New Order - Low Life (1985)

Steve:

When I turned 16 years old (summer 1985), I applied for a job at Spec's, the biggest, baddest record store in Miami. They had a separate room for their classical music, including a full-time employee who handled only classical. Predating Blockbuster, they also had a separate room for video rental and sales. This was clearly the place for me. I fancied myself a music expert - with a budding record collection and a father from whom I learned plenty - and I sought to play to my strengths by working in a place where music albums were the stock-in-trade.

I spent my first few weeks just walking the floor, helping anyone who needed it.  Occasionally, my expertise came in handy; I recall one customer who asked for advice on what to get by Talking Heads. Ha! Step right up, ma'am. I'll set you right up. That was the exception to the rule, however. Usually, most people asked for a few popular albums, and working there was not particularly exciting except for the music I heard in the store.

The other employees in the store were several years older than me, and they were given free rein to play any records they wanted. I could probably write a book about the various albums and bands I was exposed to for the first time that summer. Lots of popular albums played that are still popular today (a-ha's Hunting High and Low comes first to mind, at least its unavoidable-on-80s-playlists "Take On Me"), but I also heard a lot of bands that today are generally thought of as "80s Alternative" - what I knew in the day as "College Rock".

New Order's Low Life was one of my favorite albums played during this period. Having evolved gradually into a synth-driven sound in the time since their inception in 1981 (following the suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, prompting a name change for the band). New Order still relied heavily on guitar and particularly bass, which Peter Hook would play high on the neck to provide most of the songs' melodic hooks (pun intended). "The Perfect Kiss" (released as a single) rides on a bed of synthesizers, but it's Hook's bass that provides the most recognizable stamp. "This Time of Night" similarly has a comfortable balance between synth-pop and guitar rock.  

Straight guitar rock finds its way onto Low Life as well. The album opens with a track that sounds like nothing else the band had yet tried. "Love Vigilantes" was a clear attempt at a folk protest song - guitar based, but with the full production of their synth-based pieces - that opens with a melodica (taking the place of a harmonica, I guess). The song is delivered in the first person by a soldier who is looking forward to returning home. The payoff occurs when it is revealed at the end that the soldier was in fact dead. "Sunrise" has all the power and intensity of an epic rock song, full of volume, speed, and urgent vocals.

As soon as I was able, I bought a copy of Low Life, followed by New Order's previous albums Power, Corruption and Lies and Movement. Oddly, none of their subsequent albums really captured my fancy like my first three, but I attribute this to my favorites being just what I needed at the time (especially Low Life) - a totally new musical interest for me when the joy of discovery was at its peak. 

My interest must have rubbed off on Dan, although I don't specifically remember introducing him to New Order. It didn't seem to me like something he would particularly enjoy. But he insisted on its inclusion in the blog. 

Dan:

As a parent, I might have tried to steer my teenagers into listening to "appropriate" music, free of subversive messages and racy lyrics. But I knew from experience that parental protest lands on deaf ears and merely fuels rebellion. When I was growing up in the 1950s, rock and roll was viewed by some as the devil's music and icons like Elvis Presley as dangerously vulgar. So I opened my own ears to hear what the kids liked. And here I am today sharing wisdom that I received from my son, aptly expressed in Blood, Sweat and Tears' album title: Child Is Father to the Man (1968). In the spirit of "everything comes around," I note that Steve admires Al Kooper, who sings and composed most of the music on Child Is Father to the Man, which was released the year before he was born. 

I remember how excited Steve's mother and I were when he landed his job at Spec's. To prepare him, I pretended to be a customer asking for advice ("Excuse me, son, do you have the German pressing of Herbert Joos's Daybreak album on Japo?"). I had a bit of experience answering such questions when other customers in the jazz section asked for my help - "Which of Coltrane's albums should I buy?" (Answer: all of them but start with Giant Steps).

Reviewing Low Life is a good opportunity to reveal my life-long secret that I like dance music. I actually owned albums by Donna Summer and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, as well as Thriller by Michael Jackson (if only for "Billie Jean"). It's a guilty pleasure that I rarely indulge in, given my other musical interests. New Order fills the bill for danceable beats but also meaningful synth rock, especially in Low Life and a couple of later albums.

"Love Vigilantes" is my favorite track on Low Life. A dead protagonist lamenting that he wants to be home with his family is not your run-of-the-mill storyline in rock music. New Order deliver the soldier's message without self-righteously decrying the evils of war; they leave it for the listener to judge the morality in the song. It seems to be New Order's style to remain peculiarly detached and emotionally uninvolved with the lyrics while making the music sound almost joyous. (If someone like Joan Baez or Richard Thompson ever covered this song, I'm sure it would be brimming with angry sentiment.) New Order also name their songs so as not to reveal much about their meaning. This tends to open the music up to a wider range of interpretation.

I remember buying a sealed vinyl cutout of Low Life at another store in Miami. As CDs began to replace vinyl in the 1980s, records were dumped rather unceremoniously into racks where people like me could scoop them up for about $5.00. Today, you might need to pay over $50.00 for a used vinyl copy. Such are the vagaries of media formatting.