Low-Life

Dis order

Want to love it but it’s meh.

2 Order

I'm becoming a fan of more 80's music, but this is the crappy side.

This was good but there was no hook for me.

J’imagine qu’il y a aussi Movement dans la liste. Celui-ci est un peu tard et sans grand intérêt.

This should be nobody's favorite album. The best song by far is "Elegia" and no other track sounds similar to it. It's possible this album was once innovative, but it is boring today.

on the one hand I want to give a low rating, but on the other hand, this is a good album at first I didn’t like anything, but a couple of songs make me think a little about my words, scans above, well done, old fonk? it reminded me a little of the cure and devid bowie

Lyrics like "I have always thought about / Staying here and going out / Tonight I should have stayed at home / Playing with my pleasure zone" make me wonder how Low-Life made it onto the 1001 Albums list... What shines beyond the nonsense lyrics, however, is New Order's mastery of synth pop. While no Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, Duran Duran or Kraftwerk, Bernard Sumner certainly sits comfortably amongst his peers on this record. Still, not worthy of 3- or even 4-star praise...

Somewhat forgettable, but enjoyable in the moment. Like the 80s.

This album didn't really strike anything with or in me. It was okay, but I was ultimately pretty underwhelmed. The one track that piqued my interest was the instrumental track, Elegia. It was such an odd but great inclusion that really highlighted and brought to light the dark wave qualities on this album.

The synth / high male vocal combo that typifies a lot of 80’s pop is here in spades, with relatively little to differentiate itself from the pack.

The "singer" can't sing shit. They act like they don't care about it but sometimes it sounds like the only purpose of the music is to cover up those enerving squeaking and out of tune half-screams with some terrible results.

New Order’s “Low Life” started with “Love Vigilantes,” which momentarily gave me hope. It was /that/ 80s post-punk/new-wave British vocal that I’m so sick of, but the exaggeration and accent was muted a bit. Plus, the concept of love vigilantes sounded intriguing, perhaps making me more receptive? But then it turns out it’s not about love vigilantes at all. It’s about a soldier returning from Vietnam to find his wife thought he was dead and committed suicide. Well that’s depressing. Interesting, and playing on several story archetypes, but depressing. I’d be more interested in love vigilantes who went out and violently defended people’s right to love. But these Brits “decided to write a redneck song” (their words), so they wrote a sad story about a Vietnam vet. After the aurally tolerable “Love Vigilantes,” everything else went downhill along with the mood the lyrics left me in. The rest of “Low Life” is exactly the kind of British 80s post-punk/new-wave that is a big turn-off for me. It wasn’t all bad though - I liked the guitars in “Sunrise” and the instrumental “Elegia” was good on its own and spared Bernard Sumner’s voice.

This would be an easy 3/5, the tunes are kinda easily-digestible 80s new wave/synthpop and some of the melodies are pleasant... but the singer is terrible. wtf? he's completely out of key and then makes it worse by being whiny as well. It's actually pretty baffling just how bad the singing is. How on earth did this band ever see success with a singer THIS AWFUL? I thought I'd just get over it for the space of this album, but after about 3 songs I started to struggle. It's a shame, because in theory I should like this a lot more. 2/5.

Love vigilantees

Pretty neat little indie music from a forgotten era (the fucking 80s).

Thankfully this was a short album. I enjoyed the audio only track the most. The rest was just not interesting at all.

This is bland english dance pop right in the front. Face Up was probably the only track that I found interesting.

Oof. I like a NO song here and there but this album's boring.

Love Vigilantes - not for me The Perfect Kiss - Disco - good bassline at the end This Time of Night - Dark - nice! Sunrise - OK, quietly babbles in the background Elegia - very nice! Sooner Than you think - OK Sub-Culture - Cool, but bad singing. Face Up - Nope. 2/5

Me voy a quedar con la 1o 2 comercialonas que les conozco

Pop con sintetizadores. Para ser de 40 minutos, se me ha hecho largo.

Boring. Just not my thing.

typical 80s stuff. only the instrumental song is good

This was a weird one, an album of extremes. The tracks I liked I really liked, the ones I didn't the opposite. Sadly, the latter had the majority.

A times it sounded a bit like the cure but nothing really of note

Generic ‘80s sound. Some sounds reminded me of Queen and U2.

Maybe I missed something?

Not my case. Only reason this has two stars is because "Elegia" wasn't half bad actually

Bunch of meh. That anemic 80s vocal just doesn't make me feel a damn thing

Thought I'd like ...but not impressed..dated...in a not so good way

This was a pretty boring album with the same melodies in most of the songs. Very synth-pop and very 80s so not really my cup of tea. One song was kind of... not bad.

Only got to listen to a little of this. It’s fine, but not really my style.

Fairly standard 80s pop.

meh

Bernard Sumner's voice left a lot to be desired. Not too sure if it was the production that hampered it, but it felt very whiny to me. I did enjoy the instrumentals on all of the tracks particularly Elegia. They have a very distinctive 80s sound, with their use of synths throughout. Best: Elegia Worst: Face Up 2.5 Stars

This felt so 80s. Synth/dance/pop-rock. Was a fun listen.

Tbh, not nearly as good as I thought it would be. Lacked any substance to me. Some were alright but overall quite underwhelming on the whole.

bad bad not good

This album started out as somewhat bearable but then got worse and worse from there. I tried listening twice. I don’t think I got past the 6th song.

Not for me. It was very 80’s. If I had to choose, I think Elgia was the best song.

Started out so strong, but then just turned into any other album from the eighties...

Meh

Did nothing for me.

Hi ha un grapat de cançons de New Order que formen part de la meva vida, les més conegudes, imagino que com a molta gent li passa. He agafat aquest disc amb ganes, la primera cançó m'ha entrat molt bé. Però després ha anat caient i caient i se m'ha fet pesat. Potser un dia li dono una altra oportunitat, però en general l'experiència ha estat decebedora.

mehhhhhh

Disappointing

Meh not really my thing. Not bad but nothing exciting.

I don't like New Order...except for Elegia.

Seems like another Talking Heads wannabe. So many average bands with MIDI drums and semi-edgy lyrics. Not super impressed.

Forholdsvis svakt, ingenting som utmerke seg. Bare typisk 80s sound. Meh

Ok

mhnm

No jaah, vika biisi oli ihan vekkuli

Kind of hard to get into after listening to lot's of Joy Division. Pretty Disneyfied.

I was today years old when I learned that one of my favorite Iron & Wine songs is a New Order cover

Meh

80s slop poo poo

In one ear and out the other.

New wave music....why is there so much of it! This is like the marriage of mid-80s Cure and INXS. Which I guess means better than 90% of New Wave music? They definitely took a slightly darker direction on this album. This Time of Night could be a Cure song, in fact for all I know it is a Cure cover. Elegia sounds like they saw Nightmare on Elm Street and thought that would make a kick-ass song. Of course it's in Stranger Things, or as I like to call it, Generation X nostalgia porn. This sounds like midi files. Face Up is the worst song on the album to close things out.

I cannot understate how much I hate synth-pop.

1.5. The beats to every song sounded the same, the lyrics or vocals weren’t captivating to me, and I kind of just wanted to fall asleep. Nothing pulled my attention.

Seriously? NOPE 1.0

1. love - 0 2. kizz - 1 3. night - 2 4. zunrize - 1 5. elegia - 1 6. think - 1 7. culture - 1 8. face - 1

New Order make electronic post-punk with a vocalist who delivers every line like he'd rather be somewhere else. That can work. Here it just sounds thin — shallow beats, flat delivery, nothing that sticks. 1/5 — Pet Shop Boys bad, Bowie bad, now this. The 80s are not my decade.

Awful.

So... I felt like giving this a 1/5 would be too mean. But NOTHING about this intrigued me, I'm sorry! It made me question if I even enjoyed synthpop or new wave or whatever this is called. It made me go back to the Heaven 17 album I gave a 5/5 just to make sure I still love it that much, and sure, maybe that album just hit me at the right time, but I still really like it. I did not get a single thing out of this. But to be honest, I kinda feel the same way about Joy Division, so...look out for when that comes into my rotation.

Can Bernard sing? 1/5

Yhyy

Only ever like one song, Blue Monday

This exact type of 80s British rock frankly kind of pisses me off. It’s both the vocals and instrumentation together that create a really just unlistenable sound. I want to like it but it’s honestly not my thing and the only song I relatively liked on this was the only instrumental song. Not gonna be coming back to this one.

Honestly. There’s not much I can say about this. It just didn’t hit me in any way shape or form. Just no.

I like this band but I don't like this album

Of all the new order albums to choose to include.

If this is New Order I'd hate to hear the Old Order. This album is the sound of rain ruining a picnic. It is completely uninteresting to me.

That singer's so pitchy he should've gone into baseball

I love New Order, but this is not a good album.

Dreadful out of tune sounding singing combined with twangy non interesting tracks. What happens when the frontman loves the sound of his own voice.

Extremely forgetable 80's synth album.

I’ve listened to New Order before of course, think I even have a vinyl of theirs somewhere. But this ain’t my bag. I almost liked Elegia but it just felt like it didn’t go anywhere? I’m not here for middle of the road non-committal weekend-dad Rock. In the end, I could manage with sub-culture and Face Up but this won’t be an album I reach for again, and certainly wouldn’t be in my personal list of must-be-heards!

Shite.

Not for me

Not a fan of alternative dance. Bernard Sumner’s voice is cringe-worthy.

Oh look, another sub par album from a British artist on this list.

Vocals and lyrics are absolutely shit, not much better than Joy Division 🤢

Not so good, Al.

Honestly can't tell it's not the Cure

Meh

Sounds so much like the other bands around at this time that I didn't like then and still don't enjoy now.

no no like

Wow, that was a tough listen. Musically speaking, it's not terrible but it's definitely just 80's synth-pop. There were some insrumental moments throughout the record where there was a decent groove happening but these moments were few and far between. The real low point of this record was the vocals. During the first couple of tracks, I just thought that they didn't sound quite right but after a while I came to the firm realization that whoever the singer was in New Order just couldn't sing. I'm not even trying to be overly critical. It's not that his voice doesn't suit me or that his style isn't to my liking. He actually can't sing. It reminds me of a bad American Idol audition. He isn't a competent singer. The lyrics are dumb love inspired bullshit but it's the vocal performance that ruins this average 80's synth-pop record. The thing that bothers me most about this experience is how it could possibly be regarded as an album that MUST be listened to before one dies. I strongly disagree with that sentiment. It sucks and I'll never listen to it again(hopefully).

- Zeer zagerig - 0 nummers toegevoegd aan MMMM

This is why I worry about the English. they really like this band. And Echo and The Bunnymen as well... please, please, no more of this.

New wave music....why is there so much of it! This is like the marriage of mid-80s Cure and INXS. Which I guess means better than 90% of New Wave music? They definitely took a slightly darker direction on this album. This Time of Night could be a Cure song, in fact for all I know it is a Cure cover. Elegia sounds like they saw Nightmare on Elm Street and thought that would make a kick-ass song. Of course it's in Stranger Things, or as I like to call it, Generation X nostalgia porn. This sounds like midi files. Face Up is the worst song on the album to close things out.

wasn't my vibe... i tried

Musicalmente la tontería más grande del universo. La instrumentación es insoportable. El rollito de coqueteo con el fascismo es directamente para desterrarlos del planeta. Sin embargo las canciones están bien para poner de fondo mientras tu hija llora porque así el llanto parece lo más agradable de todo. Es lamentable, música para snobs y gente de sexualidad no aceptada.

Nothing to say beyond awful.

Not memorial and kind of just junky 80s dance music. This album should be on the 1001 albums to demonstrate how musicians fell off rather than anything good. Stick with the Joy Division or earlier albums.

I never understood this stuff. Bad singing. Not much in terms of dynamics or melodies. As a musician, I’m not impressed. Amateur crap

There are a few songs that could be decent if they got rid of their lead singer. My god he is horrible.

Elegia war nice, ansonsten nicht so meins

This is the hundred sixth album I’m rating. Don't know who they are and this is the first time I'm doing this not on my phone. Adding to my Playlist - Nothing. Not Adding to my Playlist - Love Vigilantes, The Perfect Kiss, This Time of Night, Sunrise, Elegia, Sooner than you Think, Sub-culture, and Face Up. All in all I liked 0/8 songs. Like The Human League but bad.

This was just so boring. I'm one of those people who is not susceptible to yawning when I see someone else do it, but this kind of music always makes me yawn uncontrollably. And I have to point out that "Sub-Culture" & "Face Up" are just miserable songs. I absolutely hate them. I was going to give this 2 stars until I heard those two.

This is awful 80’s pop

This sucks. It's mostly the vocals.

DNF

Non coinvolge, non fa per me

The first song was promising but it went quickly downhill from there. Unfortunately the 80s sound just sounds so dated, more so than older music which can sound timeless. I think because of that music like this is does not have the staying power of music without such a distinctive era based sound. It also means that if you are like me and do not enjoy thie sounds of this time period all the music sounds so similar and unenjoyable.

Pop sellout garbage. I was in a wannabe-joy-division punk band in college. I was excited for this one, really! Someone needs to bonk this guy on the head and remind him he's a terrible singer, and that was OK in previous albums. This is a must-listen as far as it is a warning for any artist getting too big for their britches and think they're hot stuff.

I understand why Joy Division itself could no longer continue but I can’t believe they gave up Punk Rock for this crap.

Irritating synthesizers, clapping machines, cow bells.....tedious listen.

This started... interestingly. The singing is really bad. Like really bad. The music is really hit or miss. When it hits, it's really vibey and enjoyable. Plus, it covers the bad singing. When it misses, though, the album becomes a really tough listen. Everything does magically come together on "Sunrise". It ends up easily being the best song on the album and is actually a really good song. "Face Up", on the other hand, ends up being so incredibly bad, that I think it's on a short list of worst songs I've ever heard in my life, and undoes any goodwill the album earned through those good moments. I'd rather go deaf than listen to that song again, unless I'm doing it as a joke. Favorite Song(s): Sunrise

Ugh. Didn't finish.

"displaying the moment they completed their transformation from post-punk hold-overs to dance-rockers" -- all genres I dislike

nao

No. 1

Waiting for the high life after that

Depeche mode from wish

So 80s pop

Not my thing. To electronic.

bad

p541. 1985. 1.5 stars. Annoying and whiny Mancs discover dance music and synths. They only have two songs, and they are spread very thinly over 40 minutes. And Bernard Sumner cannot sing. At least it is short.

Nope

Yuk

Nunca me enganché con New Order y toda su familia circundante. Tampoco ahora. Aparentemente no es para mi esa cosa lo-fi.

This one wasn’t for me. I quite like the instrumental track. I quite like that the bass makes it sound like The Cure sometimes. But otherwise, I was just waiting for it to end.

Not my cup o tea. Reminds me of "the cure" but not a fan of the vocals.

Classic 80s electro pop sound, but with some terrible singing thrown in.

I tried...but this album is shit

Boring

I really don't like this at all. The melody is really repetitive and the songs are long. The singing is mediocre. There's just no rhythm to any of it. It feels like a set of classic bad 80s songs, where's a bunch of repetitive techno and no god damn soul to any of it.

I like some of NO's songs, but this album is u listenable for me, especially thanks to the production but also Bernard Sumner's surprisingly insecure vocals.

I bought this album at the time but consider it the beginning of the end in terms of creditability. Power, Corruption & Lies was the perfect hybrid of styles but by this time they'd really started to get swallowed up whole by synths, drum machines and insipid lyrics. They're like the hollowed out shell of a once great band. It's horrible and soulless.

Standard 80s. I just couldn’t. Not on a Friday at work. Is that unfair to the album? Maybe. But I don’t care. The album already knows its socioeconomic status and is self aware enough to proclaim it boldly on the cover. I wish the music was just as bold.

rip new order you would’ve love soundcloud.

I didn't much care for this album although I do like New order.

Crappy, shallow, Casio-demo, bullshit synth, britpop. It's worthless trash and I'm mad I had to listen to 40 minutes of it.

Shite. He can’t sing

Terrible

Nearly unlistenable boring garbage

Low-Life is better than Technique but New Order were crap, and this proves it. Another 1.

Hatte ich New Order nicht mal gelobt vor einiger Zeit? Ich kann diese Platte nicht hören. Belangloser Achtziger-Pop.

Wow, I really hated this guy's voice. It just sounded nasally and whiny. The instrumentals and synth were okay, I guess, but they didn't do much of anything to redeem the album. I listened to the whole thing and I hate myself for it.

No ty

Wack

I couldn't pick a song I liked. Not for me.

My mom said if I don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

I hate that hangover voice

didn't like it at all

Just a laughably bad album. No notable songs and better singing could be found in the NYC subway. Also, sounded like the album was jumped around genres? 2/10.

I don’t remember

I really have a problem with New Order's sound.

It was bad, my 4 year old liked to dance to it.

Didn’t listen to it all because I just couldn’t deal with it.

80er.

did not like

not good

Lazy 80s

A classic.

First impression is overall very disjointed from track to track, and felt like it was trying to do too much at once. It opened with a Madchester sound, then moved into some dance tracks with an attempt a crooning vocals that were really more cawing. then some brooding dance tracks, upbeat post-punk jangle, instrumental intermission, then more dance-y wailing stuff. *Also, for a 2015 remaster the production quality seemed lower than I would have expected.

Decent.