22. New Order - Temptation (Factory)

Six weeks at number one from 29th May 1982

Nearly twenty years ago now, I subscribed to Last.fm, an application which measures the music you stream or listen to on devices, and produces facts and stats about your habits. It aims to stun and surprise you by revealing who your favourite artists are and who else you might enjoy, but can display the bottish habit of shooting bogies such as “If you enjoy listening to Paul McCartney, you may also like the work of John Lennon”.

Once every so often, though, it pulls up an unexpected theme you hadn’t noticed before; that could be that you have an overwhelming proclivity to listen to Joni Mitchell during Springtime, or that your nineteenth most listened to song of all time is an easy listening cover by an artist you otherwise don’t care about, or – in my case - that New Order are among your top twenty most listened to artists (currently resting at the number 12 spot).

The stats don’t lie. Year in, year out I dip into New Order’s catalogue and devour some of their tracks almost obsessively, but I do all this without feeling as if I can call myself “a fan”. Looking at the rest of my personal chart, I can see a stream of artists who at some point of my life I have felt a strong and possibly ill-advised connection to, particularly in my teens and twenties. They’ve all produced music I’ve loved, but have probably also had a combination of other factors which captured my imagination - strong lyrical themes, wit, intelligence or irony, a gripping visual aesthetic which stirred my excitement for their music, or a sense of something I could relate to or a version of somebody I wanted to be.

I don’t recall ever feeling this way about New Order. New Order have always just been there, pumping out wonderful records which have been, at different moments and sometimes all at the same time, moody, stylish, irresistibly danceable, boundary pushing and exquisite pop. Despite all this, though (and I accept there’s a chance I’m projecting here) who among us has really felt as if they know Bernard Sumner or Peter Hook, or even The Other Two? As teenagers, did we really read one of their interviews and want to follow them around the country until we more clearly understood the workings of their minds? Did their lyrics – in one or two cases, among the most atrocious ever written – make us think “Finally somebody has put a new spin on some of the events in my life”?

New Order never gave much away, but they also never gave the impression there was much going on behind the mystique either. All the beauty took place around them; those tastefully designed Factory Records sleeves and arthouse music videos created an image of sorts, but not one that stuck to a solid theme or was consistently, identifiably their own – if you asked Bernard Sumner to talk in depth about the meaning behind any of the artistic elements that accompanied them, you might get seven or eight words at best. If you really wanted the lowdown on that stuff, you had to ring the entryphone at Factory Records and philosophise with Tony Wilson.

“Temptation”, then, is fascinating for two reasons; firstly, it acts as the first solid, logical bridge between their old analogue past and their new experiments with electronics. If “Everything’s Gone Green” sounded shaky and tentative, “Temptation” seems more sure footed, in tune with the machinery rather than occasionally falling out-of-step with it. The original 1982 version (and not the 1987 remix which the group seem determined to make us believe is the definitive version) is too spindly for the dancefloor, but still sounds forward-thinking, like an early experiment in indie-dance.

Combined with that, though, is something that feels sharper and more honest, more knowable and believable, less arid than most of New Order’s work; Sumner’s voice strains and struggles, but the simplicity of the lyrics about the collapse of a relationship are close enough to Motown (The Temptations, even). “Up, down, turn around/ Please don't let me hit the ground/ Tonight I think I'll walk alone/ I'll find my soul as I go home” could actually be lines from a Northern Soul record, while the repeated begging of “Oh, it’s the last time/ I’ve never met anyone quite like you before” brings everything to the necessary climax.

17. Depeche Mode - See You (Mute)

Four weeks at number one from 20th February 1982

Following Vince Clarke’s departure from Depeche Mode, a hard, callous cynicism set in among most quarters of the music press. Announcements that Martin Gore would pick up the songwriting duties were not received with the confidence Daniel Miller and the group had hoped for, and in some cases resulted in total derision.

Music journalists are often quick to judge the commercial prospects of any group in the heat of the moment, and frankly, nobody could have blamed them for their negative tack in this instance. The only evidence either they or the general public had that Martin Gore could write songs lay in a somewhat middling instrumental on “Speak And Spell”, childishly entitled “Big Muff”, plus the middling vocal track "Tora! Tora! Tora!". It showed he could pen a passable melody, but if these were the only Gore compositions heard in public, you can hardly blame them for speculating what on earth the rest of them must have sounded like. Did another synth instro entitled “Enormous Dildo” exist elsewhere which was of a lesser quality? Did he have an entire concept album of instrumentals with crude sexual titles hidden away somewhere, and were Depeche Mode to become some kind of Kraftwerk influenced version of the Anti Nowhere League? 

“See You” was therefore something of a pleasant surprise and a puzzle from the offset. It had apparently been penned while Gore was still at secondary school, a sweet but melancholic ballad written before he had even experienced a romantic relationship. He has since referred to this single somewhat critically, remarking that it was an example of him writing outside his personal experience, whereas his later songs about love were all at least partially biographical. He gives the impression of being slightly ashamed that this single therefore emotionally manipulates the listener into believing its lyrics are the truth.

Where you sit on this topic depends on your feelings on pop music, and whether effective songwriting has to be “The Truth” (a very purist hippy/ punk idea of what the form has to be) or can just as easily be the lie that tells the truth. Do we expect every artist to have direct personal experience of the things they reflect? It seems limiting, unrealistic and a bit unreasonable to do so.

The focus of this single is seemingly first love, which had been a Tinpan Alley songwriting staple and a subject numerous other artists turned to. “First Love Never Dies”, tackled by The Walker Brothers and The Cascades among others, is one of the most direct and obvious examples - “And if you're thinking of me/ And you find that you still love me/ There's no use to go on living lies”, the song demands towards the end, perhaps more in hope than expectation.

Then there are many other examples – “Macarthur Park” is probably the most overwrought and ambitious, but the angle shifts and alters in tracks like “Disco 2000” by Pulp (more of a document of a pie-eyed puppy crush than love, admittedly) and the almost flippant, joky “Emily Kane” by Art Brut. Romantic nostalgia easily captures the imagination of listeners precisely because your first serious relationship or (worse) unrequited desire can prove to be the most powerful, confusing and potentially havoc-wreaking event you’ll experience. The statistics around first affairs are unforgiving, and they usually strike when we’re too emotionally immature to deal with them. No wonder songwriters can’t let go of the idea – there’s either a good commercial racket in penning a tune about the subject, or else an enormous emotional purging for the author, and sometimes both.

In the case of “See You”, it’s possible to hear the “deception” if you listen to it after any of the above songs I've mentioned. Whereas they are rich in the kind of close observational detail typical of intense life experiences, picking up on background details like old men playing checkers in the park or woodchip on the walls, “See You” is suspiciously broad. “I remember the days when we walked through the woods/ we’d sit on a bench for awhile”, states Gore vaguely. “I treasured the way we used to laugh and play”. So far, this could just as easily be a song about a dearly departed pet dog, so routine and flimsy are the outlines.

These initial missteps don’t end up mattering, though. A narrative of sorts begins to emerge which is only too believable. “I swear I won’t touch you,” he tells his imaginary ex towards the end, and “We’ll stay friendly like sister and brother/ though I think I still love you”. It’s not exactly poetry, but there is a tension tugging away at the song here which feels only too real. He’s making promises about his emotions he can’t keep, contradicting himself, and even throwing in trite philosophy into the song with the line “I think that you’ll find/ people are basically the same”; it’s certainly true that people need to be loved, but how they are loved, and by whom, are deeply complicated areas, and despite Gore’s teenage naivete here, as a listener you’re left with the impression that the singer (Dave Gahan) knows this. It’s not delivered forcefully or victoriously, it almost sounds as if he knows he’s in a weak bargaining position. If all we need is love, and we’re all essentially the same, then why meet up with someone from our past with baggage, after all? Why not choose a less complicated route?

The arrangements do a lot of the song’s work and are in places downright beautiful. The melancholic melody lines which emerge beneath “If the water’s still flowing we can go for a swim” are almost trying to sound victorious, bordering on a fanfare, but ultimately collapse into defeat. The endless tug-of-war at the heart of this song, portraying a man who doesn’t even really know what he actually wants, is unbelievably effective, and force the listener to imagine someone hanging around by the telephone wondering whether to invite themselves back into their ex’s life again, all the time knowing it’s futile and potentially damaging. Five years is a long time, and the times change – and the longer the communication gap, the longer the odds of closing it are, and the less likely it is the contact will be well received.