8. Joy Division "Closer"
I was a little kid when i'd first heard Joy Division and it scared the s
hit out of me. The guitar didn't sound like a guitar, the driving bass, the droning vocals and drums and the echoey production we're just all, scary and offensive to me. It's slightly funny now to think about Joy Division scaring me but kind of odd because at times I can still feel the same weird kind of reverence towards them I felt as a child.
It was hard deciding between this and Unknown Pleasures both were groundbreaking, influential and just amazing. Last night I was up listening to both wondering what to choose but I eventually decided that since I listened to Closer more i'd go with that, plus Heart and Soul is my favorite Joy Division song so that helped make the choice slightly easier. Both are phenomenal albums but there's just something about Closer that I just like better.
Now onto Closer itself, the album blew me away when i'd heard it more recently (a month or two ago) in fact Joy Division in general blew me away. The production, the guitars, the bass, the drums, the vocals everything about it was exciting to me and the lyrics were just breathtaking and the way Ian Curtis sang them was even more breathtaking. "Existence, well what does it matter? / I exist on the best terms I can / The past is now part of my future / The present is well out of hand."
Joy Division have recently taken the roll of being my second favorite band from the 80s (I think they could be my absolute favorite from the 70s.) Either way, Closer is easily one of my favorite albums of the 80s and I think it could be the most important album of the 80s and if not it certainly gives Disintegration, You're Living All Over Me, Doolittle and The Queen is Dead a run for their money.
Favorite Songs: Heart And Soul, Passover, The Eternal, Twenty Four Hours, Atrocity Exhibition, A Means to an End
MySpace.com - Joy Division - Manchester, UK - Alternative / Indie / Post punk - www.myspace.com/joydivision