Song · New Order
“Thieves Like Us” by New Order
Released 1984
“Thieves Like Us” by New Order appears on 8 radio countdowns from 8 stations between 1984 and 2023. It was first released in 1984. Its best result is #7 on the John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1984. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #43 alternative song of 1984 and #3,316 alternative song of all time.
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New Order put out "Thieves Like Us" on Factory in April 1984, their seventh single, catalogue number FAC 103, and it's the sound of a band that once lived in the shadows learning to grin at a drum machine. It came out of the New York sessions for "Confusion", where Arthur Baker earned a writing credit alongside Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, and Baker's associate John Benitez supplied the title, borrowed from Robert Altman's 1974 film.
The band produced it themselves, and it's as pretty as their synth-pop got: sequencers glinting, melodies chiming, Sumner sounding almost hopeful. "Lonesome Tonight" sat on the flip, Peter Saville's sleeve, built on a de Chirico painting, paired it with the next single, "Murder", and an instrumental version later turned up in Pretty in Pink.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 7 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1984 | 48 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 136 | WLIR / WDRE | WLIR Top 200 Songs of All-Time (1988) | 200 |
| 1989 | 432 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1989) | 500 |
| 1990 | 167 | Live 105 | Live 105 Top 300 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1990) | 299 |
| 1991 | 400 | CFNY 102.1 The Edge | CFNY Top 1002 Songs of All-Time (1991 Edition) | 1002 |
| 1999 | 831 | Q101 | Q101 Top 1,011 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 1017 |
| 2003 | 1937 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
| 2023 | 247 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
Also listed as: Thieves like us.
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