Joy Division - Closer
#429
by Rob Slater
Joy Division
Closer
Genre: Ahead and Behind Their Time
Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Rob’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Grade: C+ for exploration. B by the time I was able to get through it to the second side.
Review by Rocket Rob
Highlights:
Passover
Tenty Four Hours
Highlights for Rob:
Drums in Atrocity Exhibition
The beginning of "A Means to an End."
I really wanted to like Joy Division. I had heard so much about them over the years but had never happened to actually listen to any of their stuff. I thought I owned something by them but it turned out that it was Joy - Ultra Vivid Scene.
So, as I've already done in this “Listening Post” process, I was hoping to discover a new favorite. And the fact that it might be Joy Division that I'd heard of from my slightly more alternative friends for decades, made it even sweeter.
When I first put it on... oh, I thought, “Dude, this drum part is cool.”
Unfortunately that was about the only thing that hooked me. After that my thoughts were...
1. This would be good for an indie movie soundtrack/score.
2. Wow, that's kind of interesting.
3. I wonder what that lyric means? Oh, now I know.
Scattered throughout, there are SOOO many sounds that would be echoed down through the 80s New Wave. Almost every song has a point at which you say, "that sounds just like..."
Side One.
Track One: "Atrocity Exhibition" - And the guys in the band say they didn’t listen to his lyrics until after he killed himself?
Asylums with doors open wide
Where people had paid to see inside
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, "I still exist"
This is the way, step inside...
Like he’s inviting them into the circus tent to see the odd man out… Ouch.
Oh, you should read the lyrics, too. They’re brilliant and poetic. But oh, so repetition.
Parts of this sound totally like hundreds of things released later in the 80s!
I listened to this album nearly a dozen times, I think. As with everything else during the pandemic, time and numbers both telescope and microscope… Time is currently kind of like looking through binoculars forwards and backwards…I tried. I wanted to like it. This album is supposed to be their best. Look at the accolades:
● "crown jewel of post-punk"
● #1 in the 1980 Albums of the Year poll NME
● #157 upon the Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[37][38]
● #69 of the top 100 alternative albums ever released by Spin magazine.
● #10 best album to be released in the 1980s Pitchfork magazine.
● #72 on NME's list of the 100 greatest British albums ever
● #8 Q magazine of the 40 greatest albums of the 1980s.
● #7 Slant Magazine - best albums of the 1980s
I wanted to like them. I went back and listened to all the different versions of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" which sold over 160,000 copies as a single after Curtis’ death.
I wanted to like them. But I don’t…
I’d rather listen to Morrissey’s Everyday is Sunday on endless repeat. Which you should do for a few times anyway as you read about it’s origins. I never was really into him or The Smiths either.
Was Ian Curtis talented. Hell yes! Did he deserve better than the ending he got? Hell yes. Sad, and tragic, but it still didn’t hook me. I’m sorry.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4kT3ewGWBRAOlocyVp03bm?si=U4k5-AT3SRGXUm3HK52jUA
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