RHINO
REVIEWS
It’s oddly moving to see a slick, ‘definitive’ version of an album that was so raw, so ragged and unready. When Movement was released in November 1981 it was greeted with a lukewarm critical reception, but that was surely missing the point. The point was: it was a miracle it existed at all.
New Order’s debut album was recorded in a dark shadow, in the most difficult of circumstances. Traumatised by Joy Division singer Ian Curtis’s suicide in May 1980, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris were far from convinced they wished to continue. When they did go into the studio, having changed name and added Gillian Gilbert on keyboards, their producer, the drug-addled console genius Martin Hannett, ridiculed their naive musicianship.
This deluxe one vinyl album and 3CD boxset reissue thus confirms what a hesitant, tentative document Movement was. It was as much Joy Division’s final album as New Order’s debut. For one thing, both reluctant new singer Sumner and Hook, who sang on two tracks, appeared to be mimicking Curtis’s doom-laden vocals: it was, as they later admitted, all that they knew.
The music traced a strange, brittle, austere trajectory between Joy Division’s sepulchral gloom and the electronic epiphany that was to spark their reinvention as New Order. Tracks such as Truth and ICB trickled rudimentary synths over skittering drum-machine patterns as Hook’s attitudinal bass circled ominously. Senses found Sumner intoning “No reason ever was given” like a hurt requiem for Curtis.
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About Classic Pop
Issue 51 of Classic Pop is on sale now!
This month, we have an exclusive interview with Bananarama's Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward as they return with their first new studio album in a decade.
We also meet iconic duo Hall & Oates before their UK arena tour and talk to Gary Numan as part of our look into the superfan phenomenon.
Classic Pop pays tribute to the wonderful Mark Hollis from Talk Talk and we celebrate the band's iconic Spirit Of Eden in our latest Classic Album feature.
Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford take us inside their spiky songwriting partnership and we also hear from Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder about his life as a one-of-a-kind wordsmith.
Our packed new album reviews section includes Bananarama, Edwyn Collins, Toyah, Andy Bell and The Chemical Brothers. On the reissues front, we revisit New Order's debut album Movement plus re-releases from Prince, Kate Bush, R.E.M, David Bowie and more.
In our live reviews section, we elbow our way down to the front for Tears For Fears, The Revolution, Holy Holy and Bryan Adams.
Enjoy the issue!