It took me 3 months to read this fabulous tome. Few things:
1) To understand Hook's perspective, one has to accept his premise that New Order/Joy Division were basically HIS and Bernard Sumner's band, as they both formed it in 1976, before Ian Curtis, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert; not only that, but he considers himself one of the principal music writers on par with Sumner. So, if one of them leaves the band (as Hook himself did in 2007), the band simply doesn't have the right to exist (whereas Gillian's departure in 2001 was completely fine, consequence-free, according to that logic). So, following that logic, again, New Order ceased to exist in 2007.
2) Hook makes a few points when New Order were supposed to be really real. Whether it's before Gillian came along (and they had a 'democracy'), or it's 1980-84 when Sumner was not yet the dictator he turned to be after Rob's decline, or it's 1981-85 when they didn't know how to write songs properly and sing in key, or 2001-2004 when New Order again were just him, Barney and Steve... I'm lost.
3) Oh that wrath unleashed on Barney... That Mr. Sumner could be a jerk, I suspected, but here Hook explains why he had to be one: who else would program all these computers to make bearable music? Who else would stop touring to recover from Pernod? Who else would turn his back on the Hacienda to buy Mercedeses and Elvis costumes? Exactly. But still I was shocked to learn how callous, greedy, rude, lazy, stubborn and annoying Mr. Sumner was. I mean, the guy is trashed basically on every page. By the way, I did read Sumner's autobiography, which was more introspective, at times poetic, but somewhat vague in general and cherry-picking.
4) I loved the book, although, the last thing I wanted is to know anything about the band beyond the LP sleeves and videos, but that ship has sunk... and this invitation into the real world of New Order was irresistible.
Edited by user 17 January 2017 21:01:25(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
