Monaco, Another New Order Spin Off
By the time Peter Hook (aka Hooky) founded Monaco, his professional life was in the doldrums: New Order was (for the time being) defunct, his first solo project Revenge was torn apart by the critics and the fans were not really happy either (probably due to the fact that for the first time he wasn't playing his bass in the higher regions to support a melody, but like a conventional rythm-instrument).
So when he met David Potts aka "Pottsy" ( a tape-operator during the recording of Revenge material) and formed Monaco, nobody really gave a toss.
To everyones surprise, in 1997 their first album Music for Pleasure, turned out to be a real cracker: With Hooky playing his bass again like used to, Monaco sounded more like New Order than New Order themselves for a long time: great melodies, hypnotic rhythm-guitars, great sounding drums, this was all about good - well, let's dare say it - pop. And their first two singles, What do you want from me and Sweet Lips were hits, with the album reaching Nr 11 in the UK charts.
After that, New Order reformed and it took another another 3 years for the next album to appear: Papillon was unfortunately not as succesful and so Monaco was quickly history: Not quite great, but a good way to bridge the gap between New Order releases.