“True Faith” by New Order

"True Faith" is a New Order single on Factory, written by Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert together with Stephen Hague, who co-produced it with the band. Sumner wrote the words, Steve Peck engineered, and Shep Pettibone was brought in for extra production, turning in two remixes that filled a second 12-inch. It was the first time since their debut, "Ceremony", that a New Order single got two separate 12-inch releases in the UK.

It's the band at their most gleaming: a pulsing, bright synth line, a bass part that sings its own melody up high, and Sumner singing in that slightly lost, melancholy way over a groove built for the dance floor. Hague's polish didn't blunt them, it just let the sadness shine.

The video, featuring two men who take turns slapping each other, went into heavy rotation on music channels and took the band to a much wider audience. It reached number 4 in Britain in 1987 and became their first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 32. A remix in 1994 took it back into the UK chart at number 9, and it remains one of New Order's best-loved songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.