The New Order album that used to make Peter Hook “sick”
Joy Division, later to become New Order following frontman Ian Curtis’ death in 1980, was a band inspired by a healthy range of music, from the glam-era exploration of David Bowie and Roxy Music to the formative proto-punk work of Iggy Pop and The Velvet Underground. It all started, however, when founding members Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook randomly decided to attend a Sex Pistols concert at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in June 1976.
Though not apparent at the time, this particular gig would become a thing of legend over the years to come. Morrisey, Mark E. Smith, Mick Hucknall, John Cooper Clarke and future Factory Records boss Tony Wilson were all allegedly in attendance and have since cited it as a pivotal moment in their respective careers.
“It was just about the attitude,” Peter Hook said, discussing the Sex Pistols gig in a 2022 interview with Far Out. “The fact that what they were doing was so different. The week before, I’d been to see Led Zeppelin, and that was great; they played fantastically, but they weren’t inspiring – as in, come along and change your life, inspiring. So, yeah, the Sex Pistols spoke to me and said, ‘Pack it in’, okay, ‘give up your job, and get out and join the circus.'”
While Joy Division’s two albums were rooted in punk, the attentive production of Martin Hannett and the emergence of synthesised textures helped define the new post-punk era. Following Curtis’ death, New Order would continue to evolve, eventually creating 12″ dance singles like ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘True Faith’ and laying the foundations for the rave scene.
New Order joined forces with their label Factory Records to found the famed Haçienda club in 1982. With artists like Happy Mondays raising the roof by the close of the decade, New Order entered the rave fray with 1989’s Technique. This fifth studio record for the band was fittingly recorded in Ibiza with a healthy supply of ecstasy and heard Balearic beat and acid house punched into the band’s danceable rock template.
In Technique, a booklet assembled for London Records by Ian Harrison, Hook described the sound as “an epic power struggle between the sequencers and me. I was resisting it valiantly because I still wanted us to be a rock band”.
Following Technique, New Order regrouped to create a sixth album, Republic, in 1992. According to Hook, The Haçienda had been haemorrhaging money hence necessitating a cash injection to keep it on its feet. Despite the band’s reluctance to record the album amid internal feuds, Republic was a huge success, topping the UK Albums Chart.
Despite its accessible spread of danceable rock material, Hook found the album difficult to warm to initially, citing his spiralling friendship with Sumner. They were “at that point in the relationship where you hate each others’ stinking guts,” Hook told Yahoo’s ‘Backspin’ in 2021. He added that they were “all off our heads on various things,” which certainly didn’t help.
“I used to be very vocal about Republic being an album to avoid because we were so disengaged from each other doing it, and I couldn’t listen to it without feeling sick,” Hook told Bass Player of his initial thoughts on the album in 2022. “Then, with Peter Hook & The Light, we’d played all the Joy Division and New Order albums up to Republic, live, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, how is this gonna go down?'”
He added: “But you know what, I loved it. There was enough of me and the other New Order members in there. We never played it live with New Order, but this rescued it and I was able to finish it off to my taste. Ironically, it was a far bigger-selling album than Technique. People were able to see something that I wouldn’t look at. It encapsulated all the failures of and frustration with the Haçienda and Factory, which we transferred onto ourselves as New Order”.
Hook continued: “Once I’d got rid of all that stuff, and had a chance to look at it properly, I realized why the fans loved the album. The Light were looking at me, going, ‘You fucking idiot, Hooky,’ because they could see the good things in the music, and my son could see them too, but it was just what we’d been through making it [that obscured the results]. New Order hardly play any of the songs from Republic, but we play them live. I’ve got it back.”
New Order went on hiatus in 1993 following several performances in support of Republic. The classic lineup was reformed in 1998 and went on to record two further albums before acrimony reared its head once again. Although both Hook and Sumner expressed wishes to leave the band for good, Sumner reformed New Order in 2011 with a replacement for Hook.
Sadly, relations have worsened between Hook and the rest of the band over the past decade amid royalty disputes. “To me, Joy Division is very pure because it didn’t break into squabbling, an absolutely childish stupid mess like New Order has,” Hook told Far Out in 2022. “What we’ve done to New Order as core individuals is, frankly, very, very disappointing, and it shows no signs of abating at the moment.”
