The lack of love for Republic bums me out. For me, that record is Music Complete. As such, my list in your format:
Low-Life
Power, Corruption & Lies
Movement
Waiting for the Siren’s Call
Brotherhood
Technique
Republic
Get Ready
Music Complete
I truly enjoy them all except that last one. Curious, can you recommend a particular song that you might think I’m overlooking on Music Complete? Happy to revisit an album I don’t enjoy by a band I very much otherwise do.
I realised after reading this post I went and listened to both albums again and then forgot to post about them.
Republic is genuinely horrible. Regret is a vaguely acceptable pop-rock song. Avalanche sounds like something a bit different but somehow misses anything to make it memorable. Maybe my instrumental tasted lean more towards post-rock to the point where I just need more noise if there's no words, but I do remember hearing that for the first time and finding it a welcome relief from what came before it.
I probably hadn't listened to Republic in full for ten years before this post and I forgot how bad it is. Let's leave aside New Order's five 80s albums because it's never going to compare to those. Any band would struggle to compare to output as varied, influential and genuinely timeless. Blue Monday is about the only New Order song I would associate with the 80s and that's only because it's so ubiquitously tied to that decade. Republic though sounds like it could only ever have been released in 1993. It sounds like absolutely nothing else no actual band of musicians would make. It sounds like a computer made the most bland, corporate yet grating music possible. Many songs sound like they sampled the sewer levels from Crash Bandicoot. The lyrics have none of the personal heft that used to make up for them generally being a bit naff. The bit where Bernard starts soft rapping is probably the final straw.
I've generally tried to avoid Peter Hook & The Light because he's a dick and I'm not interested, but having seen clips of them performing in 2023 which looked like your dad doing karaoke at a wedding after sinking fifteen pints, I'm almost intrigued enough to see how he performs this album in full.
I hadn't listened to Music Complete in full in a while either. I don't think I listened to much new music in 2015 so it probably stands out a bit more to me for that reason, but it's still good. It's a good sort of compilation of the things New Order have always been best at, the rockier side like Restless, Singularity and Academic and then the dance stuff like Plastic and Tutti Frutti. If you look up live performances of these songs in particular you can see how powerful they can be. Stray Dog is something interesting and more experimental, and Superheated is a bit cheesier than I remember but still holds the classic level of melancholy the band were always best at. There's a remixed version of the album called Complete Music which has extended versions of all the songs. That's great too.