You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.
Power, Corruption And Lies is the album where New Order’s unique identity began to come to fruition. On their debut recording, Movement, they seemed almost chained up by the ghosts of Joy Division and Ian Curtis. After all, it was literally months after the death of both entities when the began headed back to the recording studio. Probably the two biggest changes that occurred on PC&L were the larger emphasis on synthesizers and the distinctly different vocal approach of Bernard Sumner, which was far lighter than Curtis, even whimsical at times. However, for the final track on the PC&L, New Order chose a song that still has delightful tinges of Joy Division.
This is the strength of “Leave Me Alone”, the fact that it straddles the fence between both eras without compromising artistically. In fact, it’s the influences of both bands’ sounds that make this track so good. Barney is no Ian and would never be mistaken for him. But this is also a far cry away from the dance rock approach that New Order would become famous for. In his depression, Ian often sounded detached from everyone. But with Barney, his own struggles seem much more relatable and within reach. The guitars on “Leave Me Alone” stretch upward to a more New Order-esque sound, but the song maintains strong roots to the Joy Division sound especially with Stephen’s drum finale.
“On a thousand islands in the sea, I see a thousand people just like me.”