108. New Order - Touched By The Hand Of God (Factory)

Three weeks at number one from 2nd January 1988While we were discussing the entry for “True Faith” on Bluesky, a number of followers jumped in to offer early praise for this follow-up single. This caught me off guard. I have a rule to myself that I won’t discuss future blog entries on social media; for one thing, I don’t want to pre-empt the contents, and for another I’m conscious of ripping other people off; after all, if somebody comes up with a particularly insightful, red-hot take, it’s going to be really hard to ignore it and stick to my own path – and in the end, it might seem as if I should have asked them to write about the record instead.What I wasn’t prepared for was the vocal support this single seemed to be get. In my mind, it’s always been one of the weakest New Order 45s – a strange cut from the tail end of one phase of their career, a stand-alone single which half-heartedly drifted mid-way into the 1987 Christmas charts and was then largely forgotten. I was so concerned…