Power Corruption and Lies

Certain Songs #1313: New Order – “Your Silent Face”

September 7, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Power, Corruption and Lies
Year: 1983

In just three years, we’d gotten to the point where the most atypical song on any New Order album would be the one that sounded the most like a Joy Division callback — in this case, “Isolation” from Closer — and yet was still a showcase for their progression, both musical and technological.

And so it was with “Your Silent Face,” six minutes of utter bliss that slowly rumbled out of the beginning of side two of Power, Corruption & Lies. The synth wash that Gillian Gilbert plays is so lovely and evocative, I used it for at least one music bed while doing promos for KFSR.

Certain Songs #1312: New Order – “The Village”

September 6, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Power, Corruption and Lies
Year: 1983

Of course, here’s the thing about New Order’s unprecedented fusion of synth-pop and rock: it took me awhile to get on board with the synth-pop side of things. Especially in 1983, when we were being inundated with all kinds of synth-based bands from the other side of the ocean — the second or third or fourth British Invasion — and I felt more of a kinship with all of the homegrown guitar bands that were fighting for radio and MTV airplay.

And, in fact, had New Order not had the pedigree that they had, it’s entirely possible that I would have turned up my nose at them in the same way that I did Duran Duran, ABC, Depeche Mode and a whole flock of others. But they they had that pedigree, which I think so they were able to be either a guitar band for synth-poppers or a synth-pop band for guitar freaks.