Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Joy Division soon moved beyond their punk roots to develop a sound and style that made them one of the pioneers of the late-1970s post-punk movement. Joy Division’s debut album Unknown Pleasures, recorded with producer Martin Hannett, was released in 1979 to critical acclaim. The band’s second and final album, Closer, was released two months later; the album and preceding single “Love Will Tear Us Apart” became the band’s highest charting release. Although their career spanned less than four years, Joy Division have continued to exert a vast influence on a variety of subsequent artists. (More from Wikipedia)
I think of Joy Division as being a really extreme rock band, and one that could only have come from England. Suicide is sadly quite common among rock musicians and artists in other endeavors as well, but it is not hard to see that the intensity and extraordinary conviction found in the songs of Joy Division could lead someone to end their life. Lead singer and lyricist Ian Curtis also suffered from ill health for many years, including epileptic seizures while performing. In the summer of 1980, the band finally began to find commercial success when the re-release of their magnificent signature song “Love Will Tear Us Apart” went to #13 on the U.K. charts. Just two days before Joy Division was to begin its U.S. tour, Ian Curtis was found dead.
When a long overdue retrospective of the band called Substance finally came out in 1988, one of the songs, “Atmosphere” got to #34 on the British charts, and the Spartan music video that played on the MTV program 120 Minutes made a deep impression on me as well. The moment when I found Substance at Schoolkids Records – located on Hillsborough Street across from the North Carolina State University campus – is one that is indelibly imprinted on my mind.
An overview of Joy Division and its importance in rock music can be found in Allmusic: “Formed in the wake of the punk explosion in England, Joy Division became the first band in the post-punk movement by later emphasizing not anger and energy but mood and expression, pointing ahead to the rise of melancholy alternative music in the ’80s. Though the group’s raw initial sides fit the bill for any punk band, Joy Division later incorporated synthesizers (taboo in the low-tech world of ’70s punk) and more haunting melodies, emphasized by the isolated, tortured lyrics of its lead vocalist, Ian Curtis. While the British punk movement shocked the world during the late ’70s, Joy Division’s quiet storm of musical restraint and emotive power proved to be just as important to independent music in the 1980s.”
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After adding a keyboard player, the remaining three bandmembers in Joy Division dubbed themselves New Order and became a highly successful alternative rock band by combining the post-punk sound that they pioneered in their earlier band with elements of electronic dance music.
(June 2014)
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