Post by MartinT on Jan 15, 2018 21:03:20 GMT
Joy Division - Substance
I wouldn't normally choose a compilation album for Album Choice but in this case I've selected one for a couple of reasons: firstly Substance contains the best of their work; secondly it features Atmosphere, my favourite of all their songs.
In 1980 I was reaching the end of my time at university. It hadn't been a particularly enjoyable course and being lectured at for three years was not my choice of learning style. My beloved rock music was now displaced by mostly hideous punk. I would have to get a job soon and I didn't know what I wanted to do. Joy Division had come and were now gone forever; I'd had the chance to see them but hadn't quite brought myself around to their music in time. They came through the ashes of punk but had far more to say, and said it much more musically. They would, of course, eventually metamorphose into New Order but without their genius leader.
This isn't easy listening and it isn't particularly complex music. What it is, though, is deep and affecting. It makes for uncomfortable, uneasy listening and is shrouded in the knowledge that Ian Curtis took his own life so young and so needlessly. For me, it has become timeless but very much of its time. Listening to Transmission, Love Will Tear Us Apart, She's Lost Control and Atmosphere are like old comforts now. It's actually a bit like listening to Mahler and generates pretty much the same mood in me.
Hope you find something to like in it. If you listen to only one song, make it Atmosphere.
I wouldn't normally choose a compilation album for Album Choice but in this case I've selected one for a couple of reasons: firstly Substance contains the best of their work; secondly it features Atmosphere, my favourite of all their songs.
In 1980 I was reaching the end of my time at university. It hadn't been a particularly enjoyable course and being lectured at for three years was not my choice of learning style. My beloved rock music was now displaced by mostly hideous punk. I would have to get a job soon and I didn't know what I wanted to do. Joy Division had come and were now gone forever; I'd had the chance to see them but hadn't quite brought myself around to their music in time. They came through the ashes of punk but had far more to say, and said it much more musically. They would, of course, eventually metamorphose into New Order but without their genius leader.
This isn't easy listening and it isn't particularly complex music. What it is, though, is deep and affecting. It makes for uncomfortable, uneasy listening and is shrouded in the knowledge that Ian Curtis took his own life so young and so needlessly. For me, it has become timeless but very much of its time. Listening to Transmission, Love Will Tear Us Apart, She's Lost Control and Atmosphere are like old comforts now. It's actually a bit like listening to Mahler and generates pretty much the same mood in me.
Hope you find something to like in it. If you listen to only one song, make it Atmosphere.
