Today, September 8, New Order have released a new single titled Be a Rebel on all major platforms. This marks their first new release in five years. The band have been teasing the release on their Instagram page for a while now, and in a recent interview vocalist/ guitarist Bernard Sumner spoke to the legendary DJ and writer Dave Haslam about the then upcoming track.
He explained that Be a Rebel was originally written for the last album, 2015’s Music Complete, but never made it on. Its new incarnation is a remix by Sumner himself, made during lockdown. Some fans have expressed disappointment that New Order’s long-awaited return only takes the form of an old album leftover being remixed, but nevertheless there is a buzz about it.
New Order rose like a phoenix from the ashes after the death of Ian Curtis and dissolution of Joy Division. After starting off in the shadow of their former band, New Order have managed to arguably surpass Joy Division in popularity.
Their first single Ceremony in 1981 used lyrics that Curtis had written a week before his death. This and their subsequent debut album, Movement, was fairly similar to the sound of Joy Division. Both Sumner and Hook seemed to be trying to emulate the dreariness of Curtis’ vocals and the lyrical content was equally dour.
It was after the band started spending time in New York City that they began to find their unique sound. The thriving underground club scene there in the early eighties was accompanied by the sounds of Chic, Sylvester and Afrika Bambaataa.
Sumner’s told Q magazine in 1991: ‘I literally saw the light when I was in New York with New Order and I went to this club… someone had spiked my drink with a tab of acid…and all of a sudden this electronic music – Giorgio Moroder, Afrika Bambaataa – made sense’. Sumner had seen the light, electronic dance music was the future.
From then on, New Order experimented more heavily with electronic equipment and synths, creating innovative dance tracks like Confusion and famously Blue Monday in 1983 that epitomise their fusion of post-punk and dance music. This movement from ‘dark gloomy gothic group‘ to ‘disco divas’ was described by Jon Savage as ‘incredible’. But the seeds may have been sown as early as the Joy Division days when Curtis used to bring Kraftwerk records to band rehearsals.
Blue Monday was New Order’s first big hit. That distinctive thumping dance beat from the drum machine and the video-game-like synths still get the crowds going. The iconic use of church organs gives the song a sense of reverence and Sumner’s vocals were by this time hitting the mark. This time there was no attempt to recreate Curtis’ voice because let’s face it, no one could.
With their 2015 release Complete Music, however, the band lost some of their early energy. Likewise, Be a Rebel is a pleasant listen, but ironically sounds more dated than their earlier output. Let’s hope the phoenix that is New Order will rise once again.
