The New Order story is the stuff of rock ‘n’ roll legend: one of the most forward-thinking young bands in music history loses their enigmatic, tortured genius to suicide before they even cross the Atlantic. Rather than stand in Joy Division’s dark, imposing shadow, in the aftermath of Ian Curtis’s death, the remaining members instead chose to regroup, retool, and repurpose their chemistry. Singer and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook, and drummer Stephen Morris—joined by keyboardist and Morris’ partner, Gillian Gilbert—gradually ditched their formerly cold minimalism in favor of something bigger, bolder, and more charismatic. Their eventual merging of post-punk and club music cemented their status as one of the most important voices in pop music eve.—one that continues to be a primary source for all things indie and guitar-centric some thirty plus years after their debut release, Movement.

With help from Factory Records co-conspirators, New Order briefly defined a generation of British pop music, one that saw its center relocate from posh London to the decidedly seedier Manchester. That underdog hub was naturally centered around the Hacienda nightclub, a cavernous, drug-drenched playground that effectively birthed the UK’s oft-mythologized Acid House scene while nearly ruining the band and its label financially. Between the club and the band’s creative, art-driven record sleeves, New Order, at its height of critical and cultural appraisal, actually wasn’t much of a solvent operation. In fact, the “Blue Monday” 12” has the dubious, if perhaps slightly erroneous distinction of being one of their most beloved songs that actually lost them money.

But New Order was and is far more than angular guitars and ridged 808 drum beats. Across the group’s nine full-length efforts, they’ve embraced–and at times defined–everything from chiming guitar pop to hedonistic rave sendups and back again. They also had the foresight to let others into their musical alchemy, gifting fans with extended dance cuts and remixes from the likes of producers like Shep Pettibone and Andrew Weatherall, up-and-comers at the time who are now legends. While Joy Division’s limited but massively influential oeuvre provided something of a template for the “big music” of U2, Echo and The Bunnymen, and others, it was only the open-hearted pop of New Order that could, and ultimately did, reach similar levels of world-conquering pandemonium.

So you wanna get into: Fizzy Jangle-Pop New Order?

New Order didn’t become dance-punk leaders overnight—they eased into their role as beatmakers at a gradual pace. Here you’ll find jangle-pop New Order, a transition point between their guitar doom-and-gloom and the manic energy of their full-on club sound to come. Early singles including the brisk and bubbling “Procession” were actually salvaged from Joy Division writing sessions, and their 1981 debut album Movement is their most far-removed effort from dance music. Still, Movement cuts like the starry-eyed, jangly “Dreams Never End” hint towards a band with a growing sense of rhythm that would inform their future anthems.