24 Hour Party People seems a strange title for a film that begins by chronicling the rise and fall of Joy Division. Briefly known as Warsaw, the foursome was one of the darkest bands to come out of Manchester's late-70s punk scene, and their unique sound-- filled with the urgency the genre was known for, but also with the tormented imagery and pained cries of frontman Ian Curtis-- was largely responsible for the initial success of England's Factory Records. However, a newborn daughter and the prospect of an American tour could not draw lead singer Ian Curtis away from the dissolution of his marriage and a rash of epileptic seizures, and in May of 1980, he took his own life. The question of the band's place in the pantheon is moot, of course: the remaining members went on to form New Order, pioneers of the 80s synth-pop that would go on to be characterized as new wave. But one of the aims of the film is to illustrate how rave culture rose up in England, a vision of hope out of the bleak Manchester landscape. New Order serve to symbolize that rebirth in a way, the lynchpin that ties the post-punk and early electronica eras together.

But first, some context. The film follows the exploits of one Tony Wilson, the witty, pretentious co-founder of the Factory record label central to the story, and his comments in the liner notes offer some illumination on this vital but somewhat flawed soundtrack. He was there for the infamous Sex Pistols gigs that took place in Manchester during June and July of 1976: only 42 people supposedly attended, but as the legend goes, most went on to form bands of their own. Wilson reminds us that "Anarchy in the U.K." hadn't even been written at the time, but the film and the soundtrack kick off with it anyway. So it's weird to hear this version, so clean and glossed with sharp production, more rock-and-roll anthem than punk call-to-arms. Still, it's the fucking Pistols: the galvanizing guitar surge, the bombastic drums, and Johnny Rotten's vicious sneer of a laugh.

Then came the Buzzcocks, punk's great singles band. Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto were at that same Sex Pistols show, though they'd already begun practicing as a band. "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With)," included here, bursts forward with manic energy rarely rivaled on either side of the Atlantic. It's a surprisingly moving song, buoyed by Shelley's passionate, almost feminine vocals. Wilson has to have a trio of punk icons, though, and so we complete the circle with The Clash. Though not Mancunian themselves, the band are hardly unwelcome on this collection, especially with "Janie Jones," surely a shock to 70s rock dudes everywhere who found themselves painted for the first time as squares.

Joy Division and New Order are the heart and soul of the soundtrack, though, and it's bound to sell well with so many of the classics covered. From Ian Curtis' frantic urging to "dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio" on "Transmission," to the disturbingly prescient "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and the broken appeal of "Atmosphere," these are painfully revealing songs. It's odd that the film passed over New Order so quickly; the soundtrack does a better job of tracking how technology slowly permeated the music. "Temptation" provides this soundtrack's first glimpse of synth-pop with its giddy undercurrent of keyboards and drum machines. Then the song that flipped the equation: "Blue Monday," the biggest-selling 12" single of all time (it sold three million copies worldwide), where the beats and synth came first and the riffs only added color.

Of course, half the journey is just getting there, and younger ears might be disappointed with the old-school synth-sounds of the techno acts on the soundtrack. A Guy Called Gerald's "Voodoo Ray" chops and loops a woman's ecstatic vocals, and manages to escape from the history books with the simplicity of the arrangement. The group Gerald started out with, Manchester's 808 State, were named after the Roland TR-808 drum machine, a Pandora's box that was tweaked to create many of the mutant sounds of electronica. 808 State were brilliant sequencers, but it's hard to deny that the canned horns of "Pacific State" remind us more of the Muzak you hear on television directory channels these days. At least the Warner execs had the sense not to choose "Contrique," an 808 song arrogant enough to sample the bassline of Joy Division's "She's Lost Control."

But what's up with the original, which occurs later on the soundtrack? On first listen, the version of "She's Lost Control" included here seems to be the twelve-inch mix, which placed deeper reverb on the minimalist drum pattern. But those signature beats have been retouched even further, and the insectile feedback that rose up at the end of the original mix has now been added to the front as well. There are no notes to explain this anywhere, and it raises the question of why this was necessary. Likewise, the cover of Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades," performed by New Order in 2001 with help from Billy Corgan, John Frusciante and Moby on vocals. The ensemble manage to do it some justice-- Moby really belts it out at the climax-- but like his cover of Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," this live cut is too loyal to the original to justify inclusion.

It makes less sense to complain about the mixes of the Happy Mondays material-- their shambling live sets were given to psychedelic treatments, and the second half of the film focuses on how the crowd shifted from punk pits to a collective proto-rave atmosphere somewhere between the future and the hippie past it was partially spawned from. So you've got the Jon Carter mix of the song from which the film takes its name, and the Steve Osbourne/Paul Oakenfold re-working of "Hallelujah." "Loose Fit" actually works best in its original form, though, and that early-90s alternative dance-crossover apparently still had some rock left in it: Shaun Ryder's laissez-faire call to "do what you're doing, say what you're saying, kill who you're killing" is pretty far from the 'Peace, Love, Unity, Respect' creed the rave scene came to adopt.

Like the movie, the 24 Hour Party People soundtrack (and its attendant liner notes) occasionally seems to pat itself on the back too often. Surely the smug self-satisfaction of New Order's recent "Here to Stay" could have been switched out for something more relevant. If influences outside of the Manchester scene like the Pistols and the Clash were allowed, why not Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock," the original showdown showcase for the twisted 808? Or maybe Phuture's "Acid Tracks," one of the earliest pure techno songs, which could have better highlighted the dialogue between Chicago and Manchester. A Certain Ratio would have done well to balance out the Durutti Column on the Factory ticket. And spout all the jokes you want to about Vini Reilly making chillout music-- "Otis" is a real dud.

What remains is a decent introduction to anyone completely unfamiliar with this crucial period in modern music, but as Tony Wilson writes, "at worst, a soundtrack album is a souvenir of a movie." It's not clear how the album's revamped versions are meant to celebrate the originality of its artists, but there's a danger of getting the history wrong when looking back on it with colored lenses. Moreso than most other situations, it affords me the opportunity to insist that you run out and buy the albums these songs were culled from instead, to forge your own personal journey of discovery through the era. I can say this because the story's much broader than that of rockists and Anglophiles: it's a timeline shared by the nascent hip-hop and electro coming out of New York, the burgeoning Detroit techno and Chicago house industry, and the beginnings of the goth scene in Joy Division's doom and gloom. Better to track down this decade's insane explosion of tangents individually than to be given a brief summary by a hit-or-miss marketing device.

-Christopher Dare, August 20th, 2002