs which has now become a key part of music marketing.Still, the group did not pigeonhole themselves as a dance act. Instead they pursued two simultaneous and sometimes overlapping styles, one guitar- and rock-based and one dance music-oriented. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesized single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder."Low-Life The Low-life album (1985) refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, brandishing the now-classic "The Perfect Kiss" (the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme) and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. Interestingly, the instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" appears in the film but did not make the soundtrack. Also, the instrumental "Elegia" is in the film and not on the soundtrack.Brotherhood Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album featured "Bizarre Love Triangle", one of the band's best-known tracks. It also includes little known "Angel Dust", a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life era guitar effects.Substance While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & The Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance that featured the new single "True Faith". Substance showed the band's singles' progression from post-punk to slick techno-pop, though the band opted to re-record two of their older singles ("Temptation" and "Confusion") for the collection. A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The B-side to "True Faith", entitled "1963", became a single in its own right some years later.Technique By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic house sounds of Ibiza and the acid house tunes making their way into the Hacienda. Technique was released in February 1989. The album debuted at number one in the UK and contained a healthy mix of the acid house influence (as on "Fine Time", the opening track) and a more traditional guitar-bass-drums sound on others (such as the single "Run"). The album is a brilliant blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics inspired by Sumner's failed marriage.New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion," under the ad-hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was a number one UK hit. At around the same time, Bernard Sumner teamed up with fellow Mancunian Johnny Marr for the Electronic project (also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys), while Peter Hook in retaliation started a project called Revenge.Unusually for such a major group, New Order never had a formal contract with their label Factory Records. (This was in fact the label's standard practice until the mid-1980s. According to Factory's co-founder Tony Wilson, "All our bands are free to fuck off whenever they please"). Because of this, the group (rather than Factory Records) legally owned all their own recorded material. This has often been cited, not least by Wilson himself, as the main reason London Records' offer to buy the ailing label in 1992 fell through.Republic / band hiatus Republic, released around the world in 1993, was the band's first album release since parting company with the now defunct Factory Records. It featured a more direct sound, stylistically similar to Technique, but with a sombre edge. The release spawned the singles "Regret" (their highest charting single in the US), "Ruined In A Day", "World" and "Spooky", and is widely regarded as their most dance-focused outing.Following the release of Republic, the band put New Order on hold, whilst each member continued on with their own side-projects: Sumner once again teamed up with Johnny Marr in Electronic for 'Raise the Pressure'. Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk) also assisted with this record. Sumner also collaborated with the Chemical Brothers on a track from their album Surrender; Hook formed the band Monaco with former Revenge member David Potts; and Morris and Gilbert formed the aptly named The Other Two.In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixed versions of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", and "1963". The remixes of "True Faith" and "1963" were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the tracklisting was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of old remixes and newly-commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc/cassette comprised entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was again trotted out as a single for a third time in order to promote the collection.The group returned to the spotlight in 1998 with an appearance at the Reading Festival, which found the band playing more confidently than they ever had before. Notably, Joy Division songs began to find their way into the New Order repertoire with regularity with this performance, and the band continues to include tracks like "Transmission" and "Atmosphere" in their live sets even today.Get Ready Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and is more focused on the guitar. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins performed guitar and vocals on the track "Turn My Way", he also toured with the band deputising for Gillian in 2001. Also, Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream provided vocals on the track 'Rock the Shack'. Singles from the album included "Crystal", "60 Miles an Hour" and "Someone Like You".In 2002, Q magazine named New Order in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way".Adding to the legend of the band, New Order (as well as Joy Division) were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, which depicts the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of The Fall and former members of The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets, lend a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings as if it has Manchester's stamp of approval. The film also touches on some of Factory's other artists like Happy Mondays and The Durutti Column. The soundtrack features a collaboration between New Order and the Chemical Brothers entitled "Here To Stay", which itself became a single.Waiting for the Sirens' Call The band released a new album on March 27, 2005, entitled Waiting for the Sirens' Call to favourable reviews . Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters), the title track, and "Turn". According to Peter Hook, the band wrote and recorded enough material during the sessions for this album to release a follow-up in the near future.At the 2005 NME awards, New Order received the award for 'Godlike Geniuses' (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, The Clash, and the Happy Mondays.Almost as an update to the Substance collection, the group released Singles in the Fall of 2005. This two-disc collection collects every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to the title track to Waiting for the Sirens' Call. Aesthetics Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Hacienda.The band rarely gave interviews in the '80s, later ascribing this to not wanting to discuss Curtis. This, along with the Peter Saville sleeve designs and the tendency to give short performances with no encores, gave New Order a reputation as standoffish. The band became more open in the '90s, for example the aforementioned NewOrderStory (and in particular the long UK version) featured extensive personal interviews.Their music has largely been heavily synthesized, like other dance acts, and among more well-known songs are the singles "True Faith" (1987), and "Bizarre Love Triangle" (1986). On recent albums they have showcased a more traditionally rock-oriented sound on some tracks.The quality and innovation of the group's art earned them the status of icons in the alternative community, and have shown considerable longevity. They have heavily influenced techno, and were themselves influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire and Giorgio Moroder, and they have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house.Bassist Peter Hook contributed to New Order's sound by developing an idiosyncratic bass guitar technique. He often played high-pitched melodies with a signature heavy chorus effect, leaving the lower registers to keyboards or sequencers.Drummer Stephen Morris regularly played a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases played along seamlessly with sequenced parts.All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the fairly common Taras Shevchenko and Pumped Full of Drugs concert videos. In particular, every member could be seen playing keyboards at times. Taras Shevchenko is notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song ("Temptation") comes to an end.Album covers New Order albums, and Factory Records products in general, frequently bore the minimalist packaging of Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (the Low-Life album was the exception proving the rule) or even providing basic information such as the band name or the title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single) or on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power Corruption & Lies). Saville elaborated on this concept on the NewOrderStory video, saying his intention was to sell the band as a "known secret" of sorts. The distinctive minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling.Song titles Many New Order song titles have nothing to do with the song. In some cases songs with normal titles appear to have had their titles swapped to other songs. For example, the phrase "This Time of Night" appears in the song "As It Is When It Was" on Brotherhood but is the title of a song on Low-Life. Also, the track "Chemical" from the 1993 album Republic featured the word Brotherhood, which was the name of the 1986 album. Other song titles were taken from the titles of old movies ("Thieves Like Us," "Cries and Whispers," etc.) For a full list see New Order tracks which include the title in the lyrics.Singles New Order released many singles for songs not included on albums. Singles were released in many formats and often with varying track lists and exclusive artwork. According to Tony Wilson, Factory intentionally released other singles, LPs and compilations in non-UK markets to increase their collectability. Indeed, the complete New Order discography is far too sprawling for most fans to collect in its entirety, and the compilations released by Factory and other labels are notoriously incomplete. In the late 90s, London Records spoke of releasing a Depeche Mode-esque singles retrospective for New Order, complete with original packaging and track lists. In fact, the project was at times named Cardboard and Plastic and Recycle, with t-shirts for the latter appearing at the infrequent New Order gigs. Eventually, the financial aspects caused the project to devolve into the Retro box set (2003), which featured many tracks that were readily available elsewhere. The single-disc International compilation (2003) similarly omits the classic, out of print recordings in favour of updating the conventional The Best of New Order (1995) and Substance (1987). At least one single, "Run 2" (1989), may never be reissued; it was the subject of legal action from John Denver, who argued that the song's wordless guitar break was based on his own song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". An out-of-court settlement ensured that the song would never be re-released in its original form.Singles often feature remixes. The number of remixes were few at first but increased a great deal with increased popularity of dance music during the release of 1993's Republic. New Order remixes tend to have one or more of these characteristics:Dub Versions: Inspired by the dub musical genre, these have titles related to the original track (e.g., "The Beach," a lyric in "Blue Monday," is a dub version of that song; "Bizarre Dub Triangle" is the dub version of "Bizarre Love Triangle", "Dub Vulture" for "Subculture", etc.). Dubs were often solitary B-sides on the Factory original 12-inch singles, and were often recognizable rearrangements of the title tracks with few, if any, added parts. Edits: These were shortened versions of other mixes, often meant for distribution on a 7 inch record. Extended Versions: These preserve much of the original track but add extended intros, outros and instrumental parts (e.g., "Round and Round 12" Version", "True Faith (Shep Pettibone Mix)"). Instrumentals: The title track minus vocals (e.g., "Fine Line", "Vanishing Point Instrumental"). An interesting twist on this is the "Confusion (A Capella Mix)" which has a sole vocal track. Re-recordings: Later takes of the title track (e.g., "Ceremony" on the white and blue 12-inch and on Substance, "Shame of the Nation"). Live Versions: Live recordings (e.g., "The Perfect Kiss (Video Version)", the 60 Miles An Hour Tour Disc).Trivia The US synth rock band The Killers came up with the idea for their name from the video for "Crystal". The name was featured on the bass drum of the fictional band in the video. Brandon Flowers of The Killers went on to take to the stage at the 2005 T in the Park festival and perform "Crystal" with New Order.