It’s not how it used to be. That’s for sure. New Order have been making great music since the end of Joy Division, but for me, when Peter Hook “left” the band and the remaining members re-formed as Bad Lieutenant, I thought it was all over.
And when Bad Lieutenant started to use the name New Order again, I would make jokes that they were a New Order cover band who just happened to have written the originals.
Thing is, I saw New Order this year, just before the End of the World, and let me tell you, having seen the original line up (and various versions of it, including one with Billy Corgan) this was the best I had ever seen and/or heard them. And that hurt, because New Order to me had always meant Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and The Other Two.
And yet, here I was, loving the utter shit out of a Hook-less New Order. A version of New Order that was actually better than a Hooky-powered version.
And I admit, I was wrong. New Order are great no matter what.
But this isn’t really about New Order. This is about the best song New Order song ever written. Except it wasn’t written by New Order, and never played by them. Oh, you think that was a bit over dramatic, and a bit overwritten? Well, what do you want from me?
Monaco.
Not the place, but the band. Made up of part of Revenge, a band formed in anger at the first (of many) breakups of New Order. Like Revenge, Monaco was a band people don’t seem to talk about much anymore, but a band that put out not only a good album, but a fucking amazing song in “What Do You Want From Me?”.
Have you ever heard it? No? Well, go listen to it here (and please listen to it on a nice set of headphones or a really meaty sound system as there is some sub bass in there that needs to not only be appreciated, but fucking worshipped as a primitive god).
Seriously, go listen to it:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4oyzy2tPAI
David Potts probably doesn’t want me to say he sounds like a talented Barney Sumner, but he is. Though it is his lyrics that elevates this son, they are so much more interesting than most of what graced all the oddly named New Order releases (and I say that as someone who has a New Order catalogue release number tattooed on his arm).
Hooky makes this song sound like very New Order song could have been, if he and his bandmates hadn’t been a bunch of Manc cunts who actually tried to get on with each other.
Then again, without that creative tension, maybe we would never have had so many great records from them.
Anyway, my point is, “What Do You Want From Me?” is fucking amazing and sounds like a pure, distilled and idealised version of New Order wrote and produced it. I think, no fuck that, I know, it’s the best New Order song they never wrote.