Before New Order
Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris would become better known with New Order, the group they formed after Joy Division, but the latter group cemented a place in rock history all by itself. “People sometimes forget that Joy Division were already using keyboard textures as early as this.” AD
It was Joy Division’s singer Ian Curtis who introduced the rest of the band to Kraftwerk, AD a band which has been pivotal in shaping electronica music. If it hadn’t been for his demise, who knows if Joy Division would have gone on to make the “rock/dance crossover type of breakthrough” AD which New Order would achieve with “Blue Monday.”
Given that the group had already moved away from the more guitar-based sound of their first album, Unknown Pleasures, to songs like “Isolation” where they ignore guitars completely AD it’s a fair assessment to assume the group would have grown and evolved even more had they been able to release more than just two albums.
A Pillar of Post-Punk
Of course, we’ll never know what might have happened. We can only assess what did happen. As it is, Joy Division’s second and final album, Closer, is “lauded as a gothic masterpiece” PP because of “its impact on the subsequent goth movement – a paradigm shift for punk music.” ZS It “ushers out punk’s rage and introduces post-punk’s space, offering a synthesis of the guitar and the keyboard.” CM It is “a colossal work of art; a post-punk pillar; an ingenious sonic landscape; a blinding existential vision of songwriting.” PT It “oscillated between unsettling beats to, even more surprisingly, mutated disco sound in the space of a few tracks.” GQ
“Rock, however defined, rarely seems and sounds so important, so vital, and so impossible to resist or ignore as here.” AM Author Colin Larkin says it is “deservedly regarded by many critics as the most brilliant rock album of the 80s.” WK The Album’s Gloomy Mood
Closer is “one of the most chilling albums ever made.” 500 It “dark, depressed and innovative.” ZS It “burns with distress and foreboding” PT as it “journeys through a bleak songscape of hopelessness and loss.” RV Curtis’ vocals “haunt the stark, minimalist backdrop like a troubled earth-bound spirit, pleading for release.” PR
The songs “drag us deeper into the depths of Curtis’ despairing mind, as we bear witness to his tortured words.” PT His suicide leaves the album “pervaded by a sense of eerie beauty, like the still before the storm.” PR It is a “harrowing and emotionally raw testament.” ZS
“The tracks would be in danger of grinding to a complete standstill, enthralled by their own spectral grandeur” PR if not for “the momentum secured by [Peter] Hook’s melodic” PR and “icy bass lines” 500 alongside the “occasional flashes of overdriven” PR and “droning guitars.” 500
Epilepsy and Suicide
“It’s the city-of-the-damned inside Ian Curtis’s brain and this really was his swan song.” JSH Curtis was diagnosed with epilepsy in January 1979. “While the band and manager Rob Gretton insisted that no strobes or flashing lights were used when Joy Division performed, it’s at best doubtful whether Curtis should have been performing at all.” QT He would sometimes have seizures on stage and his condition certainly wasn’t helped by the rock-n-roll lifestyle.
In addition to physical problems, Curtis was dealing with depression and a failed marriage. He’d married young at 19 years old and already had a daughter. However, he was having an affair with Belgian journalist Annik Honoré and his wife, Deborah, wanted a divorce. On May 18, 1980, he hung himself at age 23 on the eve of the band’s first North American tour. Curtis’ death “is the lens through which the singer and lyricist’s life’s work is now viewed; the music and the man’s passing inextricably linked.” CM
“A whole generation of doom-obsessed Casper Ghosts in black jeans and sunglasses (the aforementioned Furs, the Jesus & Mary Chain) would grow up believing that the suicide was the point.” JSH
Making of the Album/Martin Hannett
The band started recording the album on March 18, 1980, at Britannia Row in London where Pink Floyd recorded Animals and parts of The Wall. It was produced by Martin Hannett, who’d also done Unknown Pleasures. For that album, he helped the band “catch the cold post-industrial threat of Manchester.” CM
His production was “more intentionally claustrophobic and confrontational” on Closer PT as he “helped turn the band inwards, matching Curtis’ lyrics to a sound that’s heartbreakingly still.” CM Hannett “was all about creating space – a kind of musical inner space” QT so he deliberately “bathed the tracks in effects and mixed them to sound hollow and cavernous.” DG
Sumner didn’t like the mix because he wanted it to sound more like the band’s aggressive live performances. Hook said hw wanted the band to sound more like the Clash. QT Hook said Hannett referred to the band as “three idiots and a genius” QT and that Hannett preferred to work alone in the studio with “the genius” (Curtis). QT
The Album Cover
In the wake of Curtis’ suicide, there was some controversy over the album cover. Released only two months after his death, Closer sported a cover with mourners gathered around a man lying on a bed. The band was accused of bad taste and cashing in on Curtis’ death. However, the cover had been approved by all four members before Curtis killed himself. The photo, taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff, was taken from a trendy art magazine called Zoom. It was of a statue created in 1910 by sculptor Demetrio Paernio. Called “The Lamentation of Christ,” it depicted the Virgin Mary, St. John, and Mary Magdalene mourning the recently crucified Jesus. The statue was from the Appiani family tomb in the Staglieno cemetery in Genoa, Italy.
The Songs
Here are thoughts on individual songs.
“Atrocity Exhibition”
Lead song Atrocity Exhibition “sets the tone for the album’s sound: metallic rhythms, damaged synthesizers and jagged guitars are laid bare against brutal and sparse lyrics” RV which still manage to be both “dense and intriguing.” AD
“The guitar sounds alien” AD making the song “arguably the most fractured thing the band had yet recorded.” AM Part of that came from Sumner, who usually played guitar, and Hook, who typically served as the bassist, switching instruments. Meanwhile, Morris added a tribal drum pattern influenced by krautrock band Can. Morris said, “I was probably trying to do ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ or something by Captain Beefheart. I remember making them put in synths through fuzzboxes and making a horrible ambient racket, which you could barely hear on the record, but it's like a buzz saw.” GQ
The title came from a J.G. Ballard collection of what he called “condensed novels.” Ian liked the title and wrote lyrics before reading the book. DG The song is about a person locked in a mental institution because he feels he has no control over his body. People come to tour the asylum and see the freaks. The song ends up being a commentary about people’s fascination with the grotesque.
“Isolation”
“The squirrelly lead synth on the energetic but scared-out-of-its-wits Isolation” AM integrated elements of synth-pop and electronic music with a “dead-simple drum machine track” DG cranked in the mix by Hannett. Ironically, considering the song title, it may be Joy Division’s most upbeat song. RV Morris said it sounded like a song people could actually dance to. He also recalled it being the first song they put together in the studio around synths. GQ Hook said it is “one of my best riffs and probably the closest we get to my actual live bass sound on either album.” BV
“Passover”
The “eerie, scary, [and] very atmospheric” AD Passover doesn’t have a regular beat. “The drum pattern is again a key to the musical build-up of the song, the bass rumbles deeply around the drums, the guitar slashes and is allowed the freedom to do so. The rhythm section has already created such a strong melody and groove, the guitar doesn't have to provide ‘the tune,’ so to speak.” AD
The lyrics, which are “dark and poetic,” AD reflect an interest Curtis had in divinity. GQ With lines like “Is this the role that you wanted to live?” and “This is a crisis I knew had to come / Destroying the balance I’d kept” this also reads like a suicide note.
One can read a detailed breakdown of the song musically by professional musician Gordon Moakes at Medium.com.
“Colony”
The title is a reference to Franz Kafka’s 1919 short story “In the Penal Colony” RV in which the narrator “described the origins and uses of an elaborate torture device at a prison colony.” BV “Ian spits out the words, shouts out the lyrics in other places through the song, a song with power.” AD Colony “offers the first real guitar-oriented song on the record. The rhythm section do ‘the usual’ Joy Division mix of jerky alien rhythms and the guitar blasts and soars.” AD
Morris said it is probably his favorite Joy Division song. “I really thought Ian’s lyrics on that one were absolutely fantastic.” GQ He was also proud of the drum riff, which he said was inspired by a Captain Beefheart song. BV Hook said it was “more of a traditional Joy Division rock song – probably the straightest on the LP.” BV
“A Means to an End”
Hook said this one was “a bit more poppy than ‘Colony.’” BV It has “an almost ‘bouncy’ sounding bass line.” AD Hook said the bass was “centered around octaves – something that I nicked from disco songs. We would also later use that same octave technique on the synths for ‘Blue Monday.’” BV
Morris noted that the song had an unusual vocal line that made it awkward to sing. GQ “Ian sounds far off, yet still powerfully strong.” AD
“Heart and Soul”
Heart and Soul demonstrates “minimal instrumentation masterwork, Peter Hook’s dangerous bassline clashing with the controlled drum beat.” PT Morris said it has a “hypnotic rhythm that just doesn’t stop. I remember in the studio doing it and you go into a bit of a trance while you're just playing the beat over and over because you couldn't just sample it.” GQ
“The vocals sound different here, the words are almost whispered, but the voice still dominates the song. It's a funny thing, the sheer sound of Ian Curtis, the lyrical presence and vocal presence even with strong melody and striking keyboard lines remains the one element of the song that really reaches you above all else.” AD This song and “Twenty Four Hours” are “as perfect a demonstration of the tension/release or soft/loud approach as will ever be heard.” AM
“Twenty Four Hours”
“The jaw-dropping, wrenching” AM Twenty Four Hours is “a thrillingly dark blast” AD that “rises from quiet to impossibly dense.” AD “Curtis embodies despair and pleas for an escape from loneliness. It’s a declaration of frustrated rage that remains subtle with unrelenting eerieness.” RV He sings: “Now that I've realized how it's all gone wrong / Gotta find some therapy, this treatment takes too long / Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway / Gotta find my destiny, before it gets too late.”
Hook said this was one of the last songs the band wrote together, BV but Morris said it was one of the first things the group did after Unknown Pleasures. GQ
“The Eternal”
With “the drowned pianos underpinning Curtis’ shadowy moan” AM The Eternal “perfectly evokes the feeling of both utter dejection and death.” AD It evokes the mood that emo music would go on to convey. PT Curtis told Morris the song was about someone with Down’s syndrome. Curtis would see him in the park playing and he never seemed to age. GQ
“Decades”
“The album ender of album enders.” AM It “progresses at a funeral’s pace, but remains utterly captivating.” AD It is “primitive and yet wonderfully beautiful, and desolately sad.” AD “Its sepulchral string-synths are practically a requiem.” AM This is “Curtis’ portrait of lost youth.” AM
This and “The Eternal” both showcase Morris’ “powerful and unsettling percussion.” PP Morris recalled that the song originally had a bossa nova beat GQ and that Tony Wilson, the founder of Factory Records to which Joy Division was signed, was trying to get Curtis to sound like Frank Sinatra. BV
Notes: A 2007 CD remaster added a bonus disc with a live performance from the University of London Union.
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