New Order – Power, Corruption & Lies

As I said last time, for some reason or other, these New Order records were a gift from my college roommate, who I believe brought them back from Italy (two of these are Italian pressings). This was, of course, the big one for New Order, released in May 1983. While it went to the top of the UK indie charts and to number four on the regular UK charts, it did absolutely nothing in the US. If you think it’s impossible not to know “Age of Consent” today, it certainly was possible when it came out. It was critically acclaimed, and the band was far from obscure, but there wasn’t even a single released from this album in the US, at a time when that really mattered for radio play. So this was one of those bands you would read about, but had to buy the record (or have someone give you a tape) in order to actually hear.

I liked this quite a lot at the time – groundbreaking in its own way, it remains pretty listenable for a piece of early ’80s synthpop. But not really being my style, it didn’t see a lot of play as the ’80s disappeared in the rearview, and today I only pull it out when I’m curious about why I’ve held onto it for 40 years. The answer is primarily because it was a gift from a great friend, and although we didn’t experience this music together – he was way across the country by then – it makes me think of what great fortune I had to have such an ever-reliable friend in those extremely unsettled years. So how could I give it up?

The packaging on this and the 12″ single to follow is super interesting. They went to great effort and expense to die cut the cover with opening that resembled an 8″ (or 5-1/4″) floppy disc, which back then were soft vinyl discs encased in a soft, flexible plastic envelope (only with 3-1/2″ discs did floppies become, ironically, rigid). But in 1983, personal computers hadn’t really taken off, hardly anyone worked with them in everyday life, and so the reference, which now seems retro, was actually a bit futuristic.