Before I drop my Best Albums of 2006 list later this week, I thought I would share something else… perhaps a new feature: Best OLD song that is NEW to me. I am still amazed when I only recently find out about songs or bands that seemingly everyone has known about forever. So from time to time it might be cool to highlight some of these older things and say why I like them.
In the innaugural segment I figure I will show off my favourite old, but new to me song of 2006: “Age of Consent.” I first heard New Order‘s “Age of Consent” from Power, Corruption & Lies probably two years ago when someone introduced me to the band and dumped a few albums onto my iPod. But I mostly listened to Low-Life and the first cut, “Love Vigilantes” and was perfectly happy. Then earlier this summer I saw a trailer for Sofia Coppola’s new film Marie Antoinette.
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Now Coppola amazed me with her previous two films and the soundtracks she collected so naturally the trailer was going to have more of the same. As the infectiously catchy opening notes and driving beats trickled in set to the images up on screen, you could tell the approach of her period piece drama was going to be a bit different. The film looked to compare the glut and overzealous materialism of 18th century France with the 1980’s party scene.
I knew I had heard this song and this band and even as I sat through the rest of the movie I was ACTUALLY seeing, I was still trying to figure out who this was. When I got home I searched my iPod for all my new wave music. In hindsight, given the title of the song, the album and the band who wrote it, the song worked perfectly to set the energetic tone and theme of the film.
To me there is something cool about rediscovering a song you might have overlooked thanks to someone’s great taste in setting it to the perfect scene in a movie. This song stayed with me the rest of the summer and fall as something of a go to for early morning wake up calls and late night walks home. It is now easily my favourite song by New Order.
Check out this live studio performance from 1984:
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Some additional observations from this video:
1) Notice lead singer, Bernard Sumner’s guitar f-ups at the beginning, playing a whole step up on the neck. Whoops.
2) Notice said singer’s crooning vocals sliding and dragging behind the beat.
3) Notice cute synth girl in the dress. Somehow attractive even in that 1984 haircut.
4) The good thing about the recent few years of 80s retro fashion\art revival is that we can pick and choose the best from the era and ignore the rest…like singer’s high shorts and previously mentioned bob haircut of synth girl.
5) I want to play this song. The hooks are incredibly catchy.