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Joy Division were an English rock band that formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. With their dark, cavernous sound and use of guitars, throbbing bass, and electronics, Joy Division pioneered the post-punk sound of the late 1970s. In May 1980, after the suicide of Joy Division lead singer, Ian Curtis, the remaining members reformed as New Order and went on to achieve much critical and commercial success.

Though the Joy Division achieved only modest success during their career, and released only two official albums, Joy Division have since been acclaimed as one of the most inventive and influential bands of their era. Thom Jurek writes, "Joy Division left just a small bit of music and an echo that still rings".

The famous Sex Pistols show at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall on July 20, 1976 inspired Bernard Sumner  and Peter Hook to form a band with their friend Terry Mason. Sumner bought a guitar, Hook a bass and Mason a drum kit. They placed an advertisement in a Manchester record store, Virgin Records, for a singer and recruited Ian Curtis. Curtis, who knew the others from previous gigs, had also attended the Sex Pistols concert, along with his wife, Deborah.

Just before their first gig on May 29, 1977 supporting The Buzzcocks and Penetration at the Electric Circus, the band renamed themselves Warsaw, even though they appeared on the bill as Stiff Kittens (suggested by Richard Boon and Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks). (The name change to Warsaw was purportedly inspired by the David Bowie track Warszawa, found on his 1977 album Low and not inspired by the Polish city of the same name). Five weeks and half a dozen gigs later, Warsaw replaced Mason with punk drummer Steve Brotherdale from another band called Panik. On July 18, 1977, they recorded five crude punk songs that became The Warsaw Demo. Having recorded the demo, the band fired Brotherdale. Driving home from the studio, they pulled over and asked Brotherdale to check on a "flat tyre". When he got out of the car, they sped off. Brotherdale later tried to get Curtis to join Panik, but Curtis declined. The band put out an advertisement in a music shop window for a replacement drummer and hired respondent Stephen Morris. The band chose Morris because Curtis recalled him from his school days. Morris had attended the same school two years below Curtis. Unlike the band's previous drummers, Morris clicked well with the other members. His metronome-like drumming owed more to krautrock than the aggressiveness of punk.


Warsaw renamed themselves Joy Division in late 1977 in order to avoid confusion with the London punk band Warsaw Pakt, borrowing their new name from the prostitution wing of a concentration camp from the 1955 book The House of Dolls. "No Love Lost," an early Joy Division/Warsaw track, contains a lyrical reference to Yehiel De-Nur's book:

"...Through the wire screen, the eyes of those standing outside looked in at her as into the cage of some rare creature in a zoo. 
In the hand of one of the assistants she saw the same instrument which they had that morning inserted deep into her body. 
She shuddered instinctively. 
No life at all in the house of dolls. 
No love lost..." 
Joy Division's signature style began to take shape in late 1977. Sessions recorded in December 1977 were a departure from the sound of The Warsaw Demo. The group played their first gig as Joy Division on January 25, 1978. Regular gigs in the north of England throughout early 1978 provided Joy Division with enough material and experience to record a debut album. However, after the producer added synthesizers to several tracks, Joy Division  scrapped the record. The album leaked as a bootleg recording called Warsaw in 1982 and has been re-pressed and re-released several times since then. Rob Gretton became the band's manager in May 1978. Over the next twenty years, he contributed much to Joy Division and to New Order.

In the summer of 1978, Joy Division debuted on vinyl with one Warsaw track on a compilation album entitled Short Circuit - Live At The Electric Circus which was recorded live on October 2, 1977. The song was preceded by Bernard Sumner (not Curtis, contrary to some references) shouting "You all forget Rudolf Hess." In June 1978, Joy Division released their December 1977 sessions as a 7" EP under the title An Ideal for Living. Joy Division remastered and re-released An Ideal for Living as a 12" in late 1978. On September 20, 1978, Joy Division performed on the local TV news show Granada Reports; then in December 1978, Joy Division appeared on the compilation double 7" EP A Factory Sample, contributing two tracks recorded a few months earlier. This EP sold out within a couple of months and was the first release to document the haunting and atmospheric sound Joy Division had been developing since that past summer. Early 1979 saw Joy Division gain more publicity. Curtis appeared on the front cover of the New Musical Express and Joy Division recorded a radio session in January (aired on BBC Radio 1 on February 14 by John Peel). On March 4, Joy Division supported The Cure at the Marquee Club, a major venue in London.

In April 1979, Joy Division began recording their debut album Unknown Pleasures. The record was bleaker and darker in tone than most of its contemporaries, featuring Hook's bass as the lead melodic instrument, drums treated with digital delay, Sumner's jagged guitar style and Curtis's baritone vocals that have been likened to Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop. Producer Martin Hannett contributed significantly to the final sound. (Coincidentally, a non-album track, "Digital" was the first song Joy Division recorded with Hannett as producer as well as the last song Joy Division  performed live before Curtis' death). Whereas most punk rock bands had been extroverted and aggressive, Joy Division were more introverted and personal. Despite their insularity, however, their music could be very aggressive and chaotic. The album cover, designed by Peter Saville based on a graph of 100 consecutive pulses from the pulsar CP 1919, is regarded as a classic of minimalist design. The image represents the final life of a dying star.

Unknown Pleasures was released in June while Joy Division were recording five songs for Piccadilly Radio.

Joy Division performed on Granada TV again in July, made their only nationwide TV appearance in September on BBC2, supported The Buzzcocks in a 24-venue UK tour during October and November, and performed on Peel's show again in December. Despite the fact that Unknown Pleasures was selling well and receiving good reviews from the music press, all was not well. Diagnosed with epilepsy in January 1979, Curtis' illness worsened during 1979 and would often have tonic-clonic seizures on stage that resulted in convulsions, or absence seizures that would cause brief trance-like pauses.

In January 1980, Joy Division set out on a European tour. Several dates were canceled due to Curtis's deteriorating health. On February 28, Joy Division played a gig at the Warehouse in Preston. The gig was plagued with sound problems. With Martin Hannett again producing, Joy Division began recording their second album Closer at the end of the European tour in March. As with the early Warsaw/Joy Division track "No Love Lost" Joy Division again featured a song with a literary reference: the opening track on Closer, "Atrocity Exhibition," shares its title with the novel The Atrocity Exhibition by J. G. Ballard. On April 8, Curtis was pulled out of hospital to play a gig at the Derby Hall in Bury. At the urging of Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, Joy Division's set began with Alan Hempstall of Crispy Ambulance and Simon Topping of A Certain Ratio filling in on vocals for Curtis who was initially too ill to perform. However, many members of the audience protested, turning the gig into a riot in which Hook, Gretton, and other crew members fought with angry onlookers. Several April gigs were canceled due to the continuing ill health of Curtis. Following a one-off gig in Birmingham on May 2, Joy Division took a two-week rest in anticipation of their scheduled American tour.

On May 18, 1980, the evening before Joy Division were to embark on their first American tour, Curtis returned to his home and convinced his wife, Deborah, to spend the evening at her parents' house (his wife had filed for divorce in April). Curtis watched the Werner Herzog film Stroszek on television, then listened to the Iggy Pop album The Idiot and wrote a letter to his estranged wife. He then hanged himself in the kitchen. Deborah found him the following morning. The members of Joy Division had made a pact that, should any member leave the group the remaining members would abandon the name "Joy Division" and all material associated with it. The remaining members held true to this commitment, and Joy Division was officially disbanded.

In the summer of 1980, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" hit number 13 on the British singles chart, Joy Division's biggest commercial success to date. In July 1980, Closer was finally released to overwhelmingly positive reviews; it also charted, peaking at number 6 on the British album chart. Sales of Unknown Pleasures were also robust. In June 1980, Hook, Morris and Sumner entered Graveyard Studios with fellow Factory act Kevin Hewick for a session, produced by Martin Hannett. The track was called 'Haystack'. It was not released as a single by Factory, but was later released on a Kevin Hewick compilation. Factory Records head Tony Wilson reportedly suggested to Joy Division that Hewick replace Curtis as vocalist in the group. Eventually renaming themselves New Order, the band was reborn as a three piece, later recruiting Morris' girlfriend Gillian Gilbert to round out the group on keyboards. Initially, the band was mum as to whether the name referred to the 'new order' of the band, or if it was a reference to Nazi Germany as was the name Joy Division. Alternating between guitar-drum-bass and electronic styles, the band's music reached and inspired a variety of listeners. New Order is often cited as one of the leading synthpop and dance music groups of their era, yet their use of traditional rock instruments such as guitars and live drums has reached a level of influence comparable with their landmark electronic works.


Joy Division, and especially Ian Curtis, has been an inspiration for a number of bands and musicians that include U2, The Smashing Pumpkins, Manic Street Preachers, Interpol, Trent Reznor (who, as Nine Inch Nails, covered "Dead Souls" for the soundtrack of the movie The Crow), Robert Smith of The Cure, and Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante. The continuing importance of Joy Division was shown at the turn of the millennium when John Peel asked his listeners to vote for the all-time Festive 50. At number one was the haunting "Atmosphere," while "Love Will Tear Us Apart" sat at number three. Three more songs from Joy Division sat on the list. The ending solo from "New Dawn Fades," as performed by Moby, was featured in the 1995 film Heat as Al Pacino chases down Robert De Niro. In 1999, a New Jersey band named Thursday recorded a song called "Ian Curtis" that included Joy Division song titles, such as Isolation, Heart & Soul and Twenty Four Hours, as lyrics. In 2005, Joy Division were inducted along with New Order into the UK Music Hall of Fame.

from Wikipedia licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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