Album of the Week #18: "Closer" by Joy Division

John

After seeing New Order at the weekend I feel it's time we discussed Joy Division. Personally I prefer Closer to Unknown Pleasures, slightly. While Joy Division definitely had found their feet early on in their short career, this album has far stronger songs on it. Maybe it's because of the events that surrounded its release but it's got a more powerful punch.

Lunar Junkie

Yeah - I remember being absolutely blown away on my first few listens to Unknown Pleasures when I first discovered them around 7 or 8 years ago, and Closer took a lot longer to get into, but it's the one I'd still listen to these days. Whereas their first album was claustrophobic and tense Closer has a kind of distance and almost a feeling of nobility about it, like classical music for the post-punk genre. The second side (from Heart & Soul through to Decades) is, for me, one of the most perfect sequences of songs in rock music... The first side is messier but Isolation and Colony in particular are stunning tunes and I love the buzzsaw guitar noise freakouts and carnivalesque chamber-of-horrors atmosphere on Atrocity Exhibition. It's certainly not an album you'd want to listen to for a bit of light relief but when you're in the right mood there's not much that can rival it for power and intensity. I hate the death cult around Ian Curtis, it attracts people to their music for the wrong reasons and creates a stigma around them (not everyone who enjoys Joy Division is suicidally depressed, some would be surprised to learn) ..but if he'd lived I imagine they'd have had to change direction with the next record, Closer takes it just about as far as possible in the dark Gothic territory they were exploring.

JC 2K3

I've had it for ages, but never got into it(never tried hard enough tbh).

The drum loop in Atrocity Explosion annoyed me and put me off the rest of the album. There's definately something good there though, it's very original.

Note to self: actually listen to the album properly

John

:eek: Give it another go! It's an amazing album and (as Lunar Junkie mentioned) the guitar in "Atrocity Exhibition" is ****ing cool.

For me, this album is the perfect combination of catchy tunes and hooks (via Hook) and brutal emotion. It's physically draining to listen to but it's worth it. From the moment "Atrocity Exhibition" starts to "Decades" running off I am a slave to Closer. I think Curtis was really starting to hit his stride when it came to songwriting, the songs here and the ones that came after ("Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Ceremony" and "In A Lonely Place") are IMO a lot better than the earlier songs (not that I don't love them too).

The production on it is also worth mentioning, Hannett really captured a lot of the atmosphere and power of the band. The production is so icy and crisp I'm afraid the LP will shatter when the needle hits it. In case you can't tell, I think it's a bloody masterpiece.

Garret

First bought it when i was about 13/14, didnt really like it. Wasnt til about 2 years later that i listened to it again and realised what an amazing album it is. Decades would now be one of my favourite songs of all time.

moonshake

love that drum loop on Atrocity Exhibition!!! What an album. The kind of album that's hard to put across in words how good it is.

JC 2K3

moonshake wrote:

love that drum loop on Atrocity Exhibition!!!

lol, my dislike most likely stems from attempting to listen to it for the 1st or 2nd time on a noisy bus with bad headphones. Basically the drum loop and faint vocals were all I heard....

I'm liking what I'm hearing now though....

Dudess

Garret wrote:

First bought it when i was about 13/14, didnt really like it. Wasnt til about 2 years later that i listened to it again and realised what an amazing album it is. Decades would now be one of my favourite songs of all time.

Yeah, I was 12 and really getting into New Order, so I decided to check out their previous incarnation - hated it. Thought it was horrible stuff. However, listened to it again when I was 15 - blown away by it. The same with My Bloody Valentine.
I prefer Unknown Pleasures but Closer is incredible - probably the best album whose title is regularly mispronounced (it's "clozer"). Isolation is my favourite track. It's so deceptive - the sound is quite catchy and even a bit upbeat but my God, those lyrics. Devastating.

Sgt. Politeness

For anyone trying to get into this album, just listen to '24 hours'. Incredible song, probably my favourite on the album.

ThrownAway

It's the album I've listened to least.... :eek:

Sir Graball

moonshake wrote:

love that drum loop on Atrocity Exhibition!!! What an album. The kind of album that's hard to put across in words how good it is.

Discovered Joy Division on John Peel's show back in 1979. I still listen to their albums, particularly Closer. Check out the double ' Still'. Brilliant version of The Velvet Underground's 'Sister Ray'. A piece of useless trivia for ya - the title 'Atrocity Exhibition' come from a novel by JG Ballard, he of 'Crash' and 'Empire of the Sun'.

nlgbbbblth

I prefer Unknown Pleasures.

Closer is a great album but Heart and Soul and The Eternal are sub-standard.

The Hustler

nlgbbbblth wrote: »

I prefer Unknown Pleasures.

Closer is a great album but Heart and Soul and The Eternal are sub-standard.

The Eternal- sub-standard? You gotta be kidding me, it's one of the greatest things they ever produced

11811

agghhhh zombie thread.....

incidentally I prefer Unknown pleasures too.

JerryHandbag

I love the bit in Isolation about halfway thru where the drum machine changes into real drums with that dodgy-sounding keyboard wailing away in the background..classic stuff

You can kinda hear the progression towards what would become New Order on this track...

Chong

I bought their greatest hits today to see what they were like , love the album.

stateofflux

this album is a classic....

for me its strange...i only 'get' this album when im very depressed and don't feel anything because it has a feeling of complete emptyness to it....for me its like beauty in pain and nothingness....class...

corkstudent

Joy Division are amazing, but I don't like their "vintage" production values as much as lot of other "vintage" production values at the time. I actually quite like their live sound, less atmospheric but still has a lot more of the atmosphere than all those "Oh it was our producer that gave us this sound" documentaries have you believe.

monellia

corkstudent wrote: »

Joy Division are amazing, but I don't like their "vintage" production values as much as lot of other "vintage" production values at the time. I actually quite like their live sound, less atmospheric but still has a lot more of the atmosphere than all those "Oh it was our producer that gave us this sound" documentaries have you believe.

Are you kidding me? Martin Hannett was arguably one of the greatest record producers of all time. His production on those two albums is nothing short of genius imo.

nlgbbbblth wrote:

I prefer Unknown Pleasures.

Closer is a great album but Heart and Soul and The Eternal are sub-standard.

Dude, are you off you rock? No Joy Division songs are sub-standard. Apart from some of those Warsaw tracks... which are still better than most of the punky trash that came out of that era. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "sub-standard", but the two tracks you mentioned are clearly among JD's best.

Joy Division pretty much dominated what I listened to through the ages of 14-16 and while I don't really listen to them anymore I still regard Closer and Unknown Pleasures as two of my favourite records of all time. I'm not sure which album I like better. Unknown Pleasures is more "colourful" for lack of a better word and full of youthful creativity. Closer lacks that quality as Ian's suicidal temperament becomes more and more apparent in an album that showcases the depressive frame of mind of a man about to kill himself.

monellia

Garret wrote: »

First bought it when i was about 13/14, didnt really like it. Wasnt til about 2 years later that i listened to it again and realised what an amazing album it is. Decades would now be one of my favourite songs of all time.

Same here, kind of. I got Closer when I was 13, recognising them as the band who sang LWTUA but the album kind of washed over me first time round. It wasn't until about a year later when I re-listened and got the Heart and Soul boxed set that I really began to appreciate them.

Altar_Ego_Boy

'Closer' is definately in my top 20.

When i was a teenager i really liked listening to it when i was depressed but if you invest too much thought in the lyrics and in Ian Curtis' background it will send you into the abyss.

Im older now, not as emotionally fragile, but i probably listen to the album more. Theres a coolness to the album, like it could be on the soundtrack to a michael mann film. Thats the contradiction of the album for me: on one level its got a lot of emotional baggage to it yet on another level the sound is so empty and cool and listenable that you can have it on your mp3 when youre out for a leisurely stroll.

Its timeless