I’m counting down my 100 favourite songs of all time. To keep this from becoming a Bob Dylan / Tom Waits love-in, only one track per artist is allowed.
Go to 92: Concrete Schoolyard by Jurassic 5
Go to 94: Frontier Psychiatrist by Avalanches
To attempt to understand the suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis you must know the many elements that were overwhelming the man in early April 1980.
There was: depression related to his increasing bouts of epilepsy; the effect of sedatives used to counteract his illness combined with a rock’n’roll lifestyle; the impending pressure of a major U.S. tour; serious concerns about the band’s artistic integrity; guilt over his affair with a Belgian woman; sorrow concerning divorce proceedings initiated by his wife; fury following the argument he’d had with her on the day he took his life.
A heady cocktail for sure, yet it’s often hard to look beyond the relationship with his wife especially as it comes so neatly encapsulated by the Joy Division song released just after his death. That classic teenage tragedy of being so lovelorn you can’t live anymore finds romantic refuge in Love Will Tear Us Apart. Released a month after his death, the song reached number 13 in the UK singles charts and became the band’s signature track.
This posthumous release is many people’s introduction to Joy Division. The shadow of suicide casts the Manchester four-piece as a gloomy band, which is interestingly not an opinion shared by its members. Drummer Stephen Morris believed their music to be uplifting, while Tony Wilson—owner of the band’s label Factory Records—described them as “the exact opposite” of gloomy.
Listening to Curtis’ lyrics his fate seems obvious yet Morris has admitted that for the rest of the band it was only after his death that they reheard the words in a darker light. Actually, with Joy Division the gloom lies more in the music than the lyrics. Songs like Atmosphere, She’s Lost Control and Shadowplay have despair lingering in the spaces, but that classic Joy Division style is not wholly the band’s invention. Before Curtis’ suicide changed many listeners’ perspective of Joy Division, a producer named Martin Hannett was radically altering the band’s sound.
Hannett was a partner at Factory, a difficult but ingenious producer who loved working with Joy Division because “they didn’t have a clue”. The band had little knowledge about the technical side of making a record and was happy to cede control of the production booth—at least initially.
Upon hearing the resulting debut album, Unknown Pleasures, the group was deeply dissatisfied, believing it didn’t reflect their aggressive live sound. After all, the band’s guitarist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook had been inspired to become musicians by seeing The Sex Pistols live. The high production values and somber atmosphere felt at odds with the punk rock ethos of patchwork insolence.
Ultimately they would come round to the style that Hannett imposed and Hook later acknowledged that the producer created the Joy Division sound. Unknown Pleasures would prove a moderate success, selling out its initial 10,000 copies and helping establish Factory as an independent force. And the band got to follow it up with a non-album single that was far more in keeping with that elusive live sound.
Transmission begins with one the greatest bass lines ever, played with increasing intensity by Hook. Morris’ drums enter, bearing the crisp, precise tone that producer Hannett obsessed over, quickly followed by an extraordinary guitar riff from Sumner that deftly shifts and shapes throughout the song’s three and half minutes.
Then comes Curtis, his familiar sad, sonorous voice here fired by excitement, passion, rage and wonder. “Listen to the silence, let it ring out”, he sings. Those words are almost a guide to a typical Joy Division song yet here the usual spaces are filled by a furious whirlwind of sound.
No matter how cruel and desolate life can be, a sublime solace can be found in the twist of a dial. The medium of radio has an important place in popular music, immortalized and romanticized by songwriters as a conduit for freedom and discovery. You simply can’t imagine an MP3 player ever being the subject of an epic refrain like when Curtis commands us to “dance, dance, dance to the radio”.
And there it is: a band so renowned for gloominess encouraging its audience to break free and let loose as the music drives towards a thrilling climax.
Even if it’s just the epileptic shakes that Curtis called dancing—a style perhaps designed to disguise the actual fits that occasionally overcame the singer whilst onstage. The attacks that would eventually combine with those other negative elements of his life and force the fateful decision that it was no longer worth living.
After Curtis’ suicide, the rest of the band fulfilled a long-standing agreement to end Joy Division in the event of the departure of any one member. The trio of Sumner, Hook and Morris would go on to restate their collective genius as New Order, while popular culture would celebrate and define Joy Division via the sad beauty of the magnificent Love Will Tear Us Apart.
But with Transmission, the band bestowed us with something even more magnificent—a transcendent song about the power of music, technology and moving your body to irresistible rhythms. And we could dance.
(Especially to this utterly life-affirming steelband version of the song)
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Transmission (live on The Wedge)
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Atmosphere
She’s Lost Control
Shadowplay
Go to 92: Concrete Schoolyard by Jurassic 5
Go to 94: Frontier Psychiatrist by Avalanches
Go to 92: Concrete Schoolyard by Jurassic 5
Go to 94: Frontier Psychiatrist by Avalanches
To attempt to understand the suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis you must know the many elements that were overwhelming the man in early April 1980.
There was: depression related to his increasing bouts of epilepsy; the effect of sedatives used to counteract his illness combined with a rock’n’roll lifestyle; the impending pressure of a major U.S. tour; serious concerns about the band’s artistic integrity; guilt over his affair with a Belgian woman; sorrow concerning divorce proceedings initiated by his wife; fury following the argument he’d had with her on the day he took his life.
A heady cocktail for sure, yet it’s often hard to look beyond the relationship with his wife especially as it comes so neatly encapsulated by the Joy Division song released just after his death. That classic teenage tragedy of being so lovelorn you can’t live anymore finds romantic refuge in Love Will Tear Us Apart. Released a month after his death, the song reached number 13 in the UK singles charts and became the band’s signature track.
This posthumous release is many people’s introduction to Joy Division. The shadow of suicide casts the Manchester four-piece as a gloomy band, which is interestingly not an opinion shared by its members. Drummer Stephen Morris believed their music to be uplifting, while Tony Wilson—owner of the band’s label Factory Records—described them as “the exact opposite” of gloomy.
Listening to Curtis’ lyrics his fate seems obvious yet Morris has admitted that for the rest of the band it was only after his death that they reheard the words in a darker light. Actually, with Joy Division the gloom lies more in the music than the lyrics. Songs like Atmosphere, She’s Lost Control and Shadowplay have despair lingering in the spaces, but that classic Joy Division style is not wholly the band’s invention. Before Curtis’ suicide changed many listeners’ perspective of Joy Division, a producer named Martin Hannett was radically altering the band’s sound.
Hannett was a partner at Factory, a difficult but ingenious producer who loved working with Joy Division because “they didn’t have a clue”. The band had little knowledge about the technical side of making a record and was happy to cede control of the production booth—at least initially.
Upon hearing the resulting debut album, Unknown Pleasures, the group was deeply dissatisfied, believing it didn’t reflect their aggressive live sound. After all, the band’s guitarist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook had been inspired to become musicians by seeing The Sex Pistols live. The high production values and somber atmosphere felt at odds with the punk rock ethos of patchwork insolence.
Ultimately they would come round to the style that Hannett imposed and Hook later acknowledged that the producer created the Joy Division sound. Unknown Pleasures would prove a moderate success, selling out its initial 10,000 copies and helping establish Factory as an independent force. And the band got to follow it up with a non-album single that was far more in keeping with that elusive live sound.
Transmission begins with one the greatest bass lines ever, played with increasing intensity by Hook. Morris’ drums enter, bearing the crisp, precise tone that producer Hannett obsessed over, quickly followed by an extraordinary guitar riff from Sumner that deftly shifts and shapes throughout the song’s three and half minutes.
Then comes Curtis, his familiar sad, sonorous voice here fired by excitement, passion, rage and wonder. “Listen to the silence, let it ring out”, he sings. Those words are almost a guide to a typical Joy Division song yet here the usual spaces are filled by a furious whirlwind of sound.
No matter how cruel and desolate life can be, a sublime solace can be found in the twist of a dial. The medium of radio has an important place in popular music, immortalized and romanticized by songwriters as a conduit for freedom and discovery. You simply can’t imagine an MP3 player ever being the subject of an epic refrain like when Curtis commands us to “dance, dance, dance to the radio”.
And there it is: a band so renowned for gloominess encouraging its audience to break free and let loose as the music drives towards a thrilling climax.
“No language, just sound, that’s all we need know. To synchronise love to the beat of the show. And we could dance.”
After Curtis’ suicide, the rest of the band fulfilled a long-standing agreement to end Joy Division in the event of the departure of any one member. The trio of Sumner, Hook and Morris would go on to restate their collective genius as New Order, while popular culture would celebrate and define Joy Division via the sad beauty of the magnificent Love Will Tear Us Apart.
But with Transmission, the band bestowed us with something even more magnificent—a transcendent song about the power of music, technology and moving your body to irresistible rhythms. And we could dance.
(Especially to this utterly life-affirming steelband version of the song)
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Transmission (live on The Wedge)
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Atmosphere
She’s Lost Control
Shadowplay
Go to 92: Concrete Schoolyard by Jurassic 5
Go to 94: Frontier Psychiatrist by Avalanches
Comments
Post a Comment