Power, Corruption & Lies

Despite the fact that this is one of my favorite album titles of all time, and I've always been a fan of the band, I never picked up Power, Corruption & Lies until last month. I figured since I'm going to see New Order tomorrow night for the first time, I should finally pull the trigger and get it. To my mild surprise, it's now among my favorite records of all time.

New Order, like its band predecessor Joy Division, has a kind of weird album/singles release history. Joy Division often would release it's marquee singles (e.g., "Love Will Tear Us Apart") separate from and exclusive from the studio albums; the only way you can get some songs is to buy the "Substance" compilations. Likewise with New Order, many of its best known 1980's songs - "Blue Monday" and "True Faith", e.g., are available only on its "Substance" compilation.

I didn't get into album-format until I had gotten a lot older, and I didn't have a lot of money back in the day. What this translates to is that I was very content to just get the "Best Of" collections and assume that I had everything essential. Only when I started buying albums more did I realize that invariably my favorite songs wouldn't be the songs you heard on the radio (back in the day) or released as singles. Anyway, these factors contributed to my reluctance to buy any actual New Order albums prior to Substance.

Two years ago I picked up New Order's newest Music Complete, which I thought was amazing, and that led me to being very interested in seeing the band live when they came around. While looking around for set lists of the band, I noticed a lot of the songs they played were not the "hits" per se, so I figured it might be time to check out their other works.

Power, Corruption & Lies in original release form doesn't contain even one song that I would consider to be in what I'd consider to be familiar to the average listener; there aren't any easily recognizable tunes. What it does contain is probably no less than four of my all-time favorite New Order songs now. That's including such classics as "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Temptation". Of the latter, I'd put "The Village" up there with an instantly singable, danceable love track. "Age of Consent" sounds as fresh today as it may have 35 years ago. "Your Silent Face"'s beat I could put on an endless loop track to zone out to. And the album finishes with the languishing sad but fast beating "Leave Me Alone". It's crazy-listenable.

Of note, some of the later releases of the album decided to include singles "Blue Monday" and "Thieves Like Us" -- but released around the era of the album -- to pad it and no doubt make it more marketable. I wouldn't include these powerhouse songs, personally; the album stands so strongly on its own without them. That's how good it is.