YMMV / Power, Corruption & Lies

• Awesome Music: One of the band's best albums.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: While Technique from six years later has historically been considered by most fans and critics to be the band's greatest album, a noticeable subset of fans has always been more willing to tout this album as being most worthy of the position. As time went on, the album's popularity seemed to ultimately overtake that of Technique, to the point where it eventually became New Order's sole album on the 2020 edition of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, also holding the distinction of being their highest-rated album on review aggregator site RateYourMusic.
• First Installment Wins: Of a sort; while the album is New Order's second, it's their first that explores Alternative Dance rather than Post-Punk, and is considered by many fans to be their best work in the genre, in part due to its more experimental tone compared to the slicker work on their later albums.
• Genre Turning Point: In combination with R.E.M.'s Murmur that same year, the release of Power, Corruption & Lies marked a shift from Post-Punk and New Wave Music to Alternative Rock in the underground scene.
• Growing the Beard: With this album, the band emerged from the shadows of Joy Division and came into their own.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Compared to Movement, which largely copied the old Joy Division sound. Their second album is where they fully embraced their alternative dance sound they'd developed on their non-album singles they'd issued in between the albums.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Stephen Morris explained in 2020 that Power, Corruption & Lies was hugely unpopular among Joy Division fans due to just how far-removed it was from the likes of Unknown Pleasures and Closer; however, New Order saw this as a good thing, as it meant that they'd finally crafted a more unique niche for themselves post-Joy Division.
• Woolseyism: The album's first U.S. cassette and CD issues added "Blue Monday" and "The Beach", largely because the 12" single release of the two songs was so popular in the U.K. that Factory Records eventually had to start putting stickers on the shrinkwrap of Power, Corruption & Lies clarifying that "Blue Monday" wasn't on it.

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