Link to the Show / Show Notes
Joy Division were formed in the late 1970's in the city of Manchester, which Jon Savage describes in the foreword toTouching from a Distance (© Deborah Curtis, 1995), as:
'...an environment systematically degraded by industrial revolution, confined by lowering moors, with oblivion as the only escape.'
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This atmosphere of the city was transmitted through the music of Joy Division - generated on records and in concerts. According to John Savage (Ibid, p12), their first album, Unknown Pleasures, released in the summer of 1979, defined not only the city of Manchester but a moment of social change. Writer Chris Bohn asserts that Joy Division 'recorded the corrosive effect on the individual of a time squeezed between the collapse into impotence of traditional Labour humanism and the impending cynical victory of Conservatism.' (Quoted in Ibid, p12).
Ian Curtis - Joy Division's vocalist - committed suicide in May 1980 on the eve of their first American tour. His premature death shocked many close to him, who today still do not understand why Ian took his own life. There have been a number of theories put forward to explain the reasons behind this, which I will not go into here. What can be said however, is that Ian Curtis left behind a legacy of artistic genius which lives on in the music of Joy Division. 'This is the way step inside.'
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'Punk...tore away the dross but all it could say was, "fuck you!". Joy Division came along and said something much more dark and complex. They said, "we are lost".'
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