Re: Who are Pete Shelley and New Order

[J. Peter Alfke <alfke@csvax.caltech.edu>]

Well, this is another case where 6.02e23 people will reply, but I'll
toss my cents in anyway ...

PETE SHELLEY was singer, co-guitarist, and songwriter of the Buzzcocks,
one of the first-wave of British punk bands.  The Buzzcocks very quickly
moved into a pop/punk style, with fast songs and faster drumming, lyrics
concerning girls 'n' cars 'n' modern life.  Great stuff if you like
fast, raw-edged pop music; check out "Singles Going Steady".  The
Buzzcocks broke up in '80 or thereabouts, and Shelley has put out a
couple of albums of (to my ears) mostly forgettable synth-pop.  (I did
like "Homo Sapien" though.)  Haven't heard his more recent stuff.

NEW ORDER also used to be part of a greater unit (we establish some
parallelism here): the late great Joy Division.  Joy Division were a
prime spearhead of the gloom'n'doom contingent of the New Wave, along
with Bauhaus and the (early) Cure.  Pounding drums, high-end and highly
proficient bass-playing (often competes with guitar for same pitch
range) and grinding-into-yer-face guitar, and Ian Curtis' rough,
difficult-to-get-used-to yet perfect vocals.  [Interjection: The
Cocteau Twins seem to have picked up on this instrumental approach and
in their early material carry to greater extremes the tactic of having
the bass carry the melody while the guitar fills the sound with
accompanying noise.]  Their two major albums, "Unknown Pleasures" (1980)
and "Closer" (1981) are classics, some of the best rock&roll ever in
my humble opinion.  The former esp. features Best Use of Background
Keyboards In a Guitar Band.
To make a long story short, singer Ian Curtis hanged himself just as
the band was beginning to make it big, and the surviving members added
a keyboardist and reformed as New Order.  Early New Order sounds like
subdued, trancey Joy Division with weak vocals, and from then on they
moved into a more synth-pop-with-good-basslines approach which they
maintain to this day with minor variations.  Okay, but to not check out
Joy Division is sacrilege.

That answer your questions?

					--Peter Alfke
					  alfke@csvax.caltech.edu
"Here are the young men..."