Joy Division-Passover-Closer
I could write
about how stark and industrial and the end of days that Joy Division are/were.
How glass-like, ethereal and statuesque their music was. The start of a new
end. Or the end of a new start. The
music of stars and galaxies collapsing. Entropy.
But…the truth
is, I never really liked Joy Division. I did buy Unknown Pleasures when it
first came out, due simply because it got such over the top reviews. That was
it though. I listened to it over and over again and it never moved me that way
I was told it would. I liked the image and the idea of Joy Division. The
artwork was always better than the music-and in fact, looked like the way the
music should have sounded. The idea of Joy Division appealed; they were just
one of the bands where the there was a disconnect between what we were told
about them and what they (in reality) were. Unknown Pleasures was the end of a
new start for me. I found (and still do) the lyrics banal, a bit obvious and
slightly po-faced. In their attempt to make distant music they come off as
merely cold. Whilst I am not set against distant music in itself (i.e.
Swans/Sunn O)))/Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the like) in the case of Joy
Division what-for me-is missing is any humanity, humour or honesty that the
former display.
(I had the
chance to go and see Joy Division live a number of times; most notably in
Preston on one of their last ever gigs. It would be expected that I may say
I’ve always regretted the missed opportunity, but I haven’t. I didn’t see them.
Didn’t want to and don’t think even now that I feel I lost out).
To make matters
worse-on a critical level- was the death of Ian Curtis and the raising his to
the level of an idol for doomed youth. As Mark E Smith very succinctly summed
it up, “There are two factories in Manchester; one makes the death of men, the
other lives off the death of a man.” The best thing that happened to Factory
Records (commercially) was the death of Ian Curtis and the ability of the label
to wallow gleefully in the despair, whilst selling to the world over and over
again the morbidity of a poor post-punk band wrapped in sub- ECM artwork and
videos.
I read Deborah
Curtis’ book about Ian Curtis, “Touching
from a Distance” and it led me to think that he was a bit of an arse who
flirted too much with right-wing imagery and basically wasn’t a very nice
person. This does not deflect from the fact that he was clearly very unwell-but
my reading of the book leads me to understand that he was a bit of a dickhead
irrespective of his illness.
For me the best
thing about the demise of Joy Division was the emergence of New Order. Would
Joy Division evolved into the band that New Order became? Would they (with Ian
Curtis) produce essential and special music such as Power Corruption &
Lies, Brotherhood or Confusion? I wonder.
Get /see/read "Totally Shuffled" here;
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