Tuesday
Mar192013
New Order Mocked Glam Bands
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 12:01AM
New Order, the 80s British band, once made a video mocking Glam. I didn't know this until I was randomly reading something about director Kathryn Bigelow (of Zero Dark Thirty and Point Break fame) and came across a paragraph that said something like "Bigelow directed a video for New Order. The video is a parody of hair metal." Well, naturally I had to investigate and I came across the video for "Touched By the Hand of God." The song is from the movie Salvation!
I don't know much about New Order, so I'm not ashamed to admit I've never seen this clip before. I guess New Order thought Glam bands were an easy target to mock or something. Anyway, here's the clip. Discuss.
Reader Comments (13)
I am sure the glam schtick was a big improvement relative to their usual thing.
Nice topic, first and foremost ! But seriously, all the band members listed "programming" as what they do in the band. Sooooo not GLAM !!
They did give us the rump shaker from back in the day BLUE MONDAY, which was nicely redone by the band Orgy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e_nJRzCpBE
Lame song in the video to try and ape GLAM ~ touched by the hand of god ? Seriously ? Glad the director has come along ways since this hack attempt at trying to gain popularity by going against what is popular. Haters will hate, but true fans unite.
New Order, and before them Joy Division, had an incredible impact on music. And their sound developed into the electronic sound found in the video (just look up earlier material or take a listen to Hook's bass playing throughout the band's career) from the late-70s JD sound up through this period (roughly 82-88).
The video, though, is spot on if a bit too earnest. Mocking the spectacle of metal videos at the time is too easy . . . now, so perhaps the jab is a bit raw given that they were doing it then. And, no, they didn't need to get noticed. They were already quite popular internationally (if not before, then certainly after, "Blue Monday" off of _Power, Corruption, and Lies_ from 83, which GnR references).
Yes, they aren't glam. But that doesn't mean it isn't music, even if parodying means being a "hater" and being a "true" fan means listening to only a certain type of music. Thank goodness none of that would imply being narrow-minded.
. . . and you know what? I started out like Rita. But, after listening to Nitzer Ebb, early and mid Depeche Mode, Sisters of Mercy, and the like, I came to respect--and even like--some "electronic" music. Fact is, some of that music is a lot more powerful and a lot less "electronic" than one would assume not having listened to it.
Not that you need to like it, mind you. It's just that you don't need to hate one genre to love another.
2013. Of course, as we get older, most of us come to realize that elitism, as it applies to anything, is a bunch of
silliness, but that wasn't so clear back then to us, or probably even the members of New Order who were still relatively
young at the time.
Also, I should have clarified my point about elitism as I saw it back then. I certainly didn't mean to imply that elitism
only existed in new wave. Of course, almost every musical genre unfortunately comes with its inherent elitists, but I still
maintain that the type of elitism in new wave was quite different from the elitism in metal in 1987. Although I referenced
the explanation of one person in my previous comment, I personally witnessed what he was talking about all around me on that
college campus. New wave fans were much more quick to turn on one another than metal fans when their opinions about bands
within the genre differed.
What does all this mean?...Well, nothing really. Now that I'm in my mid 40s, I understand that in the grand scheme of things,
New Order mocking glam in a 26-year-old video has no significance on my life in 2013, but in 1987 it would have ticked me off.
And let's face it, around that time, most of the bands in the late 80's werent original at all in their look.
In my original post, I was going to go a bit further in suggesting that some of that style of parody was also culturally based (not genre derived) and has popped up every now and again in other English bands (Stone Roses,Oasis, etc.). Perhaps I should have, but it felt like it was going a bit far afield.
Like I said, great post Bob.
I'd see Priest, L.A. Guns, Lizzie Borden or G'n'R one minute and be pogoin' to this sh*t the next in clubs. It's only once I got to NYC that I concentrated on Hair Metal, having found Heaven at The Cat Club.