Important Notice!
A limited edition 40th anniversary version of Unknown Pleasures will be released on June 14th. The LP will be pressed on 180g ruby red vinyl with an alternative white sleeve resembling the. 100ml - edpYou're walking down a cold street in England, listening to Joy Division, sipping on a warm cup of London Fog. This fragrance opens up with the smooth sweetness of honey with Earl Grey tea, with a zing of lemon. It dries down to a cozy vanilla, soft tonka bean and waffle cone base, sure to make any gourmand lover smile.Notes: Earl Grey tea, Lemon, Bergamot, Honey, Tonka Bean, Caramel.
Someone tried to vandalise the database by deleting about 76k entries. I restored those entries and have temporarily disabled the delete and edit functions to prevent further damage. In foresight I have implemented those functions in a non-destructive manner. Nothing is actually deleted but just flagged as such. Edits just create a new copy of an entry but leave the previous version intact.
This incident makes me think about introducing user accounts where users can only edit or delete their own entries. Maybe I will keep it simple by letting every album be created with some kind of password that the user can define when uploading the log. This way they can edit or delete their entries but not others. There have been other deletions in the past, mostly by people who think that vinyl, MP3 or self-improved versions of albums should not be there. I will address this issue in an upcoming FAQ at some time in the future.
I deliberately designed this project as a community project with wiki-like user privileges (everyone can do everything). I'm not a company, I (a single person) run this project in my free time and it is not my top priority in real life. This is why I don't respond to e-mails in most cases and why I don't introduce updates often. But I care about this project nonetheless and see that it is important to people. Major issues are always addressed at some point.
(74 albums total)
Artist | Album | Year | avg DR | min DR | max DR | Codec | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Joy Division | Still | 1990 | 13 | 08 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Love Will Tear Us Apart [Glow in the Dark Vinyl edition] | 2013 | 11 | 08 | 12 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Unknown pleasure (1979) | 1986 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1987 | 13 | 12 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1980 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still | 1989 | 13 | 09 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1991 | 13 | 11 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still (CD2) | 2007 | 06 | 06 | 07 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still | 2007 | 09 | 04 | 11 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1989 | 13 | 11 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [HDTracks 2 - The Factory, Manchester Live 13 July 1979] | 2013 | 06 | 05 | 07 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [HDTracks 1] | 2013 | 12 | 10 | 14 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division | The Peel Sessions | 1988 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | The Peel Sessions | 1988 | 13 | 11 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Peel Sessions | 1990 | 13 | 11 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1989 | 12 | 11 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | The Peel Sessions | 1989 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Factory Manchester Live 13 July 1979 | 2007 | 06 | 05 | 07 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1999 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 2009 | 14 | 13 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1999 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance (24-96 HDtracks) | 2015 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division & New Order | TOTAL from Joy Division to New Order | 2011 | 09 | 06 | 11 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1990 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1999 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 2007 | 11 | 09 | 12 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 2013 | 13 | 05 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer (192khz / 24bit) | 2013 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division | Closer | 1999 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1989 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer [vinyl] | 2007 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Closer [vinyl] | 1980 | 14 | 13 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Closer (Heart and Soul Box Set) | 1997 | 11 | 11 | 13 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer [vinyl] | 1980 | 14 | 13 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Closer | 1988 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1980 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossy | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Substance | 1991 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still | 1991 | 12 | 09 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1991 | 14 | 13 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [Disc 1] | 2007 | 09 | 07 | 11 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [Disc 2] | 2007 | 06 | 05 | 07 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1999 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1992 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1999 | 12 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures (Heart and Soul Box Set) | 1997 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [Australia] | 1999 | 12 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer [Canada] | 1999 | 14 | 13 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1986 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1989 | 13 | 11 | 15 | lossy | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 2000 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance 1977-1980 | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 16 | lossy | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1988 | 12 | 10 | 13 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1992 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Love will tear us apart | 1995 | 13 | 10 | 14 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Complete BBC Recordings | 2000 | 09 | 08 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Closer (reissue, remastered) | 2007 | 11 | 09 | 12 | lossy | Unknown |
Joy Division | Still | 1990 | 13 | 08 | 14 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 4) | 1997 | 09 | 08 | 11 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 3) | 1997 | 10 | 08 | 12 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 2) | 1997 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 1) | 1997 | 11 | 08 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979 | 2001 | 08 | 07 | 09 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Permanent | 1995 | 07 | 05 | 10 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Still | 0 | 13 | 08 | 14 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Plus Minus - Singles 1978-1980 | 2011 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Substance | 1992 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Still (Collectors Edition CD1) | 2007 | 08 | 04 | 11 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Best of Joy Division (CD2) | 2008 | 09 | 08 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Best of Joy Division (CD1) | 2008 | 08 | 06 | 09 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Best Of (CD1) | 2008 | 08 | 07 | 10 | lossy | Unknown |
Copyright © 2018
dr@loudness-war.info
This month marks four decades since the release of the classic record that would also be Ian Curtis's final album with Joy Division. Ed Power chats to a number of Cork music fans about what it meant to them
This month marks four decades since the release of the classic record that would also be Ian Curtis's final album with Joy Division. Ed Power chats to a number of Cork music fans about what it meant to them
At some point in the final year of his life Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis sat down in the living room of his home in Macclesfield, 16 miles south of Manchester, and put on a Frank Sinatra record. Curtis was at the time working on material for the band's much-anticipated second album. Joy Division's disembodied 1979 debut, Unknown Pleasures, had been acclaimed as a leap forward for post-punk.
But now the new songs weren't flowing as quickly as he would have liked, with Curtis struggling to process through his lyrics his increasingly complicated and unhappy personal life.
So Tony Wilson, the boss of Joy Division's label, Factory Records, had arranged what he hoped would be an inspiring gift for the earnest 23-year old. A bundle of Sinatra LPs in which to become lost and, so Wilson hoped, find himself.
'I don't know whether it was half in jest, but Tony suggested Ian listen to Frank Sinatra,' Joy Division bassist Peter Hook would later recall. 'And then [Joy Division's manager] Rob Gretton went out and bought him some Sinatra records and Ian did get into listening to Sinatra, which was quite funny. Quite nice, actually.'
Sinatra is not the first influence that comes to mind listening to Closer, Joy Division's second long-player which marks its 40th anniversary on July 18. Closer, which Joy Division recorded in the months immediately preceding Curtis's suicide that May, is a long, dark plunge into a wintry psychosphere.
'Heart and soul, ' Curtis observes on the opening track. 'One will burn.'
With hindsight it would become horribly obvious to Curtis' bandmates that the singer truly was burning up inside. On May 18, 1980, shortly before Joy Division were to leave for their first American tour, Curtis hanged himself at the house he shared with his wife, Deborah, and their 13-month old baby daughter (mother and child were away at the time).
Joy Division had been due to play Cork City Hall the previous October, supporting Buzzcocks. Alas, the gig was cancelled. Also scrubbed were dates at the Ulster Hall in Belfast and the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. It would have been the rare opportunity for Irish audiences to see one of the most influential post-punk groups ever, and to hear their future single 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', which came too late for the album.
'I started frequenting record shops in Cork in 1979/80 and I was just that bit too young to get into Joy Division at the time,' recalls Morty McCarthy, later the drummer with Sultans of Ping. 'I remember seeing the Peter Saville designed sleeve of Closer on display in Rainbow Records [at 120 Patrick's Street] and being very intimidated by the tomb on the cover. Another strong memory from back then is the number of music fans walking around the city wearing trench coats in an obvious nod to Ian Curtis.
'I got myself a second-hand drum kit for Christmas in 1983 and learned to play by playing along to Joy Division's songs in my nan's house,' he continues. 'I loved the repetitive drum patterns and the amount of toms used in the beats.
'I couldn't tell what bands had influenced Joy Division. It sounded like they had come from another planet. Closer was a very claustrophobic intense record to listen to and I loved the production on it by Martin Hannett. My favourite songs on the album were Atrocity Exhibition and Colony and I spent hours trying to learn the tom parts. When I started playing with the Sultans of Ping years later the toms became an essential part in our songs.'
Curtis was struggling with epilepsy through these later tours. The condition necessitated heavy medication and required Joy Division to use still lighting, as strobes could trigger fits in the singer. He was also having an affair with a Belgian fan, Annik Honore, which left him wracked with guilt. Clearly he was under tremendous pressure.
And yet, with Closer he left us with a masterpiece. Today Unknown Pleasures, tends to overshadow the later album. The reasons are partly aesthetic. Unknown Pleasure's 'dying star' zig-zag cover looks instantly iconic, especially blown up onto a t-shirt.
But for many Joy Division fans there is no question but that Closer is superior. With producer Hannett giving the material a dystopian sheen, it is a chillingly atomised listen.
'Performing lyrics from Closer was always harder for our vocalists,' says Colum Brady, guitarist with Cork-based Joy Division tribute band Digital. 'Our first singer who performed with us for three years before stepping back found delving into some of the lyrics from Closer quite difficult. There is an honesty to the lyrics that require a certain … vulnerability when being delivered. Nowhere better than here is the contrast of Joy Division laid so bare - the band is blasting out at 160 bpm but the lyrics are forcing you to look deep inside into dark corners.'
The cover of Joy Division's Closer, released in July 1980.Joy Division at the time were rather atomised too. Hook and guitarist Bernard Sumner were from Salford near central Manchester, Curtis and drummer Stephen Morris the more distant suburb of Macclesfield. They were all in it together– but not exactly friends for life and there's a cold ache to Closer that could not have come from an LP made by a gang of mates.
'We'd all do our own thing,' Sumner would tell Uncut of the Closer recording sessions at Britannia Row Studios at Islington in London (where, shortly beforehand, Pink Floyd had assembled The Wall).
'We didn't really jam, we didn't talk to each other about it. Pubg game free. It was a pleasurable time, but with a certain uncertainty about Ian, because of his health. We'd finally got where we were aiming for, and America was beckoning. We were on the cusp, we were fantastic live. But on the other hand, we worried about Ian's fits.'
Cork actor Conor Lovett was also a huge fan of the album.
'Joy Division's sound for the time, and for the punk kid I was, seemed a lot more musically experimental and I was attracted to the darkness of the singing.
'Closer had much in common with The Birthday Party's Junkyard and early Nick Cave albums, like From Her To Eternity, sort of primeval New Wave it seemed to me. I wasn't especially aware of the personalities behind the band back then but I was fascinated when they became New Order after Closer. It was like a Kid A moment. There was an energy and a danger in their sound.'
The Best of 1980
Joy Division's Closer wasn't the only masterpiece released in 1980. It was a remarkable year for music. Here are some of the other high-points.
Talking Heads, Remain In Light
Talking Heads' dark funk masterpiece was a companion piece to Joy Division as the New Yorkers, working with Brian Eno, pushed post-punk into feverish new directions.
David Bowie, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Unknown Pleasures Download Zip
Bowie's last great album until his late Nineties comeback.
U2, Boy
Someone tried to vandalise the database by deleting about 76k entries. I restored those entries and have temporarily disabled the delete and edit functions to prevent further damage. In foresight I have implemented those functions in a non-destructive manner. Nothing is actually deleted but just flagged as such. Edits just create a new copy of an entry but leave the previous version intact.
This incident makes me think about introducing user accounts where users can only edit or delete their own entries. Maybe I will keep it simple by letting every album be created with some kind of password that the user can define when uploading the log. This way they can edit or delete their entries but not others. There have been other deletions in the past, mostly by people who think that vinyl, MP3 or self-improved versions of albums should not be there. I will address this issue in an upcoming FAQ at some time in the future.
I deliberately designed this project as a community project with wiki-like user privileges (everyone can do everything). I'm not a company, I (a single person) run this project in my free time and it is not my top priority in real life. This is why I don't respond to e-mails in most cases and why I don't introduce updates often. But I care about this project nonetheless and see that it is important to people. Major issues are always addressed at some point.
(74 albums total)
Artist | Album | Year | avg DR | min DR | max DR | Codec | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Joy Division | Still | 1990 | 13 | 08 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Love Will Tear Us Apart [Glow in the Dark Vinyl edition] | 2013 | 11 | 08 | 12 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Unknown pleasure (1979) | 1986 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1987 | 13 | 12 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1980 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still | 1989 | 13 | 09 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1991 | 13 | 11 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still (CD2) | 2007 | 06 | 06 | 07 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still | 2007 | 09 | 04 | 11 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1989 | 13 | 11 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [HDTracks 2 - The Factory, Manchester Live 13 July 1979] | 2013 | 06 | 05 | 07 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [HDTracks 1] | 2013 | 12 | 10 | 14 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division | The Peel Sessions | 1988 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | The Peel Sessions | 1988 | 13 | 11 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Peel Sessions | 1990 | 13 | 11 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1989 | 12 | 11 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | The Peel Sessions | 1989 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Factory Manchester Live 13 July 1979 | 2007 | 06 | 05 | 07 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1999 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 2009 | 14 | 13 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1999 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance (24-96 HDtracks) | 2015 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division & New Order | TOTAL from Joy Division to New Order | 2011 | 09 | 06 | 11 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1990 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1999 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 2007 | 11 | 09 | 12 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 2013 | 13 | 05 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer (192khz / 24bit) | 2013 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Download |
Joy Division | Closer | 1999 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1989 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer [vinyl] | 2007 | 13 | 12 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Closer [vinyl] | 1980 | 14 | 13 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Closer (Heart and Soul Box Set) | 1997 | 11 | 11 | 13 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer [vinyl] | 1980 | 14 | 13 | 15 | lossless | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Closer | 1988 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1980 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossy | Vinyl |
Joy Division | Substance | 1991 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Still | 1991 | 12 | 09 | 14 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1991 | 14 | 13 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [Disc 1] | 2007 | 09 | 07 | 11 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [Disc 2] | 2007 | 06 | 05 | 07 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1999 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1992 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1999 | 12 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures (Heart and Soul Box Set) | 1997 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures [Australia] | 1999 | 12 | 10 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer [Canada] | 1999 | 14 | 13 | 16 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1986 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1989 | 13 | 11 | 15 | lossy | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 2000 | 12 | 09 | 15 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Substance 1977-1980 | 1988 | 13 | 10 | 16 | lossy | CD |
Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures | 1988 | 12 | 10 | 13 | lossless | CD |
Joy Division | Closer | 1992 | 13 | 13 | 15 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Love will tear us apart | 1995 | 13 | 10 | 14 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Complete BBC Recordings | 2000 | 09 | 08 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Closer (reissue, remastered) | 2007 | 11 | 09 | 12 | lossy | Unknown |
Joy Division | Still | 1990 | 13 | 08 | 14 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 4) | 1997 | 09 | 08 | 11 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 3) | 1997 | 10 | 08 | 12 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 2) | 1997 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Heart and Soul (Disc 1) | 1997 | 11 | 08 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979 | 2001 | 08 | 07 | 09 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Permanent | 1995 | 07 | 05 | 10 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Still | 0 | 13 | 08 | 14 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Plus Minus - Singles 1978-1980 | 2011 | 11 | 09 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Substance | 1992 | 13 | 10 | 15 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Still (Collectors Edition CD1) | 2007 | 08 | 04 | 11 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Best of Joy Division (CD2) | 2008 | 09 | 08 | 13 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | The Best of Joy Division (CD1) | 2008 | 08 | 06 | 09 | lossless | Unknown |
Joy Division | Best Of (CD1) | 2008 | 08 | 07 | 10 | lossy | Unknown |
Copyright © 2018
dr@loudness-war.info
This month marks four decades since the release of the classic record that would also be Ian Curtis's final album with Joy Division. Ed Power chats to a number of Cork music fans about what it meant to them
This month marks four decades since the release of the classic record that would also be Ian Curtis's final album with Joy Division. Ed Power chats to a number of Cork music fans about what it meant to them
At some point in the final year of his life Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis sat down in the living room of his home in Macclesfield, 16 miles south of Manchester, and put on a Frank Sinatra record. Curtis was at the time working on material for the band's much-anticipated second album. Joy Division's disembodied 1979 debut, Unknown Pleasures, had been acclaimed as a leap forward for post-punk.
But now the new songs weren't flowing as quickly as he would have liked, with Curtis struggling to process through his lyrics his increasingly complicated and unhappy personal life.
So Tony Wilson, the boss of Joy Division's label, Factory Records, had arranged what he hoped would be an inspiring gift for the earnest 23-year old. A bundle of Sinatra LPs in which to become lost and, so Wilson hoped, find himself.
'I don't know whether it was half in jest, but Tony suggested Ian listen to Frank Sinatra,' Joy Division bassist Peter Hook would later recall. 'And then [Joy Division's manager] Rob Gretton went out and bought him some Sinatra records and Ian did get into listening to Sinatra, which was quite funny. Quite nice, actually.'
Sinatra is not the first influence that comes to mind listening to Closer, Joy Division's second long-player which marks its 40th anniversary on July 18. Closer, which Joy Division recorded in the months immediately preceding Curtis's suicide that May, is a long, dark plunge into a wintry psychosphere.
'Heart and soul, ' Curtis observes on the opening track. 'One will burn.'
With hindsight it would become horribly obvious to Curtis' bandmates that the singer truly was burning up inside. On May 18, 1980, shortly before Joy Division were to leave for their first American tour, Curtis hanged himself at the house he shared with his wife, Deborah, and their 13-month old baby daughter (mother and child were away at the time).
Joy Division had been due to play Cork City Hall the previous October, supporting Buzzcocks. Alas, the gig was cancelled. Also scrubbed were dates at the Ulster Hall in Belfast and the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. It would have been the rare opportunity for Irish audiences to see one of the most influential post-punk groups ever, and to hear their future single 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', which came too late for the album.
'I started frequenting record shops in Cork in 1979/80 and I was just that bit too young to get into Joy Division at the time,' recalls Morty McCarthy, later the drummer with Sultans of Ping. 'I remember seeing the Peter Saville designed sleeve of Closer on display in Rainbow Records [at 120 Patrick's Street] and being very intimidated by the tomb on the cover. Another strong memory from back then is the number of music fans walking around the city wearing trench coats in an obvious nod to Ian Curtis.
'I got myself a second-hand drum kit for Christmas in 1983 and learned to play by playing along to Joy Division's songs in my nan's house,' he continues. 'I loved the repetitive drum patterns and the amount of toms used in the beats.
'I couldn't tell what bands had influenced Joy Division. It sounded like they had come from another planet. Closer was a very claustrophobic intense record to listen to and I loved the production on it by Martin Hannett. My favourite songs on the album were Atrocity Exhibition and Colony and I spent hours trying to learn the tom parts. When I started playing with the Sultans of Ping years later the toms became an essential part in our songs.'
Curtis was struggling with epilepsy through these later tours. The condition necessitated heavy medication and required Joy Division to use still lighting, as strobes could trigger fits in the singer. He was also having an affair with a Belgian fan, Annik Honore, which left him wracked with guilt. Clearly he was under tremendous pressure.
And yet, with Closer he left us with a masterpiece. Today Unknown Pleasures, tends to overshadow the later album. The reasons are partly aesthetic. Unknown Pleasure's 'dying star' zig-zag cover looks instantly iconic, especially blown up onto a t-shirt.
But for many Joy Division fans there is no question but that Closer is superior. With producer Hannett giving the material a dystopian sheen, it is a chillingly atomised listen.
'Performing lyrics from Closer was always harder for our vocalists,' says Colum Brady, guitarist with Cork-based Joy Division tribute band Digital. 'Our first singer who performed with us for three years before stepping back found delving into some of the lyrics from Closer quite difficult. There is an honesty to the lyrics that require a certain … vulnerability when being delivered. Nowhere better than here is the contrast of Joy Division laid so bare - the band is blasting out at 160 bpm but the lyrics are forcing you to look deep inside into dark corners.'
The cover of Joy Division's Closer, released in July 1980.Joy Division at the time were rather atomised too. Hook and guitarist Bernard Sumner were from Salford near central Manchester, Curtis and drummer Stephen Morris the more distant suburb of Macclesfield. They were all in it together– but not exactly friends for life and there's a cold ache to Closer that could not have come from an LP made by a gang of mates.
'We'd all do our own thing,' Sumner would tell Uncut of the Closer recording sessions at Britannia Row Studios at Islington in London (where, shortly beforehand, Pink Floyd had assembled The Wall).
'We didn't really jam, we didn't talk to each other about it. Pubg game free. It was a pleasurable time, but with a certain uncertainty about Ian, because of his health. We'd finally got where we were aiming for, and America was beckoning. We were on the cusp, we were fantastic live. But on the other hand, we worried about Ian's fits.'
Cork actor Conor Lovett was also a huge fan of the album.
'Joy Division's sound for the time, and for the punk kid I was, seemed a lot more musically experimental and I was attracted to the darkness of the singing.
'Closer had much in common with The Birthday Party's Junkyard and early Nick Cave albums, like From Her To Eternity, sort of primeval New Wave it seemed to me. I wasn't especially aware of the personalities behind the band back then but I was fascinated when they became New Order after Closer. It was like a Kid A moment. There was an energy and a danger in their sound.'
The Best of 1980
David Bowie's Scary Monsters was also released in 1980.Joy Division's Closer wasn't the only masterpiece released in 1980. It was a remarkable year for music. Here are some of the other high-points.
Talking Heads, Remain In Light
Talking Heads' dark funk masterpiece was a companion piece to Joy Division as the New Yorkers, working with Brian Eno, pushed post-punk into feverish new directions.
David Bowie, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Unknown Pleasures Download Zip
Bowie's last great album until his late Nineties comeback.
U2, Boy
The Dubliners came charging out of the blocks on a debut record where they were already sloughing off their early debt to Joy Division.
The Cure, Seventeen Seconds
Robert Smith's smiling squad delivered their first classic album, including iconic single 'A Forest'.
AC/DC, Back In Black
Unknown Pleasures Download Torrent
Heavy rock took a great leap forward with this rollicking opus.