Joy Division “Closer”
Joy Division “Closer” released 40 years ago today, July 18th, 1980. Original US pressing, Factory Records. Joy Division’s second and final LP (released a couple of months after Ian Curtis’ death) is considered one of the best post-punk records of all-time and makes many best of any kind of all-time lists as well. It went to #6 in the UK. It’s a difficult album, but in the best of possible ways: dark, weirdly dense and sparse at the same time, melodic in minor. Curtis doesn’t really seem to sing, but rather delivers with a voice that is almost but not quite out of key as he meanders along the musical staff, hovering somewhere between speaking and singing.
I’ve found myself listening to “Isolation” a lot these past few months as we continue to live in partial quarantine. That’s one of my top tracks but I also really like “Atrocity Exhibition” (Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook swapped guitar and bass for that track), and the gothically industrial “Colony” and “Twenty Four Hours.”
Daily (maybe) pulls from the vault: 33-1/3, 45, 78, old, older, classic, new, good, bad. Subjective. Autobiographical. Occasionally putting a record up for sale.