New Order – Best Remixes

Andrew Duncan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:45:07 +0000

New Order
Best Remixes
2005 – London

Origin: Manchester, England
Style: Electronic

New Order has been the brainchild and fuel for many a remix. B-sides and extended versions to full blown club mixes and now a mash up or two (the bizarre combination of New Order Vs. Donna Summer Vs. Kraftwerk comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrEiWoBagvg). Who knows how many people have thrown in some form of “Blue Monday” or “Bizarre Live Triangle” into a night out on the dance floor.

With enough “Best Of” album combinations to fulfill a statistics course credit and who knows how many more we will see in the future, the variety of a remix album is tempting. Sure we got a dose of this on the Rest Of New Order disc that stemmed off the Best Of New Order (1995) release.

One night on the streets of Chicago’s Wrigleyville area, we stumbled on the news that Berlin was hosting a night of New Order. Waiting For The Siren’s Call was due to come out and the club was promoting the event and a homage to an essential band so the collection the DJ had was bound to be expansive. When we reached the highlight of the club’s momentum at around 3 a.m., they were layering one New Order song over another. Packed like sardines, the sweat and booze poured on the dance floor as fans escalated their appreciation when the DJ transitioned into rare and not as popular New Order songs like “Fine Time.”

The song bears all the ingredients for a fine remix, including the animal sounds which DJs love to play around with. On Best Remixes, the “Silk Mix” by Steve Hurley is there in full form and a true highlight on the album.

One thing that Best Remixes accomplishes is a degree of consistency in several ways.

First, many of the remixes selected maintains the essence of the original form and does not veer too far off course like Sabres of Paradise remix for “Regret,” for example (the version used on the album is the “New Order Mix” which is more vocalized). This could be one of the reasons for not using something like the “Messed Around Mix” for “Fine Time” or the very popular “Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix” of the song “Confusion,” which was made popular thanks to the Blade film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udn51qJwDvY).

The other thing Best Remixes does is compile equal amounts of newer material with classic hits, beginning with the most recent Richard X mix of”Jetset” (an interesting choice from the Jacques Lu Cont mix as Cont is known for re-working music from bands like Coldplay and The Killers to name a few) and traveling backward in New Order’s timeline. Most of these songs are taken from mostly US releases and the purpose of actually owning Best Remixes is having a collected sample from the expansive list of singles and EPs.

One song that stands out is the version of “The Perfect Kiss.” The “Live Version From the Video” is a rarity to find and is almost worth the entire CD itself as it is the live studio recording they used for the famous 10-minute video. The song is not even on The Perfect Kiss 12 inch, although various versions of the song are.

There are problems with this remix collection as some songs like Paul Oakenfold’s reworking of “World” is on the Rest Of disc. And a non-remix version of “State Of The Nation” is on there for absolutely no reason at all except to fill in an otherwise lengthy release.

The album has been the production of debate as to whether or not the best remixes were selected, as on this interesting thread: http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=43259. But it’s best for you to come to your own conclusion. Below is a listing of remixes I compiled that is found on YouTube. This is nowhere a comlete list, as you can find that on All Music: (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0ifqxqr5ld6e~T22), but it will give you a foundation for thought.

New Order Remixes (the ones in bold are from the “Best Remixes” album):

Jetstream

[Richard X Remix] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICyXOOD5t10
[Jacques Lu Cont] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA8hZdrbplA
[Arthur Baker] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3qAnljjaBY
[Tom Neville] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVxgRsfwtN8

Krafty

[The Glimmers 12 Inch Extended] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEnZI9kNUhE
[Phones Reality Remix] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcB7M4YV23k

Crystal

[Lee Coombs Mix] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U80TjfUcD8Q

Spooky

[Out Of Order Mix] – http://writingaboutmusic.com/2009/08/27/top-ten-remixes-ever-steven-4-spooky-out-of-order-mix/
[Magimix] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KMJte9NYjI&feature=related

World

[Perfecto Mix] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsdsutbm_Tw

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