35 years ago, the iconic Salford band New Order left a mark on the local scene with their first number one album.
It’s release came in 1989 after little outstanding chart success from the three singles put out the year before, but Technique landed in the UK Album Charts at Number One.
Inspired by Balearic club music, the band decided to record the album in Spain until eventually moving to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire to complete the record.
At the time of its release, the album received a great reception from the music press with Chris Roberts of Melody Maker stating that Technique was “a rare and ravishing triumph.”
John Tague of the NME stated the band had “fashioned an LP of unflinching honesty, free from the masks of false identities of their past.”
It equally stood the test of time, in a list made by Q Magazine titled the ‘40 Best albums of the 80s’, Technique placed 21st.
From a Pitchfork article in 2008 journalist Tom Ewing declared “[The album] takes the easy interplay and full-band sound of Brotherhood and drenches it in good Ibiza vibes.
“Each track, as it leads you into a fluid maze of melody, is a hug from a stranger you’ve known all your life.”
Ged Connelly, of Stockport, is a huge fan of New Order and was a regular at the Hacienda back in the 1980s.
Connelly added: “I was looking forward to the release of it for such a long time and when it came out I just wasn’t disappointed at all.
“Everything was there, the artwork, the tunes were massive, it fitted right well into the scene at the time as well; the house scene, the Hacienda and all the rest of it.”
In fact, he loved the record so much that he made his scooter ‘Technique’ themed.
“I change my scooters like every three years and they normally just pick their names for themselves and that one just happened to be Technique because it was all black.”
New Order play in Wythenshawe Park this summer with Johnny Marr and Roisin Murphy on Saturday August 24.
Featured image credit: smokeghost, Flickr
Recent Comments