Old timer here, too - I used to haunt these pages as 50PoundNote.

I've been a fan for 30 years, and didn't dare dream the band still had this in them. There's not a single track I dislike, and there are so many surprises! I can't stop listening to it, and rank it right up there with their Factory output.

No, thank YOU!



You're right, but the comparisons are inevitable. I should say it excites me in the same way that a new New Order album did in 1989.

Edited by user 25 September 2015 18:04:33(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yeah, it's true. Comparisons are inevitable.

It's a strange thing though how music can make you feel emotions as a mature (allegedly) adult exactly the same as you did as a wet behind the ears teenager. I remember listening to Low Life for the first time as a 19 year old, (having walked two hours into Glasgow city centre and two hours back again because I only had enough money to buy the album if I walked) and sitting on the edge of my bed awestruck as wave after wave of this perfect meld of man and machine overcame me and lifted me up to some other worldly plane i'd never even imagined before. I bought the cassette of that album and I listened to it on a cheap Woolworths 'own brand' ghetto blaster. It was the best, most magical thing i'd ever heard in my life. It still is.

Yesterday morning I woke to find my HD Audio download of Music Complete was good to go. (OMG! How times change!) I sat there on my fancy sofa, listening through my fancy McIntosh hi-fi feeling EXACTLY like that young upstart from 'the scheme' did 30 some years ago. Music Complete is not the same record as Low Life, but it sure made me feel the same. I'm delighted with that!

If you ask me, it sounds like an Electronic record.

Would fit just right after Twisted Tenderness.

No offense to Johnny Marr of course, but New Order without Hooky will always sound like Bernard's side projects.

Not saying it's not good, I loved all 3 Electronic albums.

I agree to a degree. I am loving this LP, but the bad parts of it, like some of Sumner's vocals, remind me of that terrible 2nd Electronic LP that I think I tossed out.

LP is definitely growing on me tho, each listen is better, and I know that is a sign of a great record.

And I think what keeps it from being Electronic is Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert --

Everytime Superheated comes up, I think it's a Pet Shop Boys song.

Seriously.

I can't say I loved all 3 Electronic albums -- each iteration got progressively worse. The first one was absolutely classic -- just take away the song with Bernard's terrible rapping and there's not a single bad song. The second one had "Forbidden City" and "For You." (And maybe "Dark Angel" wasn't bad.) The third had the eponymous song, and that was it.

But I totally, utterly agree with you here, Spotnick, regarding the new album. I think it's actually kind of crazy that people listen to the bassline of "Singularity" or "Plastic" and think that the sound that comes out of Tom Chapman is close to what Hooky does (paraphrasing here, but one journalist specifically wrote he didn't really miss him on this album)...just for comparison, I was listening to "60 Miles an Hour" last night, and that fatness, that richness of Hooky's sound...we all know he's an ass, but we should still give credit where credit is due. Nobody else sounds like him, not even Simon Gallup (maybe especially Simon Gallup!).

I think Music Complete is a very good album with some very good songs. But is this a New Order record? Sadly (and I really mean that emotion), no. Then again, I would only consider a few songs in Waiting for the Sirens' Call New Order songs, too ("Krafty," "Turn," possibly "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" on some days). Even Get Ready had Electronic/Bernard's stamp on songs like "Rock the Shack" (god, that song is so terrible). I don't mean to support Hooky and his delusions, but unless you have his bass, it just doesn't add up. It doesn't sound like New Order. Just like how Electronic and Monaco and The Other Two don't sound like NO, either. I really wish it could be otherwise, because we know we'll never have these four people work together again...

Of course, I'm not saying that NO has to sound the same with every album...Brotherhood and Technique are so wonderfully different in their own ways...but there is something very much missing -- incomplete -- with Music Complete. Is it progress? I don't know. It is different, I'll give them that much, and maybe for musicians who have been around for this long, just that they were able to craft a different sound is a triumph of sorts. But for me, for the fan who's loved this band for a very long time, I'm just filled with, oh yes, regret.

p.s. My favorite song on the album is, strangely enough, "Superheated." Of all the songs, it seems to have the most structure. But you're right here, too, Spotnick -- I can totally imagine Neil Tennant singing this song.

- Sung

I've never done an HD download. Presumably you can't burn it to a CDr can you?
Some stereos come with USB ports. Would that work?
Having said that, my stereo doesn't have a USB port, so I'm also curious about the above.

About fucking time.

Entitled to your own opinions of course but the drumming ace on this, which it was not on Electronic. Sound different to me. (of course, been a while since an Electronic album too)

I am continuing to enjoy MC very much.

Having listened to Restless, Singularity & Plastic contantly for the couple of weeks leading up to the album, the tracks I keep skipping to atm are Tutti Frutti; Unlearn this Hatred & Academic.

When Superheated starts, I think it's gonna be an A-ha track. Which is not a problem.



I was on the train to town yesterday, listening to Tutti Frutti as the train passed TJ Davidsons & then the Hac made me smile quite a bit. :)

That's what i thought.Listen to the first 7 or 8 seconds of Nightcall by Kavinsky from the Drive soundtrack.Great track anyway and gives me an excuse to post it.

Edited by user 27 September 2015 09:10:15(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified