Electronic is the debut studio album by the British group Electronic, consisting of Bernard Sumner, the former guitarist and keyboardist of Joy Division and the lead singer and guitarist of New Order and Johnny Marr, the former guitarist of the Smiths. It was first released in May 1991 on the Factory label. The album was a commercial and critical success, reaching number 2 in the United Kingdom and selling over a million copies worldwide. By the year 2000, Electronic had sold 240,000 copies in the US. Recording The bulk of Electronic was written in 1990, with sessions beginning that January at Johnny Marr's home studio in Manchester. "Gangster" dated from an aborted solo album that Bernard Sumner had begun working on in the mid-eighties, while "Reality" was written around 1988 when he and Marr first began working together. "The Patience of a Saint" also predated the album, having been written with Pet Shop Boys soon after their collaboration with singer Neil Tennant on "Getting Away with It" in 1989. Several other songs were also completed by August 1990 (namely "Idiot Country", "Tighten Up", "Soviet", "Get the Message" and "Try All You Want"), as they were performed live at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles when Electronic supported Depeche Mode (although "Try All You Want" was played as an instrumental and several songs had working titles). The LP subtly fused Marr's guitar playing with Sumner's synthesiser expertise, most prominently on "Idiot Country", "Feel Every Beat", "Tighten Up" and "Get the Message". Lyrically the subject matter was varied, from the aggressive targeting of rave culture by police in Britain ("Idiot Country" and "Feel Every Beat") to monogamy and emotional ambivalence ("Reality", "Try All You Want"). "The Patience of a Saint" featured a witty, sardonic duet between Sumner and Tennant. Equipment In an interview with Sound on Sound in October 1991, Bernard Sumner revealed the following technology was used during the making of the album. He stated that the album "took 200 days from beginning to end" in the same interview. Akai S1000 Korg T3 Roland Juno-106 Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 Voyetra-8 Yamaha DX5 Roland JD-800 Moog Source Roland SH-101 Roland TR-909 Roland MT-32 Roland D-110 Macintosh SE Macintosh IIcx Sound Tools Artwork The album cover was designed by Johnson/Panas (Trevor Johnson), featuring two separate photographs superimposed with a computer screen effect. The hand-rendered lettering was based on typographer Wim Crouwel's Stedelijk Museum alphabet. The