"Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio..."
Joy Division
Career Overview:
Joy Division are one of those bands that really changed my life. Joy Division were 4 working class lads from the great city of Manchester. Ian Curtis (vocals), Peter Hook (bass), Bernard Sumner (guitar), Stephen Morris (drums). Inspired by the punk movement of the time they took the DIY ethic and no limit attitude and expanded on it. Through their music one can even hear the faint echoes of the city itself in its grey post industrial greatness. Though they only released 2 albums before the suicide of Ian Curtis, the 2 albums (19 tracks total) both album are widely considered to be among the best ever made. The band is one of the few I will always hold dear. The music being very minimalist and simplistic are some of the first songs I ever learned to play on guitar. I even recorded a cover of New Dawn Fades in my guitar class. Ian is in my opinion one of the best lyricist to have ever lived. Poet is a more fitting word, through his words of urban decay and desolation one can find some comfort. I could go on for hours talking about the lyrics alone but I don’t think you’d want to read that much. And chances are good you already know Joy Division are great. But of course what would a good band be without a great producer? Martin Hannet was nothing short of great he is often credited with creating the Joy Division sound, which can be heard if you give their live stuff a listen which is A LOT more aggressive than what is heard on the albums. Though both Ian and Martin are long gone the music they helped create won’t ever be. Both albums are an essential listen to anyone interested in post-punk or good music in general. The rest of the band members would go on to start New Order which like Joy Division pushed post-punk onto the dance floor.
Unkown Pleasures:
When I first heard their debut album the well named Unknown Pleasures it was like nothing I’d ever heard before. I bought the album one bored November evening after. The cover caught my eye, the white mountainous lines on plain black seemed very interesting to me. So I bought it uploaded it into my ipod and put the opening track Disorder on. There are those albums that are so life changing you remember what you were doing when you first heard them. I distinctly remember playing Halo 3 with my ipod with head phones on, and listening very closely. The opening drum beats and bouncing bass line with guitar notes that seemed to reflect off each other were simply amazing along and it still remains to this day one of my favorite opening tracks. Though after the opening track the album changes pace from upbeat dance to dark and brooding but the dance briefly resurfaces on She’s Lost Control but still has a doomed atmosphere to it. A track not on the album Transmission is one of my favorite JD tracks. Its pulsating bass lines and ever danceable drums with Ian’s singing “dance dance dance to the radio” while Sumner’s guitar fills the gaps.
Favorite Tracks:
Disorder
Candidate
Shadowplay
New Dawn Fades
Interzone
Wilderness
She's Lost Control
Insight
Closer:
Their second and last album Closer (a word with a double meaning) was based on more somber sound than its predecessor with more synthesizers. Also unlike Unknown Pleasures which had a sound of impending doom it has a more funeral sound like the worst has past and now is a time to mourn those lost. The album opens with Atrocity Exhibition one of the most nightmarish songs I’ve ever heard, it’s war march drums and screeching buzz saw guitar one can only picture images of a dark and evil world. “This is the way step inside” Ian sings on a song that could be about himself. But most of the songs are obviously based on his failing marriage and increasing depression. And with lines like “Mother I tried please believe me, I’m doing the best that I can. I’m ashamed of the things I've been put through, I’m ashamed of the person I am” Its pretty shocking that no one noticed the dark place Ian was in. Other songs not on the album such as the infamous Love Will Tear Us Apart is dominated by upbeat snyths but still maintain to melancholy the whole songs point forward to New Order. While Atmosphere could be one of the most depressing songs they have done but at the same time manages to be hopeful with heavy funeral drums, and strangely uplifting chimes and Ian singing “Don’t walk away in silence.”
Favorite Tacks:
Atrocity Exhibition
Heart and Soul
Twenty Four Hours
Colony
Passover
Decades
The Eternal
Isolation
There are alot of great Joy Division video's but I will only limit my self to posting essential viewings
Shadowplay
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Transmission