The best No 1 records: New Order – World in Motion

There are probably more startling examples of radical volte faces or changes of direction in pop than this , but it would take some time to think of one. From the doyens of digital despair, a football song? With pounding house piano and a John Barnes rap? It’s astonishing to consider the journey this band had taken in the decade since Love Will Tear Us Apart . And it’s incredible to think that Bernard Sumner had begun the decade by declaring, “ It comes and it goes and it frightens me ” and was now proclaiming that “love’s got the world in motion” while dressed as a Las Vegas Elvis. The alienated synthesists who had in 1980 seemed the very antithesis of footballing bonhomie were now providing the theme tune to the sport’s big global event, and capturing the detente between alternative culture and the lad masses. See every No 1 hit from 1990