10 Greatest Debut Singles Of All Time
4. New Order – Ceremony
No band ever had their backs against the wall quite like New Order.
The death of Ian Curtis was national news and catapulted Love Will Tear Us Apart onto the charts. This gave Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris their first taste of national attention while they were grieving their friend. Six months later, the band retooled one of the last songs Curtis had a hand in writing, Ceremony, and decided to carry on.
Existing would be enough for Ceremony. The sheer chutzpah of carrying on with the eyes of the world trained on you beggars belief. In this case though, the resulting track also set the foundations for one of the most influential acts of the 80’s. Taking the needle sharp riffs perfected in Joy Division and giving them space and dynamics, letting them build and unfurl gave them a humanity they’d never had before.
After what the band had been through, they deserved nothing less than a classic, which is exactly what they got.