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New Order: Lowlife

© Jason C. Reeher

Probably one of the most acclaimed albums of the post punk era, New Order's 1985 LP, Lowlife, is also one of the best electronic rock albums of all time. As the band became more accessible - even chart-friendly - New Order's sound and stark image continued to evolve, setting a template that the Manchester, U.K. quartet would follow for the rest of their long career.

The most striking thing about Lowlife is the songs. Where in their previous efforts, New Order had weaved instrumental experiments amongst the more conventional fare, Lowlife is more flowing, more continual, and makes a broader statement. When boiled down to its essence, that statement is that electronic-based dance music doesn't have to be cold, distant, or robotic; rather, New Order were the first new wave band to humanize the dance medium - even if they had to polarize it, in a sense, to do so.

Simply put, with Lowlife, New Order would begin to stake out two emotive territories - the crowded club floor and the lonely, isolated bedroom. Songs written from these seemingly at-odds points of view mesh seamlessly, however, making the band over into a newly complex creature, and pushing the Lowlife LP into territory only hinted at in the first two New Order records.

The album starts off with "Love Vigilantes," a wry ode to a soldier's return from war. The lyrics are vague enough to leave one scratching his head; either the soldier is actually a ghost, killed in action, or there is some other explanation. Perhaps the most conventional song, musically, on Lowlife, "Love Vigilantes" is a deceptively simple, harmonica laden song, and it sets the tone for the rest of the record.

Perhaps the lyrics, in fact, are where New Order has evolved the most at this point. "Sooner Than You Think" seems to be about music biz disagreements of some ilk, but could also be a indictment of the band's home country, England; "Sub-culture" is all bitterness and angst, but turned inward by song's end. Nothing about this album is simple.

Take the hit single, "Perfect Kiss." The song is said to be about the death of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, and the words seem to bear this out ("pretending not to see his gun / I said let's go out and have some fun"). Yet instead of a funeral dirge, "Perfect Kiss" is a club-mix length dance track, complete with burping frog sound effects and an overall light tone. Paying homage to their eternally gloomy ex-bandmate by kicking out a lengthy synth-track with oblique lyrics is more proof that New Order is all kinds of unorthodox.

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