The perfect kiss is the kiss of death.

Sometime during the summer of 1999 I was taking a drunken late night cab ride home through the streets of East Boston. Most of my memories of that are long forgotten but the one fact of that night that remains is that my cab driver was a huge New Order fan.

He was at least fifteen years older than me and had a thick Boston accent. That I remember. What I don’t recall is how the subject of New Order came about. Perhaps “Bizarre Love Triangle” was on the radio in the cab. I don’t know. I just remember him saying, “New Order was great. You ever hear ‘Perfect Kiss’? It’s soooooo good.”

I had, of course, known about New Order since 1993. I even had Republic. I loved “Regret” but probably didn’t listen to anything else off of that record. I had also seen the videos for “Bizarre Love Triangle” and “True Faith” by then, too. I really liked those songs but it just never occurred to me to seek out more by this band.

Enter the East Boston cab driver.

The following day I picked up Substance at Newbury Comics and the rest is history. “Perfect Kiss” is, in fact, “soooooo good.”



The video was directed by Jonathan Demme!