Please let me feel something other than this. “Feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeeeeling.” Raised, a shout, a call, a cry for help. You walk the streets at night with ‘Disorder’ running through your brain. You cry for three days solid when the girl leaves. BECAUSE the sun is shining brightly outside. You end up watching poor quality videos of Joy Division with all the curtains shut even though the sun is shining brightly outside. All this is cliché, but sometimes it actually happens, and Joy Division aren’t the cause of that! Their music becomes this wonderful discovery. Two people totally together, two people who both wanted to die because they couldn’t always be physically together. Have you ever made a suicide pact with someone? Young love, perhaps? This girl wore an ‘Unknown Pleasures’ t-shirt. You had the physicality of Ian Curtis on stage. Of course, you also had the lyrics, the artwork. Joy Division combined a number of influences that added to the playing style of the rhythm section and the production skills of Martin Hannett created something unique. Fans of the Velvet Underground were still some sort of secret society – the group had yet to pass into being ‘classic rock’, or anything like that. Musical influences? Kraftwerk sounded like aliens. Britain suffered from poverty and everything seemed bleak – let’s look to Germany. Punk had happened but was on the verge of imploding. Were Joy Division Nazis? Or was Ian just plugged into something? By all accounts, off-stage, out of the studio – he was quiet, thoughtful. Ian had an interest in all things German. Then he’d have an actual fit, but it’d be a good few minutes before anybody realized. He’d dance that way, like he was having a fit. Sure, he had help! Hook, Hannett, those drum patterns that so disturbingly mirrored Ian’s own epileptic fits. The change from Joy Division to New Order following Ian’s suicide should be enough to convince anybody that he was the soul of the group. And so I’ve tried not to miss any aspect of this record. That’s how I was first introduced to this album and hence Post-Punk. And one of the most oft-repeated bands in his monthly playlists is Joy Division. I’ve been a big follower of Steven Wilson, well known as the frontman of the prog rock outfit Porcupine Tree. This time around, Shams Us Zuha from Lahore decides to review Joy Division’s classic debut album. We have guest writers doing classic reviews from time to time.
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