It's a simple concept - the first dozen singles by New Order collected, a couple of them re-recorded - but it's also a totally entertaining seven-year history of the band that married British post-punk alienation to the relentless hedonism of the dance floor. The band's hits were always deeply unconventional (like the haunting "Blue Monday," essentially a seven-minute drum machine test with a short lyric that alluded to the Falklands War), but they were brilliant productions, layering dozens of electronic countermelodies and percussion tricks over Barney Sumner's uncertain warble and Peter Hook's lead bass parts. Though they're audio snapshots of the dance beats of their time, they've held up both as club classics and as idiosyncratic rock songs. - Douglas Wolk

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Ceremony
2. Everything's Gone Green
3. Temptation
4. Blue Monday
5. Confusion
6. Thieves Like Us
7. Perfect Kiss
8. Subculture
9. Shellshock
10. State Of The Nation
11. Bizarre Love Triangle
12. True Faith
13. In A Lonely Place
14. Procession
15. Mesh
16. Hurt
17. Beach, The
18. Confused Instrumental
19. Lonesome Tonight
20. Murder
21. Thieves Like Us Instrumental
22. Kiss Of Death
23. Shame Of The Nation
24. 1963