New Order - Temptation (1987)
Thank God music isn't a competition. If it were, all music would've been forced to stop in 1987 after New Order released this version of Temptation. Let's face it, no one's ever going to top this. New Order do more in 7 minutes than most bands manage in a whole career. It's bursting at the seams with all the joy and the sorrow in the world. The lyrics feel like a stream of consciousness - I've no idea if Barney improvised them or not. If you asked me to explain exactly what they mean, I'm not sure I could, but boy, can I feel them. Part of this is all the beautiful turns of phrase ( "Heaven, a gateway, a hope" is such a wonderful way to open a song) but mostly it's the music. It's so trance-like and repetitious. I love how it doesn't really have a structure as much as a build - like the lyrics, it just wanders from one place to another, like it's lost in some eternal moonlit alleyway, somewhere between Manchester and Mars. It