Movement

Considering that Joy Division singer Ian Curtis hanged himself a day before the band was scheduled to go on their first tour of America, it\'s hard to believe that the remaining members figured they would amount to anything in particular, let alone become New Order. Measure *Movement* against the rest of the band’s catalog and it still sounds like an attempt for direction in the wake of tragedy, but take in the broader scope of post-punk circa 1981 and you can hear a new sound taking shape. Curtis’ specter—and Joy Division’s generally—is still obvious and probably inevitable: Both “Truth” and “ICB” could have been on Joy Division’s final album, *Closer*, without much alteration, while “The Him” mixes the industrial and the ritualistic with a force even Curtis didn’t quite have the stomach for. Then you get tracks like “Chosen Time,” which deploys the rigid tick-tock of disco not just as a metaphor for anxiety, but as something that, y’know, makes people dance, and “Dreams Never End,” which eludes the intensity of Joy Division’s bleakness for something softer, more melancholy than depressed, more passing cloud than black hole—signs of life, stirring in darkness.

For the first time since 1992,Rolling Stone'sdefinitive classic returns to the scene, completely updated and revised to include the past decade's artists and sounds. When it comes to sorting the truly great from the merely mediocre, the enduring from the fleeting,The New Rolling Stone Album Guideprovides music buffs and amateurs alike with authoritative guidance from the best voices in the field. Filled with insightful commentary, it not only reviews the most influential albums of all time, but also features biographical overviews of key artists' careers, giving readers a look at the personalities behind the music.This fourth edition contains an impressive -- 70 percent -- amount of new material. Readers will find fresh updates to entries on established artists, hundreds of brand-new entries on the people and recordings that epitomize the '90s and the sounds of the 21st century -- from Beck to OutKast to the White Stripes and beyond -- along with a new introduction detailing changes in the music industry.Celebrating the diversity of popular music and its constant metamorphoses, with thousands of entries and reviews on every sound from blues to techno,The New Rolling Stone Album Guideis the only resource music lovers need to read.