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80 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extensive & inventive recap of New Order's salad days, December 23, 2003
Shortly after Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980, it appeared as if his band Joy Division had died with him, and its members would now have to give up what were once very promising careers. But the surviving members weren't going to give up that easy & after changing their name to New Order (with the addition of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert & Joy Division guitarist Bernard Sumner taking over vocal duties), they released their first single "Ceremony" to modest commercial success, but substantial raves in the dance club underground. New Order released four studio albums in the first half of the 1980s, then in 1987, created an early career-capper with the unique retrospective SUBSTANCE. Certainly smarter than your average greatest-hits collection, SUBSTANCE mostly is a gathering of New Order's early singles that never appeared on their albums, along with 12" single mixes that perhaps had become rare almost immediately after their initial release. 24 songs of these types are here on SUBSTANCE for posterity, but instead of it being another way of bringing royalities to the band, it's an extremely fine introduction to New Order, who at this point were just on the cusp of mainstream chart success. New Order's debut single "Ceremony" was actually one of the last songs Joy Division ever wrote, and it hints at a possible lightening up that the band may have been undergoing at the time of Ian's death. It certainly is much warmer than the engaging coldness of most Joy Division music, and one can only wonder what it would have been like had Ian lived long enough to record it. "In A Lonely Place" is another great Joy Division cast-off that New Order manages to make into their own. It was apparent that New Order, from the beginning, was mostly a singles band with the abundance of EPs & singles that featured songs not available anywhere else. One such work is the 1981 EP EVERYTHING'S GONE GREEN, which has two songs featured on SUBSTANCE: the Krautrock-inspired title track & "Cries & Whispers". Both of these songs have New Order still channeling the spirit of Joy Division (especially in Bernard's vocals), but this is understandable with the songs coming from a time when the impact of Ian's suicide was still being felt. From their 1982 EP FACTUS 8, "Temptation" (re-recorded for this album) came out as a single right before New Order's landmark 1983 album POWER, CORRUPTION & LIES, and is a good sign of things to come on that masterpiece. That album's undoubted highpoint "Blue Monday" is featured on here & it still is a sound to behold because it indicates that New Order had at last found their niche in dramatic, techno-based pop. Its B-side "The Beach" (also on P,C&L) makes a fine counterpart to that all-time great of techno music, and it was perhaps no accident that the 2000 film THE BEACH maybe was inspired by that song (New Order would even contribute a new song to the soundtrack). "Procession", "Mesh" & "Hurt" were also on that EP, featuring the synthesizer (thanks to distaff member Gillian) more of a focus than before, another sign that New Order had found its own way. 1985's LOW-LIFE was still more of a hit on the dance charts than pop, but it showed New Order willing to expand their audience base away from just the clubs. "Perfect Kiss" & "Subculture" are represented on here, with the former in a much longer 12" mix. 1986's BROTHERHOOD further opened the commercial market a little more with "Bizarre Love Triangle" its most famous entry & the longer dance mix here was already a standard even before it finally became a pop chart entry in another remix. "State Of The Nation" is also improved upon from its original album counterpart with its extended version on SUBSTANCE. "Shellshock" originally appeared on the soundtrack to the 1986 film PRETTY IN PINK & while it is often considered a rush job, it again shows the move towards lighter, even optimistic material for New Order. A great many songs on SUBSTANCE make their first official appearance on here, so be glad you've got them here. 1983's "Confusion" (re-recorded for SUBSTANCE) & "Thieves Like Us" (both also included in instrumental mixes) were New Order's successful collaborations with pioneer hip-hop producer Arthur Baker (of "Planet Rock" fame) with the former even making it to #5 on the Club Play Singles chart & #71 on the R&B surveys (not too bad for a band full of Whites). The old-school rap leanings of these two songs indicate New Order had more than just mopey techno-pop on their minds. "Lonesome Tonight", "Murder", "Kiss Of Death", "Shame Of The Nation" (I'm not sure if these are B-sides or previously unheard works) & "1963" (I think recorded at the same time as "True Faith") all have their first-ever showing on SUBSTANCE, proving that maybe New Order's well of creativity is probably a bottomless one. Finally, we get to the song that at last won New Order a wider mainstream audience. "True Faith" was the first single to cross over to the Hot 100 & did a fantastic job, topping out at #32. With this song, New Order made official their willingness to act positive on record for a change. Bernard Sumner sounds just buoyant on "True Faith" & in that stiff-upper-lip English tradition, he might actually be smiling as he sings this. Gillian's keyboards further heighten the good spirits, indicating maybe the missing element that was needed for New Order to cross over into the mainstream was positivity. I'll even go so far as to say that "True Faith" might be New Order's finest 6 minutes on record (and I am including "Blue Monday"). New Order managed to turn out quite a body of work in the first 6 or 7 years of their career, and SUBSTANCE features the best of it in a way that is unique if nothing else. With 12" mixes favored over official album versions & in some cases, actually going back into the studio to re-record songs all over again, SUBSTANCE is certainly not your average greatest hits record (1995's (THE BEST OF) NEW ORDER & 2002's INTERNATIONAL are the ones to get for that purpose). Sounds difficult & hard to understand? Perhaps, but it nevertheless is still an excellent way for neophytes to get into New Order & just maybe might influence them to try out the original albums as well.
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47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hearing this album *IS* the Perfect Kiss...., November 7, 2001
The word "essential" has been used to describe just about every CD available for sale on Amazon by one reviewer or another, but if any album deserves this description its Substance 1987 by New Order.
During the 80's, New Order crafted a unique and wonderful sound combining the fretty guitar work and almost-spoken vocals of Bernard Sumner, the absolutely wicked, high range lead bass guitar playing of Peter Hook, Stephen Morris's near-machine like drumming, and Gillian Gilbert's swirling keyboards.
Danceable, introspective, almost despondent, New Order somehow created brilliant, emotional songs through vocals and instrumental playing almost entirely lacking in any emotion, and, in so doing, laid the groundwork for much of today's dance music.
No one who appreciates wonderful music, then, should allow themselves to be unfamiliar with New Order, which is why this CD is a perfect purchase as it includes all of their best work.
Everything is here - the brilliantly written Ceremony ("Note for whom wheels are turning / Turn again and turn towards this time...."), the drug induced lyrics of Temptation ("Oh, you've got green eyes / Oh, you've got blue eyes, Oh, you've got grey eyes..."), the infamous, detached Blue Monday who's drum machine created beat sounds only slightly less machine-like than Bernard Sumner's vocals on the same, The Perfect Kiss, a beautiful, complicated multi-layered song combining just about every element of New Order's sound, the classic Bizarre Love Triangle ("Every time I see you falling / I get down on my knees and pray") and the sublime True Faith ("I used to to think that the day would never come / I'd see the light in the face of the morning sun...")
And that's just disc 1. Disc 2 has the b-sides from the above songs. About half of the b-sides from these tracks are instrumental / dub versions of the a-sides on disc 1 - a few are actually improvements on the a-sides, while about half the tracks are original b-sides. The standout track here is "1963", later released as a single, an emotive take on Marilyn Monroe's relationship with JFK ("Johny, don't point that gun at me / there's so many ways our lives have changed / but please I beg don't do this to me").
In short, this is album contains all of the best work by the band that is, in my humble opinion, probably the greatest band to come along in the last 20 years, so buy it, buy it with confidence knowing that you can't go wrong here, and buy it now - you won't regret it.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A triumph in every sense., November 9, 2003
With the death of Ian Curtis, everything ground to a halt for Joy Division. Unable to continue in the vein of songs like "Komakino" and "Decades," unable to embark on their American tour, unsure of where to go after this sudden catastrophe, but unwilling to just give up music and disappear, at that time the remaining members of the band could only finish what was already started; their first release as New Order was the single "Ceremony" with B-side "In a Lonely Place." These are Ian Curtis' last poems, and the music for them had already been written, but Joy Division had not had time to release them, and so they came out under the New Order name with Bernard Sumner on vocals. Sumner doesn't do a bad job, really, bringing just the right restraint to them, but all he succeeds in doing is making Curtis' absence felt. Amidst the tender serenity of "Ceremony" and the haunted plains of "In a Lonely Place," not hearing Ian's familiar voice is heartbreaking. Needless to say, among Joy Division's followers these songs have attained the status of lost treasures. The most valuable aspect of the big Joy Division box set Heart and Soul is the presence of two low-fidelity rehearsal recordings of these very songs, filled with tape hiss, ending abruptly, but with Ian on vocals. For New Order, however, this was only a first step. The Everything's Gone Green EP is the sound of New Order's road back from Joy Division's sound. The dance elements are there already - the jumping, processed synthesizers in the title track and "Procession" - but Sumner's singing still carries traces of Curtis. Due to this, the songs still hint at the striking beauty Joy Division had glimpsed, but Sumner's lyrics are really fairly inexpressive, though Peter Hook's bass in "Procession" sounds like many early Joy Division songs ("The Kill" in particular). Even New Order's breakthrough "Blue Monday" still retains enough of Joy Division in it to make one think Ian Curtis might start singing any moment, despite sounding already fundamentally different. It's "Temptation" where New Order really became New Order - some loud drums, a keyboard undercurrent, a warm and memorable guitar jangle, and of course, Sumner's affectionate singing, filled with irrepressible joy at simply being alive even while "bolts from above hit the people down below." New Order's main theme is born here - Sumner hints that his life might just have undergone some sort of upheaval, but cares not a bit about it, asserting simply, "I'll find myself as I go home." His songs often have a solitary air, but find that solitude to be a cause for happiness. After all, when one goes outside and sees a beautifully clear winter day, with frost on the ground but nary a cloud in the sky, who really cares about angst, problems, and anything other people might have done? A few more songs, a few more milestones - "Confusion" uses scratching and gruff hip-hop-style backing vocals, "Thieves Like Us" features keyboards as a lead instrument, but "The Perfect Kiss" tops all of them. Sumner sings an ambiguous, strange song about danger and disenchantment (with a chorus that affirms his belief in "a land of love," of course) to a masterful, layered rhythm track, and at the song's very end, there's a veritable explosion of sound, as the celestial lead thunders up and down over Hook's rolling waves of bass. A more spontaneous expression of carefree delight is difficult to imagine. Themes of danger and crime run through "Subculture," "Shellshock" and "State of the Nation," but Sumner is no malicious outsider, but more of a seeker of harmless thrills who favours a pleasant walk about town at night. It's hilarious to hear him assert that "Another day goes by and ALL I do is cry" in a completely non-lachrymose tone of voice. It's "True Faith," however, that is the pinnacle of the first disc, and doubtless a pinnacle of the genre. Sumner returns to his favourite theme, singing with great warmth about waking up to see the "morning sun." Lost human connections and uncertainty about the future are addressed with the lines "That's the price that we all pay" and "I guess there's just no way of knowing," respectively, and nothing more is made of them. This is what every great New Order song always comes back to - the simple realization that the morning sun, observed in solitude, is exactly what happiness is, and everything else can be disposed of with absolute calm. The second disc, aside from featuring "In a Lonely Place" and the rest of the Everything's Gone Green EP, doesn't have as much to offer. Five of the tracks on it are remixes of songs from the first disc, and of these, only "Shame of the Nation" is interesting, since it's not an instrumental remix but actually an entirely different take on the song that strips away the noisier moments and adds unintentionally funny backing vocals. However, the disc also contains the gorgeous "Lonesome Tonight," a winsome song that steers closer to the "rock" end of New Order's dance-rock scale than anything else on the album, as well as the dense instrumental "Murder" and the dramatic, compelling "1963." The last of these is especially great, showing Sumner's storytelling as well as vocal talents. Substance is an excellent album, a perfect introduction to New Order for those unfamiliar with them, a fine compilation for fans (only four songs on here can be found on studio albums, though their Substance versions are significantly different), a document of the completely unexpected, triumphant rebirth of an already great band, and a landmark in both rock and roll and dance music (soon to become electronica). It's creative, infectious, and above all a lot of fun (how else could one describe moments like the ending of "The Perfect Kiss," really?). It isn't Joy Division, but nothing is.
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