New Order

New Order, British pop band, formed in Manchester in 1980, whose club crossover hit “Blue Monday” (1983) made them one of the most important independent bands in the United Kingdom. The band comprised Gillian Gilbert (keyboards), Peter Hook (bass), Steven Morris (drums), and Bernard Sumner (born Bernard Dicken, also known as Bernard Albrecht; vocals/guitar).

When Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, committed suicide in 1980, the other members of the band (Sumner, Hook, and Morris) formed New Order, inviting Gilbert to join them. Their interest in the keyboard experiments of Kraftwerk and in New York electro music led them to record “Blue Monday”, which entered the charts three times from 1983 to 1984 to become the best-selling 12-inch single in British chart history. Mixed by New York hip-hop producer Arthur Baker and combining a compulsive drum-machine pattern with an insidiously catchy melody, “Blue Monday” made an important link between the previously antagonistic dance and indie (independent) subcultures. The subsequent success of Low Life (1985) proved inspirational to a generation of dance-oriented indie bands. Despite two strong singles (“Bizarre Love Triangle”, 1986; “True Faith”, 1987), it was not until 1989 that New Order’s next album appeared. Technique’s fusion of indie rock and the eclectic Balearic club sound gave New Order their first number one, England’s 1990 World Cup song “World in Motion”. Involved in various side projects in the early 1990s, the members of New Order returned with Republic (1993), which contained further hits (including “Regret” and “World”), but internal disagreements led to an announcement that their 1993 Reading Festival appearance would be their last.

Playing on media assumptions that they would be unable to survive without Curtis's cult presence, New Order manipulated their anonymity. They gave minimal band information on record sleeves, refused to give press interviews, and tried to avoid rock clichés—reducing the importance of vocals in their songs (Sumner cultivated a flat, unemotional style of singing) and not playing encores at their live performances. Instead they relied on their fusion of rival pop genres to build an audience.