New Order: Retro : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The greatest band to consistently and artfully mix rock and dance music, New Order did everything right: craft well-written, sonically adventurous singles ("Blue Monday"), create quintessential albums of their era (1985's Low-Life), commission influential club remixes (Shep Pettibone's mix of "Bizarre Love Triangle") and perform a career's worth of soul-stirring live shows. Treating its four discs as distinct samplings of each of these strong suits, Retro ropes in outside experts to select its track listings. Although this results in some duplications (three versions each of "Crystal," "Regret" and "Fine Time"), and a few omissions (no "Love Vigilantes"), the usually inspired selections reflect the versatile Manchester, England, quartet's unfailing knack for tuneful passion. And for all of New Order's studio elegance and club-accessible mutability, the live disc is radically, raucously raw.