Music Complete

There’s a few new tricks on this New Order LP, but for the most part the band sounds tired, uninspired, and in desperate need of a farewell tour. The same outfit that wrote rippers like ‘Age of Consent’ and ‘Blue Monday’ fails to produce anything mildly exciting throughout this album’s bloated runtime. It all sounds relatively homogeneous, with no real standout tracks to point to. Really feels like the band was going through the motions rather than trying to make anything inspired. Wasn’t surprised to find that Peter Hook did not contribute to this album, given how limp the bass lines felt and how much the songwriting lacked its usual verve. Part of being an artist is knowing when to hang up the towel and let an existing body of work stand for itself rather than squeezing it for everything it’s worth. This album doesn’t really need to exist, much less run for over an hour, as it doesn’t nothing but detract from the New Order discography. It certainly doesn’t need to be on the user list, either, given the band has several official 1001 picks already and there are many deserving artists with less stale ideas waiting in the wings.

not their best work, but I had fun - 8/10

Would the world listen to this if it wasn't New Order? Possibly not, and that's my honest answer. Music Complete has genuine moments. Singularity and Stray Dog hold up well on repeated listens, the latter featuring Iggy Pop in fine form, even if it sounds very much like Public Service Broadcasting's "Go!" than anything New Order have done before. Tutti Frutti has a Daft Punk quality that's undeniably fun. But that's precisely the problem for me at times. For a band this influential, finding themselves sounding borrowed from artists they helped inspire is a specific kind of late-career irony. Plastic feels very Giorgio Moroder. The Kent comparison hovers over Restless, which was inexplicably chosen as the single despite being one of the weaker tracks. And The Game, Superheated, and People on the High Line could have been cut without anyone noticing. The album is a bit too long and too uneven to fully recommend, but not without its pleasures. I'll return to it in a while and see how it lands with distance.

Won't be as scathing and categorical as the single one-star review currently placed in this section but I still generally subscribe to the sentiment that's expressed in that take. Other reviews will soon be added for sure, but you won't have any trouble finding the one I am referring to here given how articulate, informative, convincing and knowledgeable about New Order it is. Huge thanks for saving myself some precious time here -- time which could be dedicated to an Osees LP I haven't listened to yet, maybe, instead of writing a longer review about this album? 😉 I will just add one thing: submitting this record from the most esteemed British band's later career is even more mind-boggling for me when the underdog *Brotherhood* (1986) is still missing from both the original and the users list. That record has been criminally underrated by the critics for so long, and yet it is still one of the four most popular full-length releases by the band when you take a look at their streaming numbers. Go figure. 🤷 All that being said, *Music Complete* still comes off as ten times better than the criminally *over*rated *Technique*, already mentioned in the original list. Now that's a record whose own underwhelming new wave compositions and dated EDM tones and textures haven't simply aged like milk ; they have left a moldy and mushroom-infested patch that's so large within New Order's discography that my relationship with them never fully recovered from it. In comparison, *Music Complete* is an album that feels honestly written, tastefully arranged and decently produced. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but at least it doesn't trip on its own d*ck. And that's still gotta count for something in the grand scheme of things... And of course, *Power Corruption and Lies* rocks! 2.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 3. 7.5/10 for more general purposes (5 for the musicianship and production values + 2.5 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 116 (including this one) Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 119 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 268 (including this one) ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown