History Music / PowerCorruptionAndLies

** "The Village" is named after the location of the same name in ''Music/{{The Prisoner|1967}}''.

* InTheStyleOf: "Blue Monday" and "The Beach" are uncharacteristically Hi-NRG songs based on a mix of Music/DonnaSummer, Klein + M.B.O., Sylvester (specifically "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)"), and Music/{{Kraftwerk}}.

* RegionalBonus: The original American CD and cassette releases featured "Blue Monday" and "The Beach" as bonus tracks. CD-and-cassette-centric buyers were limited to America if they wanted a copy of this album with the two additional songs.

* TextlessAlbumCover: A reproduction of the painting "A Basket of Roses" by French artist Henri Fantin-Latour. The only thing remotely close to text is the series of colored squares in the upper-right corner, which a decoder on the back cover decrypts as "FACT 75," the record's Creator/FactoryRecords catalog number. Qwest's U.S. CD reissue added the band name and title to the cover, while the label simply tacked a transparent sticker onto the vinyl version, similar to a Music/PinkFloyd album.

* NewSoundAlbum: This was the first full-length where they fully transitioned into their trademark SynthPop sound; Stephen Morris characterized it as the band transitioning from black-and-white to color in that regard, shedding off the past and moving into the future and moving from the overbearing gloom of Music/JoyDivision to a more stylistically diverse and eclectic direction.

* NonIndicativeName: "Age of Consent" has nothing to do with actual age-of-consent laws or sex as a whole.

* SiameseTwinSongs: "Blue Monday" and "The Beach". They are the same track, but "The Beach" alternates sounds and voices throughout the song. Not surprisingly, they were originally released as an A-side and B-side on the same 12" single. Both songs also share elements with "5 8 6" and "Ultraviolence", as they were all derived from the same sequencer jam.

* SurrealMusicVideo: The music video for "Blue Monday" pairs video game footage with false-color clips of military vehicles. The video for the song's 1988 remix is even stranger, with footage of balancing dogs, the band playing with milk crates and tennis balls in a disjointedly-designed room, wind-up frog toys, and marker-on-paper animations based on the aforementioned scenes.

* SiameseTwinSongs: "Blue Monday" and "The Beach". They are the same track, but "The Beach" alternates sounds and voices throughout the song. Not surprisingly, they were originally released as an A-side and B-side on the same 12" single. Both songs also share elements with "5 8 6" and "Ecstasy", as they were all derived from the same sequencer jam.

* DigitalDestruction: Qwest's U.S. CD release omitted the floppy disk motif and decoder that was on the back cover of the LP version, in favor of a generic tracklist and credits; it's not even featured anywhere in the liner notes. Barring the use of a similar technique on ''Music/{{Brotherhood}}'', the label's handling of the band's other CD releases (as well as CD releases of the Music/JoyDivision catalog) would be much better-handled from a packaging standpoint.

* RegionalBonus: The original American CD release on Qwest Records featured "Blue Monday" and "The Beach" as bonus tracks. CD-and-cassette-centric buyers were limited to America if they wanted a copy of this album with the two additional songs.

* SiameseTwinSongs: "Blue Monday" and "The Beach". They are the same track, but "The Beach" alternates sounds and voices throughout the song. Not surprisingly, they were originally released as an A-side and B-side on the same 12" single.

* TextlessAlbumCover: A reproduction of the painting "A Basket of Roses" by French artist Henri Fantin-Latour. The only thing remotely close to text is the series of colored squares in the upper-right corner, which a decoder on the back cover decrypts as "FACT 75," the record's Creator/FactoryRecords catalog number. Qwest's U.S. CD reissue added the band name and title to the cover, while the label simply tacked a transparent sticker onto the vinyl version, similar to a Music/PinkFloyd album. Incidentally, the colored squares remained unchanged on the Qwest release despite featuring a different serial number there than on Factory (likely because it would've been too much work to alter them).

Like ''Movement'' and the two Joy Division albums, ''Power, Corruption & Lies'' wasn't supported by any singles on its initial release; their BreakthroughHit "Blue Monday" from two months prior was only available as a non-album single (in part due to being recorded ''after'' the sessions for the album despite being released earlier). The Factory US cassette and later Qwest Records American cassette and CD releases added the song, along with its BSide "The Beach," to the track list; both tracks were also preserved on Qwest's subsequent release of ''Music/{{Substance|NewOrderAlbum}}'' despite the redundancy. On modern digital music distribution services, the worldwide tracklisting, including in the US, mirrors the original British configuration, without "Blue Monday" or "The Beach", similar to post-1987 reissues of Music/TheBeatles' UK albums. The fan-favorite opening track "Age of Consent" would eventually receive a music video in 2020, as a means of promoting the album's Definitive Edition BoxedSet released earlier that year.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: This album was a huge one for New Order following the huge EarlyInstallmentWeirdness that was ''Music/{{Movement}}''. From the first track right to the last, this album established that the band was a far different entity now than Music/JoyDivision were, with a blend of AlternativeRock & SynthPop and an abundance of sardonic AntiLoveSong lyrics (a stark contrast to the opaque literary brooding that Ian Curtis was known for) that would come to define the group's SignatureStyle. Even if later albums established a far slicker direction, everything New Order did after this album owes a great deal of debt to it.

The end result was highly praised by critics, who considered it [[SurprisinglyImprovedSequel a major artistic improvement]] over ''Movement'' and as the point where the band came into their own, no longer in thrall to the specter of Joy Division; critical reception has only increased with time, ultimately leading to it being regarded by both fans and critics as the band's greatest album. The record was ranked at No. 262 on the 2020 edition of ''Magazine/RollingStone''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time]] (the band's only album to make that particular revision of the list and their second to be featured on any version; 1987's ''Music/{{Substance|NewOrderAlbum}}'' had previously been on the 2012 edition), at No. 216 on ''Magazine/{{NME}}''[='s=] 2012 [[UsefulNotes/NME500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime list]] in the same category, and at No. 358 on the 2020 edition of ''WebSite/AcclaimedMusic''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums list of the most critically praised albums]]. In addition to its immense acclaim, the album is also widely regarded as a seminal release in the first wave of AlternativeRock, being to Britain what Music/{{REM}}'s ''Music/{{Murmur}}'' was to America that same year. The record was also a commercial success for New Order, topping the UK Independent Albums chart, peaking at No. 4 on the general UK Albums chart, and being certified silver in the UK, marking the start of New Order's financial heyday.

Like ''Movement'' and the two Joy Division albums, ''Power, Corruption & Lies'' wasn't supported by any singles on its initial release; their BreakthroughHit "Blue Monday" from two months prior was only available as a non-album single (in part due to being recorded ''after'' the sessions for the album despite being released earlier). This notably caused so much confusion over listeners who got into New Order via "Blue Monday" that Factory eventually started shipping copies of ''Power, Corruption & Lies'' with a sticker on the shrinkwrap reading "DOES NOT CONTAIN 'BLUE MONDAY'". The Factory US cassette and later Qwest Records American cassette and CD releases added the song, along with its BSide "The Beach," to the track list; both tracks were also preserved on Qwest's subsequent release of ''Music/{{Substance|NewOrderAlbum}}'' despite the redundancy. On modern digital music distribution services, the worldwide tracklisting, including in the US, mirrors the original British configuration, without "Blue Monday" or "The Beach", similar to post-1987 reissues of Music/TheBeatles' UK albums. The fan-favorite opening track "Age of Consent" would eventually receive a music video in 2020, as a means of promoting the album's Definitive Edition BoxedSet released earlier that year. Despite the lack of singles in its time, the album quickly became an indie rock classic.

Part of this was aided by the band's separation from Joy Division producer Martin Hannett the previous year: having learned the tricks of music production from their work with him, they opted to self-produce their material from that point onward, allowing them to more readily craft a new identity for themselves independent of their previous incarnation; they'd remain self-produced (barring the odd collaboration or two for a single) until 1993's ''Music/{{Republic}}''. As with ''Music/{{Closer}}'', the album was recorded at Music/PinkFloyd's Britannia Row studios. The change was also forced by the theft of the band's equipment, which dated back to their Music/JoyDivision days, on tour supporting ''Music/{{Movement}}'', and the need for subsequent replacements caused them to make a literal break with their old Joy Division sound.

Part of this was aided by the band's separation from Joy Division producer Martin Hannett the previous year: having learned the tricks of music production from their work with him, they opted to self-produce their material from that point onward, allowing them to more readily craft a new identity for themselves independent of their previous incarnation; they'd remain self-produced (barring the odd collaboration or two for a single) until 1993's ''Music/{{Republic}}''. As with ''Music/{{Closer}}'', the album was recorded at Music/PinkFloyd's Britannia Row studios.