Album dossier / 1983

Power, Corruption & Lies

New Order · Synth-pop/Post-Punk

Recorded at Britannia Row studios in Islington with engineer Michael Johnson, Power, Corruption \& Lies marked New Order fully stepping out from Joy Division's shadow as the band -- Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, credited collectively as producers -- leaned hard into newly acquired sequencers and synthesizers. Drummer Morris and keyboardist Gilbert later recalled digging through synth manuals to squeeze every function out of primitive gear, while Sumner's lyrics on tracks like 'Age of Consent' and 'Your Silent Face' were largely assembled from onstage and studio improvisations. The sessions also produced the standalone single 'Blue Monday' (added to later cassette/CD reissues but not the original vinyl tracklist), whose sales manager Rob Gretton correctly predicted would be a hit; the album itself, wrapped in a Peter Saville sleeve later honored on a UK postage stamp, is now widely ranked among the greatest albums of the 1980s.