Power Corruption and Lies

The Artist

New Order emerged from the ashes of Joy Division in 1980, with Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris joined by keyboardist Gillian Gilbert as they navigated life after Ian Curtis. Based in Manchester and tied to the visionary Factory Records, the band spent their early years caught between post-punk gloom and a growing fascination with New York club culture, Kraftwerk, and Italo disco. Their sound became defined by Hook's melodic high-register bass, Sumner's unassuming vocals, and an increasingly bold marriage of guitars with sequencers and drum machines. Power, Corruption and Lies is their second album and the moment they fully stepped out of Joy Division's shadow. It sits as one of the pivotal records that reshaped what a rock band could sound like in the synth age.

The Album

Recorded largely at Britannia Row and Advision in London in early 1983 and self-produced by the band, Power, Corruption and Lies arrived in May 1983 on Factory Records with Peter Saville's now-iconic sleeve based on a Henri Fantin-Latour flower painting. The band had just splurged on new gear, including an Emulator sampler and sequencers, and much of the record's texture comes from them teaching themselves electronic music in real time. Famously, the era-defining single "Blue Monday" was deliberately left off the original UK LP, making the album a distinct artistic statement rather than a hits vehicle. Lyrically, Sumner circles alienation, control, obsession, and quiet paranoia, but the music pushes toward light, motion, and the dancefloor. It captured a band mid-transformation, still tethered to guitars but pulled magnetically toward the club.

Listen For

Peter Hook's lead bass. On "Age of Consent," the bass isn't holding down the bottom, it's singing the main melody. Notice how often across the record Hook's playing functions as the lead instrument.

The human-machine handoff. "5 8 6" spends its opening minutes as a pure sequencer workout before the live band crashes in. Listen to how the drum machine and Stephen Morris's live kit stitch together.

Sumner's understated vocal. On "Your Silent Face," his delivery is almost conversational, culminating in a famously blunt closing line. Pay attention to how little he pushes even when the synths swell around him.

Sampler experiments. "Ultraviolence" and "Ecstacy" are dense with early Emulator textures, chopped percussion, and odd tonal choices. You can hear a band actively discovering what their new machines can do.

Lyrical tone versus musical vibe. "Leave Me Alone" closes the album with jangling, almost pretty guitars laid over lyrics of exhaustion and withdrawal. That contrast is the whole album's thesis in miniature.