New Order’s Music Complete without Peter Hook
Music Complete is New Order’s first album that doesn’t feature the work of founding bassist Peter Hook.
Tom Chapman, who played with New Order guitarist/vocalist Bernard Sumner in Bad Lieutenant and performed live with New Order since 2011, handles bass on the album. (Hook left in 2007). Keyboardist/guitarist Gillian Gilbert also plays on the album, her first with New Order since 2001. Iggy Pop and La Roux’s Elly Jackson appear on the record, as well.
While New Order without Hook’s distinctive sound may seem impossible to imagine, Rolling Stone says in its review that “Hook’s departure frees them to create their most varied and substantial work in decades.”
See if you agree after checking out the opening track, “Restless”:
Music Complete is available on CD, vinyl and as a digital download (iTunes and Amazon MP3).
Music Complete Track List:
- Restless
- Singularity
- Plastic
- Tutti Fruitti
- People on the High Line
- Stray Dog
- Academic
- Nothing But a Fool
- Unlearn This Hatred
- The Game
- Superheated
Sounds good if a bit generic. They sure lost the part of the sound that was the real “hook” (see what I did there?). They had a bit in the middle and at the end, that Hook would have played before, done by the guitar but guitar doesn’t have the same character that his chorused bass had when played on the D and G strings. Personally I really miss that here. It sounds more like The Cure than New Order but part of that is the real drums too.
You can’t judge the whole Album listening to one song. Music complete is really awesome in it’s diversity and the bass is worked out really fine.
I’m sure it is a good album, and I’ll buy it, but my point is that all too often bands lose sight of what makes their sound resonate with their fans. There were numerous bands in the 80’s that did something similar to New Order. Hook’s sound and playing differentiated them from Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Human League, Depeche Mode, etc. Van Halen was never as good without David Lee Roth (although with the current tour that is debatable) or even Michael Anthony for that matter, Yes suffered when Rick Wakeman left, Tears for Fears without Curt Smith, the list goes on. Can you imagine Rush without Alex or Neil? Squeeze without Chris Difford? The Beatles without Ringo? A band’s sound is more than the sum of the parts, everyone elevates each other, take something away and it may not add up anymore. In music diversity and lack of focus are separated by a fine line.