Customer Reviews

Substance 1987

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This early new order compilation compiles the full length 12" singles from 1981 to 1987. The opening track "Ceremony" still sounds very Joy Division-like, tying perfectly into their past with Ian Curtis (Lead singer of Joy Division that took his life in 1980). This chronologically organized compilation shows the impressive string of singles new order released. The hypnotic "Everything's Gone Green", the moving "Thieves like us", the danceable "Perfect Kiss" and the classics "Blue Monday", "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "True Faith". The 2nd CD doesn't really cut the mustard fully, they are b-sides after all. There are some great tracks here though. "In a Lonely Place", the opener is the companion track to "Ceremony", very haunting. "The Beach" and "Kiss of Death", great instrumental remixes of "Blue Monday" and "Perfect Kiss" respectively and "1963", the b-side of "True Faith". All in all a worthwhile compilation. The 2-cassette version is also worth looking out for; it includes as extra tracks dub-mixes of "Subculture", "Shellshock" and "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Substance is a great compilation of singles and B-sides by New Order from the early years. Starting with the Joy Division song "Ceremony" they breeze through all the 12" singles in chron. order. The first disc is nearly perfect. Dance tracks dominate here: "Blue Monday", "Confusion" and "Perfect Kiss". There is a new "Temptation" which, even though not as good as the original, is good. This is a great testament to a band that mixed dance with rock instrumentation.

The B-sides are not everyone's slice of pie. Owning the LP i had to go out and get the CD version of disc 2. (Not hard to find in a used CD store). The instrumental versions of the dance tracks are ok. "Thieves Like Us" probably is more pretty as an instrumental. Remember it's use in Pretty in Pink? But the real gems of disc 2 are "Procession", "Lonesome Tonight", and even "1963". Fairly brooding tracks but that's what's so good about this collection and New Order in general. It's a band that mixed dance with introspection and isolation. Substance is essential New Order.

I've listened to this more times than I've told my Dad that I love him. Maybe my priorities are wrong but this album is practically a family member. A genius overview of New Order's early and mid-career that they should have stuck to on later compilations. The songs here are classics. Some of the best dance music ever made, some of the best rock and roll ever made and some of the best pop ever made with some of the best song titles ever. All put togther with something so sadly lacking in today's ugly world..a little thing called..class.

A masterpiece.

For the budding New Order fan, Substance is the perfect place to start. It's got most of their well-known songs, and they're all wonderful. Some get pretty lengthy, but once you get into the groove, which doesn't take long, the length only adds to their charm. Even a punk rock fan like me can handle the eight and a half minute long "Perfect Kiss".

This is techno pop at its best, but don't limit it with your preconceptions of everything that genre has to offer; these songs are wonderfully layered, and have much to offer fans of any musical category.

In short, if you are afraid of New Order becoming your favorite band, don't buy this album. But if you want to listen to one of the more beautiful bits of music history, shell out the twenty-some-odd dollars and start listening. You'll be glad you did.

This is an absolutely beautiful compilation that will keep your mind body and soul moving through every drum beat and musical cord. Consisting mostly of their well-known hits, the first disc is truly an awesome listen. There isn't a bad song on it! The first tracks, Ceremony, Everything's Gone Green, and Temptation, are lesser known (at least they were to me), but they did not at all pale in comparison to Bizare Love Triangle in True Faith, my personal favorites songs by the group. My favorite by any group, actually. Oh, and if you think that the lyrics in this version of Ceremony are hard to understand, try listening to the original version, which was performed by Joy Division. The second disc consists mostly of B-sides and remixes. Though a lot of people didn't like the second disc too well, I still think its a great addition to the collection. Granted it's not as good as the first, but some of the instrumental remixes, such as that for Thieves Like Us and The Kiss of Death are just beautiful. And with a few awesome sounding B-sides, such as 1963 and Mesh, even the second disc proves to be a must have! An excellent compilation overall. I know I can only give 5 stars, but I really wish I could give ten! Because this one is really over the top!

I have had this CD for yonks but felt I had to write a review due to some people, frankly posting reviews but not having a clue about the background of this compilation.

Its not a best of, its their first 12 singles. Legend has it that Tony Wilson at the time wanted all New Order's singles on a tape for his car (N.O. were trend setters in that their singles weren't on their albums), so voila out comes 1987! So thats why this doesn't contain 'song X' etc.

One person said that the second CD doesn't match the first and that it sounds like B sides, well Sherlock thats exactly what it is! So its no suprise the second disc may not be on a par to the first, didn't that person realise that some of the tracks were instrumental versions?!

On the whole its an amazing 'feel good' album (was for me anyway) and an absolute snip at the price, I paid about 30 GBP for this not so long ago. In an ideal world it would of been remastered by now and it would of been great to have the original Ceremony (minus Gillian) that still has not been put on to CD (to the best of my knowledge), anyway its great buy it!

Its pretty simple. If you don't own "Substance 1987" go buy it right now. If you are a New Order or Joy Division fan, or just simply a fan of great music, this CD should be in your collection. For me, the highlight of this disc is a new version of "Bizarre Love Triangle." The original version found on Brotherhood and the remix found on the Greatest Hits CD are both good, but they don't compare to Substance's. Found here, "Bizarre Love Triangle" is almost three minutes longer than the other versions and features a cleaner, more upbeat sound. This song is gorgeous and is what made me fall in love with New Order in the first place. (It also reminds me of my first girlfriend...) However, this is by no means the only reason to buy Substance. The recordings of "True Faith" and "Perfect Kiss" are not exclusive to this disc but are still outstanding songs. "Temptation" is another standout, and "Blue Monday", probably New Order's most popular song, is also featured here. "Ceremony" is another song worth noting. Originally written by Joy Division although not released until the Heart and Soul box set, New Order's version is actually far better than Joy Division's. Sung in Barney Sumners' patented monotone, this is one of the most haunting and melodic songs ever recorded by either band. Disc Two, which features remixes like "The Beach", an instrumental version of "Blue Monday", and "The Kiss of Death", a remix of "The Perfect Kiss", as well as B-Sides, still has some amazing moments. The entire two-disc set is worth buying just for "In a Lonely Place". This chilling song was another song originally written by Joy Division but was never fully recorded. Disturbing, unnerving, and amazing. You owe it to yourself to get this CD.