Joy Division in general

There is something beautiful about short-lived bands. My favourite groups of all time are The Velvet Underground, the Pixies and Joy Division. The bands mentioned released three or four albums (in Joy Divison's case only two) but within those few albums lies a legacy so grand and resonant that the vibes can still be felt today. In an age of mass-produced garbage that dares to call itself music, I can always go back to classic albums like 'White Light/White Heat', 'Unknown Pleasures' and 'Doolittle'. My obsession with Ian Curtis and Joy Division began through my fondness for New Order. I knew vaguely that Barney Sumner, Peter Hook ...  Read the complete review

hat shocks me most about Joy Division, much more than their astoundingly beautiful music and Ian Curtis's astronomically profound lyrics, is the fact that so few people have yet risen to the challenge of reviewing them on this site. Why is this? Is it because no one feels worthy enough to describe Joy Division with mere words (I know I don't), or, more likely, is it because everyone has drowned in the stagnant tides of pop that have flooded the musical shores in recent years/decades? Sorry pop lovers, but if you don't know Joy Division, you don't know music. Back in 1977 when Joy Division were a shambolic yet forceful punk band, the clubbing ...  Read the complete review

If I was a teenager in the late 70's, I swear I would've been a supremely dedicated hardcore follower of Manchester's Joy Division, they are pure and simply brilliant! Not only for their catchy, dark tunes, but also the melded bouncy to old-man-morose vocals of their late frontman Ian Curtis, and more so his stark lyricism. I have never heard such movingly, really human lyrics as those by Ian Curtis. He could, and probably is a dedicated poet in his own right. Living in a time when Manchester's communities were dissolving and the stiff upper lip of war-time Britain looming, it was only obvious that the youth wouldn't be a bunch of cheery people. ...  Read the complete review

Ian Curtis had a voice which only comes from the heavens- it was almost religious and holy in many ways. I remember the first time I heard 'Unknown Pleasures'- a particulary humid night at my parents house when I was 13, my dad had gotten punch-drunk and was blabbing on and on about various obscure psychedelic bands I didn't care the least bit about; I was about to rip off my ears when something peculiar happened... I heard this beat on the speakers which quickened the blood in my veins to cold icy water, and heard a bass which dragged every nerve in my body along with every chord change- and the a guitar I would later learn was played by that dorky singer ...  Read the complete review