The backing vocals come like an answer to Bernard's verses: "we're like crystal [oooh] / we break easy [yeeah]" and that makes a kind of swinging rhythm which is very cool put together with the regular 4/4 base rhythm. The verse is rather calm, and then comes a storming chorus: "I don't know - what to say / you don't care - anyway" above a touching keyboard; the end of the chorus is fabulous, the first "you shock me to the core" has a dramatic dissonance that's put straight with a sense of release in the second (this is just an apparently easy song), while Hooky enters with a nice bass tune. Another great moment is the keyboard echoing chord answering to "keep it coming", it grows very intense.
02: 60 MILES AN HOUR also sounds very improved from the demo circulating with the title 60 MPH. It's not one of their best songs, maybe it's the least good of the whole album, and it's still so good. I love the sequencing beat which might recall that of Temptation. Hooky sounds like Joy Division on the bit of "why don't you run over here and rescue me...", and he's at its best in the interlude, which is almost as powerful as the one in True Faith. Again a powerful final has been added.
03: TURN MY WAY is one of their best songs ever. It's the one where Billy Corgan (a long time friend of the band, he knew them as a fan when he was only 16) guests in the first verse and some backing vocals, but it sounds like a New Order classic. Simply, all the instruments are at the top, the tune is wonderful, the lyrics are great: " I don't wanna be / like other people are / don't wanna own a key / don't wanna wash my car / don't wanna have to work / like other people do / I wanted to be free / I wanted to be true", and there's a touching guitar solo.
04: VICIOUS STREAK is my favourite of this album. There are some excellent keyboards here, and a beautiful minimal guitar. Bernard's voice is at his best, singing a moving, extremely melancholic melody, it's mixed perfectly, I adore its sound when he starts "So what am I gonna dooo / I feel like I'm on fiire..." and you fall instantly in love with the chorus "I keep hanging on... I keep hanging on". But the gems of the songs are yet to come: first come some of the coolest keyboard chords ever played, and then the closing verse, with Bernard perversely singing "You've got a vicious streak / for someone soyoooung", and I like the final touch, an echo which recalls some of Martin Hannett's producing work. There's three dead people who'd have liked this album: Hannett, legendary manager Rob Gretton (to whom the album is dedicated) and Ian Curtis.
05: PRIMITIVE NOTION in fact has a storming beginning which really sounds like Joy Division, with Steve playing an amazing rhythm even for his own standards. On the second verse some excellent keyboards come, and Hooky makes a spectacular duet with his bass and Bernard's voice and the song even becomes techno at some point, just representing well the whole album: new wave, punk, synthpop, sad songs, euphoric songs, everything of the band's history is in Get Ready, the only album other than Power, Corruption And Lies (which is my most favourite ever), to have an amazingly constant quality, no weak songs, all masterworks.
06: SLOW JAM is pure rock'n'roll, I adore Bernard's tone of voice at the start "as I look at the morning sky", the fabulous repetitive melody might remind Morrissey but at the chorus the song explodes and it's Happy Mondays or Stone Roses euphoria: "I don't want the world to change / I like the way it is"...
07: ROCK THE SHACK really rocks the shack! Here we're at punk, but not the watered down thing you see today, this is raw energy like The Stooges. "I've been accused of everything / from Timbuctou to old Berlin" starts Bernard and then "I stand accused of being me" and the chord change is punk like if this band was called Warsaw! Here the guest is Bobby Gillespie, currently the leader of Primal Scream, but previously drummer of The Jesus And Mary Chain and, more importantly, bassist of The Wake (a great Factory band very influenced by New Order) at the start of his career.
08: SOMEONE LIKE YOU is the second best song of the album. There's a beautiful filtered guitar with a wondefrul echo and a very powerful rhythm, the song grows and grows, Hooky plays just three notes, but so great, as in the best Joy Division songs and then Barney starts "This can't be real", and you finally realize what a great job producer Steve Osborne did on the whole album and how beautiful bernard's voice is... the chorus is extraordinary, with all its "oooh"s and "yeeeah"s and especially with Dawn Zee's sublime backing vocals, who sounds a bit like Gillian in The Other Two.
09: CLOSE RANGE is a genuinely uplifting song, a beautiful keyboard before the great chorus: "You've got to pull yourself together, man / you've got to get back on your feet again", and one of the best performances ever played by Hooky in the final, an epic tune a bit like the final of Perfect Kiss. You just think songs like this should be hit singles insted of the lifeless retro dominating the charts... this album is a great lesson to all the contemporary musicians: music can be made like this, catchy tunes with strong instrumentation, a lot of passion and every instrument played at its utter potential.
10: RUN WILD is an amazing closing track, unlike the rest of the album is very quiet and acoustic, the final bit where Barney sings "Good times are round the corner" might be a bit too cheesy, but again there are great lyrics: "If Jesus comes to take your hand / I won't let go" and a melodica (mouth organ) which plays a serene tune like on Your Silent Face. Get ready is an album which goes beyond my most optimistic expectation, the sound of a band being young and rocking again in their mid-40s. It's much better than Republic, which was already great, and it can only be compared, as for sound, to the first part of Brotherhood, to Joy Division and Technique mixed with Electronic's Twisted Tenderness, as for quality, it's simply one of their best albums ever.
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