Songoftheday 11/17/18 - Maybe I've forgotten the name and the address, of everyone I've ever known...

"Regret" - New Order
from the album Republic (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8

Today's song of the day comes from the band that rose from the ashes of iconic proto-punk group Joy Division to become an entity ten times bigger with their transformation into electro-pop international stars as New Order. A huge club and college radio band through the 1980s, they finally broke into the mainstream at the end of 1987 when they reached the top-40 with both their single "True Faith" and the album it was pulled from, the retrospective Substance. They returned two years later with their first studio album since, Technique, but after a quirky first single "Fine Time" confused a lot of new American fans, a true classic like "Round and Round" got lost in the shuffle. Also, it didn't help that their label since the start, Factory, imploded, leaving them to sign up with London Records, where they would record their next record, Republic. And this time, they did the right thing and released the most radio-friendly track as the lead single. "Regret", written by the band (Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Summer) along with Stephen Hague, who produced the track with them, was a slick distillation of their sound with a balance of guitar strum and synth sheen beneath, and it became their highest-charting American success on the pop chart...

"Regret" became New Order's second and so far most recent top-40 pop hit in July of 1993. The song spent six weeks at #1 on Billboard magazine's Modern Rock radio chart, while the remixes of the track helped it claim a week atop their Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the UK (#4), Ireland (#5), and Canada (#6). It also made the top-40 in Sweden (#19), Australia (#26), New Zealand (#30), and Germany (#39).

The second single from Republic, the wistful "Ruined In A Day", missed the pop chart in America, but climbed to #30 on the Modern Rock list, while reaching #22 in the UK. That was followed by the bubbly "World (The Price Of Love)", which more conformed to their "sound", got them back on the American pop Hot 100 at #92, while spending a week on top of the Dance Club Play list and scaling to #5 on the Modern Rock chart. The fourth and final release from the album, "Spooky", got to #22 in the UK, and rose to #6 on the American dance chart.

It would be another five years before New Order reassembled, and another three for their next record, Get Ready, to arrive. A much more organic-sounding record, with guitars overpowering keys, it achieved mixed results. Lead single "Crystal" returned them to the top ten in their native Britain (#8), while in America it gave the band their fifth (and so far last) #1 hit on the dance chart in 2001. (The video, meanwhile, would feature a fictional band that would inspire the name for The Killers.)

Four years later, the group returned, but without Gillian Gilbert, who hadn't gone on tour due to taking care of her children with Morris, and now bowed out for the studio album Waiting For The Sirens Call. The first single "Krafty" is their most recent top ten pop hit in the UK at #8, while it got to #2 on Billboard's dance chart. Another track from the album, "Guilt Is A Useless Emotion", peaked at #3 on that list, and was nominated for Best Dance Recording at the Grammy Awards in 2006 (which was won by the Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize"). Hook left the group in 2007, and it looked like the band as it was were calling it a day.

But in 2011, New Order started touring again, with Hook out but Gilbert back in. They eventually came out with their latest studio set, Music Complete, which shot to #2 on the British albums sales chart in 2015 and even got them back in the top-40 on the Albums Sales chart in the U.S. (#34).

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To make this song full on 1990s, the band co-opted with the television show Baywatch to film a live version of "Regret" on the beach, which was broadcast on Top of the Pops. (Admission: I was horrified by this.)