My previously unplanned Joy Division-New Order week continues. I can't imagine Republic is anyone's favourite New Order album, despite its magisterial Regret single. It was made against the backdrop of Factory collapsing (as sung about in Ruined In A Day). When Republic came out it was not on Factory but, irony of ironies, on London Records. Side one of Republic was decent enough- Regret is the last truly great song they recorded, World (The Price of Love) is a good dance tune, Ruined In A Day's alright. Spooky, co-written with producer Stephen Hague, stood out. It was also the final single released off the lp, and had a variety of remixes. I'm not sure New Order have been best served by remixes (a few outstanding ones excepted). The handful of remixes of Spooky passed muster though especially the ones by Fluke. They tweaked Spooky into a really classy, shiny, sleek piece of techno-pop.
Spooky (Magimix)
In 1993, not long after this was released and when we had just started courting I put this on a mixtape for the future Mrs Swiss. It had a hand drawn and written cassette inlay card and everything.
The picture above shows one of the more bizarre promotional appearances the band made. A Top Of The Pops slot to sell Regret was done live via satellite link up from the Baywatch beach. New Order mimed the song while surrounded by buffed Californians playing volleyball and frisbee. The smasher of the Berlin Wall David Hasselhoff looked on.
5 comments:
Toptastic two-track-thursday, Adam. But Spooky isn't the most romantic of tracks to put on a "love me forever" compilation tape.
Would agree about Regret being the last truly great song they recorded, although Krafty is not far off being one of their greats...
I don't think I was going for a tape full of romantic songs George. More trying to demonstrate my exquisite taste.
I've always maintained, without proof of course, that Regret mush have come out of the Brotherhood sessions. It leapfrogs over Technique Era New Order for these ears and lands back closer to their '86 sound.
It's a song even the devil himself, Stephen Hague, couldn't mess up.
Spooky, on the other hand, sounds completely post Technique. But it really did lend itself to the post Balearic remixing of Fluke, the Progressive/Trance of Paul Van Dyke and Peter Daou and Tony Garcia's Deep New York sound. Daou/Garcia mixes were what was in my wheelhouse at the time, but they are certainly of their time.
Scott- I've just re-listened to Krafty and yes, it is good. I'd forgotten about it. Still won't make me re-evaluate Sirens call though.
Some good points Echorich. They pulled Regret out of some kind of magic hat.
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