As a new century was getting underway, New Order returned with its hardest-rocking album yet: 2001’s Get Ready. The shift in sound was largely due to the fact that Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris—traditionally the more electronic-leaning members—were absent from the studio, leaving the rock-centric bassist Peter Hook and guitarist-singer Bernard Sumner on their own. They’d get assistance from producer Steve Osborne, who’d helped Lush transcend their shoegaze style on 1996’s Lovelife before working with rockers like U2, Starsailor and Doves. Osborne was also an accomplished remixer, one who was comfortable at the exact intersection of rock and dance. As a result, Get Ready would fit in neatly with the emerging rock revival of the early 2000s, with the album‘s slashing, guitar-sharpened lead single “Crystal” arriving right around the time The Strokes released their debut album. Once again, New Order was in the middle of the zeitgeist. This new approach wasn’t completely out of nowhere. The more muscular tone found on Get Ready was already evident when Osborne and the band recorded the song “Brutal”—an artefact of late-stage alternative music and late-90s electronica if there ever was one—for Danny Boyle’s 2000 film, The Beach. And the aggro spirit of Get Ready was amplified by cameos from the likes of Billy Corgan, the guitar god and alt-rock outcast who lent his voice for “Turn My Way”, and who toured with the band for several Get Ready dates (though he sometimes hid at the back of the stage, his iconic dome hidden by a large hat). Another boost came from Primal Scream guitarist Andrew Innes, who added wailing wah-wah to “Rock the Shack”, while his bandmate Bobby Gillespie added vocals. The resulting noise was unlike anything New Order had done before—or since.