New Order are an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1980 by vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook, and drummer Stephen Morris, with keyboardist Gillian Gilbert joining the band shortly after. Sumner, Hook and Morris were previously members of Joy Division, which had disbanded earlier in 1980 after the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis. Their fusion of post-punk and electronic dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s,Ankeny, Jason. [ "New Order > Biography"]. AllMusic. Retrieved 16 March 2025. and pioneers of alternative dance. They became the flagship band for the Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub, The Haçienda. They worked in a long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville who worked on their album covers.
While the band's early years were initially overshadowed by Joy Division's post-punk legacy, their experience in the early 1980s New York club scene led them to incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released several successful albums, such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation album Substance (1987). The band disbanded in 1993 to focus on their individual projects but reunited in 1998. Since then, New Order have gone through various hiatuses and changes in personnel, most notably the departure of Hook in 2007 due to personal disputes with the other members. In 2015, they released their tenth studio album, Music Complete. In 2026, both Joy Division and New Order were inducted as one act into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History Origins and formation: 1977–1980
Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett.Rambali, Paul (July 1983). "New Order". The Face. Curtis died by suicide on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first North American tour, and before the release of the band's second studio album, Closer.
Before Curtis's death, the band had agreed to stop using the name Joy Division if any member died or left. Thus, when the three remaining members decided to continue without him, they chose to perform under a different name.Savage, Jon (July 1994). "Joy Division: Someone Take These Dreams Away". Mojo. During the summer of 1980, the remaining members recorded their first demos, including a track called "Haystack" with vocalist Kevin Hewick, whom Factory's co-founder Tony Wilson had suggested as the band's new frontman. On 29 July 1980, the as-yet unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over twenty years, is credited with finding the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The New Order of Kampuchean Rebels". They also considered the name The Witch Doctors of Zimbabwe, before finally choosing New Order of Kampuchean Rebels, which was narrowed down to the name New Order despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band the New Order. The group emphasised that the name New Order, like Joy Division, was not intended to reference Nazism or fascism.NewOrderStory [DVD]. Warner Bros. 2005.
New Order embarked on a short US tour in early autumn 1980. In these shows, Sumner, Morris and Hook all sang lead vocals on different tracks. Sumner ultimately took the role of frontman even though he struggled to sing while playing guitar. During this tour, the band recorded two tracks written by Joy Division: "Ceremony" and "In a Lonely Place", which were released as New Order's debut single in January 1981.
The band wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skills and style were compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980 as keyboardist and guitarist. She made her live debut with the band at the Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. As a quartet, New Order subsequently re-recorded "Ceremony", which was released as a twelve-inch single in September 1981.
Movement: 1981–1982 New Order's first commercial release was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of their debut album, Movement, in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesizers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis's death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett showed the band how to use a mixing board. This allowed the band to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general, really—for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record."
New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle, and electro. To cheer themselves up, the band started listening to Italian disco while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music and the departure of producer Martin Hannett, who walked off halfway through the mix of "Everything's Gone Green", leading the band to produce "Temptation" themselves.
The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order), opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of the UK's first-ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence".
Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984
New Order's second LP, Power, Corruption & Lies, was released in May 1983. This synth-pop album incorporated some of the post-punk style sound from their previous band, Joy Division, and their first album, Movement. The band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12-inch single of all time in the UK; however, it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included only on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies.
The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesized single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album.
Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987
Released in 1985, Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss" – with a music video directed by Jonathan Demme – and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex.
Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions.
In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles Chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order.
Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on the opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects, including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band was sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who claimed that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court, and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver.