Temptation

Temptation was released by Factory Records on 10 May 1982, backed with Hurt, and reached number 29 in Britain while topping the UK independent chart. Hook has said it was first recorded as an instrumental in 1981. Sumner worked out the words through improvisation at live shows from September 1981, including a 10-minute version on 19 November 1981. The band finished it in 1982 at Admission Studios in London, with Sumner and Hook handling recording and overdubbing.

It was the band's first self-produced single, because Martin Hannett had left in the middle of mixing Everything's Gone Green. The lyrics, credited to all four members, describe an uplifting feeling after a breakup, and the 7-inch version plays at 33 and a third rpm to fit its length. Robert Christgau wrote that with it Manchester's finest stopped hearing ghosts and staked a claim to danceable pop. Pitchfork's Tom Ewing said it established the band's emotional signature, a bittersweet rush of hard-won, inarticulate bliss, and Stereogum wrote that with it the band's music suddenly became dance music and uptempo.

A re-recording, Temptation '87, appeared on Substance.