10 Most Influential Electronic Rock Artists

By the time New Order had formed, every band member had enough musical horror stories for any other musicians' lifetime. After cutting their teeth in the post punk outfit Joy Division, everything collectively came to a halt once singer Ian Curtis was found dead by suicide in his home. Whereas most bands would decide to call it a day, New Order found the way forward by going completely against the grain.

Compared to the other post punk bands of the time that flirted with ambience here and there, New Order became the first "alternative" act to put an emphasis on the electronics, eventually making for some of the most intriguing singles of the modern age. When listening to something like Blue Monday, you can practically feel the tide shifting in rock and roll, going for something that was a lot more radio friendly but still keeping the same amount of heart in its delivery.

Granted, you could probably see how some fans would have gotten pissed from the old Joy Division days, since the band had practically sold out by bringing in the keyboards. In this case though, New Order just found a new lane for them to thrive in and walked away with a host of wannabes trying to replicate what they founded. Sure, it's not punk anymore, but punk was always about going against the grain, and this is about as off the wall a move as you could have made.